Did Beshear’s Kentucky disaster recovery work provide Election Day boost? Depends where you look

Gov. Andy Beshear’s successful re-election campaign was bolstered by gaining voters in Eastern Kentucky counties hit hard by the deadly 2022 floods.

Leading up to Beshear’s Tuesday election victory over Republican challenger Daniel Cameron, the state’s attorney general, experts and locals theorized Beshear would get a boost from his response to the flood.

A couple hours after polls closed in Eastern Kentucky that seemed to be the case. Two counties Beshear lost in 2019 but faced devastating flooding in 2022, flipped in favor of the governor.

Beshear also increased his margin of victory in three other disaster-struck counties that he narrowly won in his first shot at governor.

“Clearly, Beshear was helped by his work on disasters,” said Al Cross, a longtime Kentucky journalist and political observer. “If you get out of Appalachia, though, and look at Graves County, what the heck is going on there?”

Beshear did not seem to get the same disaster-related boost in Graves County, where the county seat of Mayfield was devastated by a tornado in 2021. The governor garnered 36% of the vote in the county and nearly 3,000 less votes than Cameron — only a slightly improved showing over 2019.

Voters in Graves County have appreciated Beshear’s support following the tornado, said state Rep. Richard Heath, a Republican who represents Graves County.

But he didn’t feel the governor’s COVID-19 response, stance on abortion and other social issues squared with the county’s conservative, small town values.

“Our thoughts and beliefs align closer with Daniel Cameron,” Heath said.

Mayfield Mayor Kathy O’Nan, who has appeared in a Beshear ad, said she was “shocked” his numbers weren’t higher in Graves County.

“The compassion (Beshear) felt for Mayfield was totally genuine,” O’Nan said. “And he has just helped us in so many ways. So, yeah, I thought it would be higher. I was disappointed, but I’m confident that he will continue what he has started here in helping us recover for the next four years.”

The returns from Western Kentucky, where several towns and counties were devastated by the 2021 tornadoes, showed that there was perhaps more in play than just disaster response in the state’s far western half.

Counties from Graves to Muhlenberg picked Cameron much as they did former Republican Gov. Matt Bevin in 2019.

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What happened in Eastern Kentucky?

Aside from regular campaign stops, the governor made major housing announcements for flood survivors in two hard-hit communities less than two weeks before election day.

Strongly referencing Beshear’s response to the flood, the Mountain Eagle, the newspaper in Whitesburg, endorsed the governor, calling him “a great friend to Letcher County.”

Letcher County, which borders Virginia and lost five people to the flood, responded by handing Beshear a nearly 200-vote victory in the county — a major swing from the over 450-vote loss he suffered there in 2019.

In neighboring Perry County, also a Beshear loss in 2019 and devastated by the flood, voters gave the governor a 600-vote victory.

“I can’t tell you how many people I’ve heard say, ‘Beshear showed up for us in our most devastating time, and so it’s time for us to show up for him,’” said Stacie Fugate, a Perry County native and research fellow for Appalachia for Appalachians. That’s a grassroots advocacy group for progressive change in Central Appalachia.

Fugate said many of her typically Republican-voting family members, including her mother, recognized a genuineness in the governor that guaranteed they were “absolutely voting for Beshear.”

In 2019, Beshear won Knott County by a mere 44 votes. Tuesday he won there by over 300.

“The position of governor gives you an ability to help people when crisis comes up,” Knott County Attorney Tim Bates told the Herald-Leader.

Cameron’s position, attorney general, doesn’t provide that same kind of platform, said Bates, a Democrat. Beshear has also been in the area often and seemed genuinely interested in trying to help people recover.

Did turnout factor in?

The roughly 38% unofficial statewide turnout in a largely Republican-voting state did no favors for the Donald Trump-endorsed Cameron, Cross said. In 2019, the state had a 44.2% turnout for the gubernatorial election.

“They didn’t get their vote out. I think they were counting on Trump to get their vote out,” said Cross, who added he’s been told by Republican candidates of the past that Trump-motivated voters may not pay as much attention to matters at the state level.

In the five counties hit hardest by the flood — Breathitt, Perry, Knott, Floyd and Letcher — the average turnout rate was about 38% in 2019. The 2023 turnout average of those five counties was 29.5%.

In the Eastern Kentucky counties Beshear flipped, Perry and Letcher, the turnout was nearly 10% lower Tuesday than in 2019.

“I think people had their minds made up about Andy Beshear after the pandemic and the disaster stuff just reinforced that,” Cross said. “And it remains to be seen, or must be figured out, I guess how much abortion had to do with it.”

Turnout in rural Western Kentucky was better but not enough for Cameron to overcome the lead Beshear built in urban centers like Lexington and Louisville.

“We had a 40% turnout in Graves County, which was better than a lot of years,” Heath said. “Personally would’ve liked for it to have been more.”

In the six counties devastated by the same EF-4 tornado — Graves, Marshall, Lyon, Caldwell, Hopkins and Muhlenberg, the 2019 turnout averaged 46.5%. On Tuesday, that average was 40.3%.

How about out west?

Watching the race from Hopkins County Tuesday, David Sharp, the GOP party chair there, said he “wasn’t happy” about turnout on his end of the state.

“It’s always been that if a Republican is down by 10 points coming out of Louisville, you got to have high voter turnout in Western Kentucky to overcome it,” Sharp said. “I just don’t think the turnout was there.”

Hopkins County was certainly one to watch Tuesday as it is both part of the district of Cameron’s running mate, state Sen. Robby Mills, and the birthplace of Beshear’s well-known father, former Gov. Steve Beshear.

Dawson Springs, on the county’s southwestern edge, was one of multiple towns devastated by an EF-4 tornado in December 2021. When he visited after the disaster, the younger Beshear said it was a place where “I’d go and I’d sit on my grandparents’ front porch.”

“The damage was so devastating, it’s just going to take time,” said Sharp, who attends church in Dawson Springs.

Beshear improved his performance in Hopkins County Tuesday, garnering 300 more votes than he did in 2019. Still, it wasn’t enough to overcome Cameron and Mills.

Mills’ presence on the ticket, plus the work of multiple Republicans — local Judge-executive Jack Whitfield, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. James Comer — in the wake of the tornado helped seal Cameron’s victory locally.

“We’re a strong Republican county,” Sharp said. “Most of our elected officials are Republican and the people knew that.”

Several other Western Kentucky counties — Graves, Marshall, Caldwell, Lyon and Caldwell — were all along the same path as the tornado that devastated Dawson Springs and voted the same way as Hopkins County Tuesday.

The vote totals were closer than in 2019, but the Republican candidate still prevailed.

Like the rest of rural Kentucky, down-ballot Republicans dominated the other statewide races.

“Maybe one of these days,” Sharp said, “we’ll get the governor’s mansion back.”