For joyous KY Dems, Beshear win proves feel-good politics, abortion rights can win

Kentucky voters feel good about the state of the commonwealth, they feel good about Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear as a person, and many of them thought the state’s abortion ban was too severe.

Those were the major takeaways from Tuesday night’s victory party in Louisville, as Democrats there celebrated Beshear’s convincing reelection win, even as Republicans swept down-ballot races by double digits.

They rejoiced in retaining the highest office in Kentucky while also wondering about how to build power from here.

Rep. Josie Raymond, D-Louisville, said she didn’t hear much about specific initiatives of Beshear’s administration – such as the record-breaking BlueOvalSK Ford battery plants – from voters when knocking doors for the Democratic ticket in her district.

“The voters that I talked to knocking on doors would say things like, ‘I can tell he has a good heart.’ You know, they didn’t say, ‘How about that blue oval project?’ They didn’t say, ‘How about the income tax rate.’ They said, ‘I think he has a good heart. I appreciate how he talks about his faith. It seems like a really nice family.’

“Andy Beshear is an empathetic, genuine, authentic politician, which people think is very rare. I don’t know how rare it is, but people think it’s very rare,” she said.

Kentucky voters rewarded him, in large part, because of that rarity.

Beshear was afforded a lot of screen time in front of Kentuckians thanks largely to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as natural disasters in 2021 and 2022 on opposite ends of the state.

“Kentucky politics, at its core, is personal,” Kentucky Democratic Party Chair Colmon Elridge said.

“Andy Beshear has been everywhere multiple times, when the cameras were there and when the cameras weren’t. People do know who Andy Beshear is, so one of the things that they rejected was this notion that he was crazy or that he was some kind of liberal who did not share Kentucky values.”

While such social issues as transgender rights were used by the Cameron campaign and conservative groups supporting him as wedges, Democrats with sway in the state’s LGBTQ community told the Herald-Leader that Beshear’s ability to stay positive while not playing into the “politics of division” was key.

“Beshear won because he refused to run on a politics of division,” said Emma Curtis, a leading transgender activist in the state and president of the Fayette County Young Democrats.

“Daniel Cameron focused his campaign almost exclusively on attacking the most vulnerable of us, including transgender youth. Andy Beshear showed a stark contrast to that.”

Sen. Karen Berg, D-Louisville, whose son, a trans man, died by suicide less than a year ago, agreed.

“Hate does not win in this state. The people of Kentucky care about their neighbors and they voted with their hearts.”

An economy on fire

Democrats at the party, held at Old Forester’s Paristown Hall in the Highlands neighborhood of Louisville, also said voters across Kentucky believed the state was doing so well that no change was needed.

That was headlined by economic development announcements, including several in voters’ local communities, and low unemployment numbers.

Bryan Combs, a 46-year-old aluminum plant worker from Henderson, made the two-hour trek to Louisville Tuesday night to celebrate. He said that Beshear won his home county, where Cameron’s running mate Sen. Robby Mills, R-Henderson, is from because “he performed.”

“When it comes down to it, he performed. He did everything he said he was gonna do. He brought jobs into the state and he handled crisis after crisis,” Combs said.

Combs said the nail in the coffin for a decisive Cameron loss in Henderson County – Beshear extended his 2019 margin there from +4 points to +12 – was Beshear’s touting of Pratt Industries, a half-billion dollar paper mill that will employ more than 300 people.

“All the economic data that he touts is real,” Raymond added. “He’s brought projects to Kentucky that I don’t think a different governor would have brought in.”

Democratic Franklin County Judge-Executive Michael Mueller, who made the trip up I-64 Tuesday, said the perceived state of the state economy led voters on both sides of the political aisle to go for Beshear.

“You can’t argue about his records. He has shattered every economic development record, unemployment rates, all the things that both sides look at when they’re picking somebody,” Mueller said. “Numbers don’t lie, and it’s hard for anybody, in my opinion, to not vote for somebody who’s done as well as he has in the last four years.”

The Ford project was Kentucky’s largest single private investment in history. Rocky Adkins, a senior adviser to Beshear and former House Democratic leader from Eastern Kentucky, hinted at more to come.

“It’s unbelievable the momentum we have in Kentucky right now. It’s something that I’ve never seen in my lifetime, and we’ve got to capture it and take advantage of it,” said.he

Abortion rights

While Beshear, in his victory speech, touted the positive aspects of his own campaign, abortion rights played a key role in hitting Cameron in the final months.

He specifically thanked Hadley Duvall, a young woman who shared her story of being raped by her stepfather at age 12 in an advertisement that remained on television for roughly a month.

“She is a brave young woman who came forward to share her story to speak for so many and couldn’t speak for themselves. Because of her courage, this commonwealth is going to be a better place and people are going to reach out for the help they need,” Beshear said at Tuesday’s bash.

That moved people.

Allison Wiseman, president of Kentucky Young Democrats, said the commercial featuring Duvall was “the nail in the coffin” for Cameron.

Much of the Republican’s political profile had been built around the anti-abortion movement prior to the general election commencing, when his campaign fell quiet on the issue, and he began to equivocate on the state’s near-complete trigger ban on abortion.

“That was a very defining moment because it caused Daniel Cameron to flip-flop on the issue, and we saw last year with Amendment 2 how Kentucky voters feel about abortion access. That moment, for me, was the nail in the coffin for the attorney general.”

Kentucky state director of Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates Tamarra Wieder, who showed up to the party in a celebratory all-pink suit, said that Beshear’s win is further evidence that Kentuckians want to change the ban.

A recent poll found that a majority of Kentuckians oppose the current law’s lack of rape and incest exceptions. Couple that with last November’s electoral defeat of an anti-abortion amendment and Beshear’s win, Wieder said the proof is clearly in the pudding.

Republican legislators have expressed doubt and hesitance about changing the law. That’s a bad move, Wieder said.

“I think that’s really weak when Kentuckians made their voice known last year on Amendment 2, and I believe this election was a referendum again on abortion,” he said.

“They made it known tonight, it was pretty clear, that they stood with abortion access.”