Republicans Are Trying To Make This Critical Off-Year Race About ‘Crazy Versus Normal’
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Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat (left), and Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron are locked in a bitter race for governor culminating Nov. 7.
Democrat Andy Beshear isn’t saying much about Joe Biden or Donald Trump in the final days of his gubernatorial reelection campaign in crimson Kentucky. But his Republican opponent, Attorney General Daniel Cameron, has a lot to say about Biden — specifically how “crazy” it is that Beshear supports his party’s unpopular president.
“Andy Beshear and I do agree that this isn’t a race about Republican versus Democrat,” Cameron said during one of the final gubernatorial debates before Election Day. “Where we differ is on what it’s about, and I think this is a race about crazy versus normal — and I think it’s crazy to have a governor who openly endorses Joe Biden.”
Beshear, for his part, was careful not to bash any individual Republican, except the one standing opposite him on stage: “Just listen tonight on the number of times he says the president’s name or invokes something that’s going on up there but not here,” Beshear said at the Oct. 21 debate in Lexington, referring to Biden and Washington, D.C.
Arguing that Beshear, the state’s former attorney general and the mild-mannered, Scripture-quoting son of former Gov. Steve Beshear, is both crazy and a clone of Biden may be a bridge too far for Kentucky voters. Cameron is trailing Beshear, who in the last four years has emerged as one of the nation’s most popular governors, in both money and polling, a week from the Nov. 7 election. Cameron is the first Black major-party nominee for governor in Kentucky and would be the first Black Republican governor elected nationwide since Reconstruction.
“They’re trying to make this argument, ‘Andy Beshear is crazy.’ Are you effing kidding me? The guy can quote Scripture. He’s given a hug to everybody in the state,” said Mark Riddle, a Kentucky-based Democratic consultant. “He’s got a great family. … And he’s crazy? He’s a liar? That shows a little desperation.”
Cameron and national Republicans have nonetheless attempted to throw the kitchen sink at Beshear, trying to see what, if anything, sticks to a red-state governor with an uncommonly high job approval rating. That is despite being the only Democrat elected in a state where both U.S. senators, five of six U.S. House members, the agriculture commissioner, attorney general, auditor, secretary of state and treasurer are all Republicans. The GOP also controls both state legislative chambers.
“Beshear has been able to control his messaging and keep it focused where he wants to be, whereas Cameron’s messaging has been at the mercy of national groups,” said Tres Watson, a Republican strategist and former spokesperson for the Kentucky GOP, noting how Beshear’s campaign has more control because it raised more of its own money to spend on the race. “I can’t tell that any of them have done any research at all on this race. They’re just messaging national issues, and that’s not going to pull him through.”
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (right) talks with Samantha Rowe, of Wayland, as she cries after being displaced by floodwaters. Beshear met with people at Jenny Wiley State Resort Park on Aug. 6, 2022, in Prestonsburg to talk about recovery efforts after devastating floods in eastern Kentucky.
A recent ad titled “Proud” from Kentucky Values, a group backed by the Republican Governors Association, features a clip of Biden thanking Beshear, spliced with voiceovers claiming that Beshear has failed on job creation and crime prevention and wants to push Biden’s “radical transgender agenda” in Kentucky.
“Beshear and Biden are out of touch on inflation, crime and the border. Andy will always put Biden ahead of Kentucky,” Sean Southard, a spokesperson for the Cameron campaign, told HuffPost when asked about the two Democrats.
Beshear’s campaign, in a statement to HuffPost that also touched on Democratic attempts to link Cameron to Kentucky’s near-total abortion ban, accused Cameron of running a “nasty and dishonest campaign.”
The GOP strategy may be born of desperation, an acknowledgement that Republicans have few other viable options for attacking Beshear, one of the country’s most popular governors. A recent Emerson University poll that found Beshear beating Cameron by 16 percentage points (a result that even Democrats consider an extreme outlier; most polls have him up by anywhere from 2 to 8 points) also pegged Biden’s approval at 22% in a state that Trump carried in a landslide in both 2016 and 2020.
“Beshear has enjoyed disproportionate job approval for years now,” said Stephen Voss, a Kentucky-based academic who studies elections and voting behavior, attributing it to the family name and his nonpartisan style of governing. “And he was heading into this gubernatorial election with that high approval level. So they’ve debated issues, but the main story is not about change; it’s about lack of change. Nothing has happened to cause Beshear to lose his popularity over the length of this contest.”
Though Beshear is often compared to other red-state Democrats up for reelection in 2024 — Sens. Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Joe Manchin (West Virginia) and Jon Tester (Montana) — Beshear’s Kentucky blueprint may not be entirely replicable for anyone not named Beshear in Kentucky.
Beshear’s father, a longtime figure in Kentucky politics, was governor from 2007 to 2015, and he was known for expanding Medicare coverage for hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians under the Affordable Care Act. Andy Beshear followed his father into politics, becoming attorney general the year Steve Beshear left office. In 2019, the younger Beshear ousted incumbent Gov. Matt Bevin, a Republican, in a race that revealed Bevin’s deep unpopularity. (Yet, in a sign that Beshear is committed to establishing his own identity, he ditches the family name in his reelection logo, going instead with just “Andy for Kentucky.”)
Beshear’s campaign is leaning into his response to a series of natural disasters. The governor guided the state in the aftermath of devastating tornadoes that ravaged western Kentucky in late 2021 and flooding that submerged the other end of the state last year, causing dozens of deaths and wreaking havoc on many communities. The governor has also touted a record of economic gains and working with Kentucky’s Republican-supermajority state legislature to pass relief bills.
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron (R) greets supporters ahead of a gubernatorial debate with Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear last week in Lexington.
Democrats have also attacked Cameron for appearing not to use his office at the state Capitol after an open records request revealed his key fob had not been used to enter the office in three years. Cameron also sent hardly any emails to top aides through his official work account. His office declined to explain both situations.
Cameron, meanwhile, released plans over the summer to fight crime and address the education deficiencies he blames on Beshear’s leadership during the coronavirus pandemic. He has also come out strongly against gender therapy for trans youth and has put his Trump endorsement front and center. (Cameron’s website, however, does not have an issues section.)
But Kentucky’s abortion law has become the hottest flashpoint in the race after the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade last year triggered a near-total ban here without exceptions for rape or incest.
After Kentucky voters struck down an anti-abortion measure at the ballot box last year, Democrats are taking that as their cue to hammer Republicans now on abortion rights. Public, nonpartisan polls on abortion views in Kentucky are hard to come by, though advocates for abortion rights are encouraged by wins they’ve had over the past year in a several GOP-controlled states.
Each side accuses the other of harboring extreme views on abortion rights. Cameron has played up Beshear’s veto of a 15-week abortion ban and his refusal to enforce a 20-week abortion ban as attorney general. (Beshear has said he supports “reasonable restrictions” on the procedure.) The governor has responded by noting Cameron’s long-held support for Kentucky’s ultra-restrictive abortion law as written, without exceptions for rape or incest, despite an about-face from Cameron on the issue last month.
Last month, Beshear’s campaign began to air an ad featuring a Kentucky woman sharing her story about being raped by her stepfather when she was 12 and carrying the baby until a miscarriage. The woman, now in her 20s, called on officials, and Cameron specifically, to support exceptions for rape and incest. “This is to you, Daniel Cameron. To tell a 12-year-old girl she must have the baby of her stepfather who raped her is unthinkable,” the woman says into the camera.
“A huge piece of how Daniel Cameron would take the Commonwealth in more extreme direction is that he supports banning abortion with no exceptions for rape or incest, and he defended that extreme law in court multiple times,” Sam Newton, a spokesperson for the Democratic Governors Association, told HuffPost. “That’s wrong and it’s dangerous for Kentucky.”
The DGA, and its GOP counterpart, the Republican Governors Association, are just some of the groups responsible for the staggering amount of outside money pouring into the race, inundating Kentuckians with TV ads in the lead-up to Election Day. That spending is on top of the amounts brought in by both Beshear, who has raised more than $17.3 million throughout the cycle, and Cameron, who has brought in $4.6 million.
Much of the spending on the Republican side happened during the GOP primary, when Cameron was an underdog in a crowded race. Republicans hope that Cameron will continue to be a barrier-breaking candidate for a party in which Black Republicans are beginning to seek and win offices in greater numbers.
“The [GOP] gets a bad rap for being a bunch of old white men,” said Watson, the GOP strategist. “That sometimes is just who shows up and files, and you can’t control that necessarily. But when given the opportunity to vote for someone different, [Republican voters] jumped at the opportunity.”
Even if Cameron loses, a one-off victory for Beshear won’t extend far down the ballot. With any other Democrat at the top of the ticket, there would be no contest, Watson said.
“It’s not about the Democratic brand; it’s about the Andy Beshear brand in Kentucky — if he wins, which is still not a guarantee,” Watson said. “If you’re a Democrat [here] and you don’t have a personal brand, you’re not going to win.”
