CBS News tasks that Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has been reelected to a second time period, defeating the state’s Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron.
Beshear has been a well-liked governor, with broad approval of his dealing with of the pandemic and pure disasters within the state. Cameron tried to tie Beshear to President Biden, who’s unpopular within the state.
In his victory speech, Beshear mentioned, “Tonight, Kentucky made a selection, a selection to not transfer to the correct or to the left, however to maneuver ahead for each single household, a option to reject workforce R or workforce D, and to state clearly that we’re one workforce Kentucky.”
Trump received Kentucky by 26 factors in 2020, so Beshear needed to make inroads with Trump voters and guarantee voters in Democratic districts, together with the cities of Louisville and Lexington and the Cincinnati suburbs in northern Kentucky.
Cameron had managed to get Trump’s assist in addition to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the state’s senior senator who is likely one of the strongest Republicans in Washington. Cameron was a protege of McConnell’s, and helped oversee the affirmation strategy of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.
As just lately as mid-October, Beshear was main by 16 factors, however an Emerson College ballot from final week had the race in a useless warmth, with each candidates at 47% and 4% undecided.
Who is Andy Beshear?
The son of a former governor, Beshear, 45, was elected in 2019, unseating incumbent Republican Gov. Matt Bevin by round 5,000 votes. Trump received Kentucky by 30 factors in 2016, and each its senators are Republicans, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, considered one of Washington’s highly effective Republicans.
In 2019, Bevin was the least fashionable governor within the nation, in accordance with Morning Consult, with a disapproval score of 56%. Dewey Clayton, a political science professor at University of Louisville, famous Bevin had additionally gone to struggle with the lecturers, who helped drive turnout to Beshear.
Timothy D. Easley / AP
Beshear was confronted with the pandemic lower than 4 months after he turned governor. He saved the state knowledgeable with each day information conferences and was extensively praised. Kentucky was additionally struck by pure disasters — a lethal twister in 2021 and devastating floods in 2022 — and Beshear confirmed as much as deal with the aftermath. His frequent presence led many Kentuckians to check with him as simply “Andy,” Clayton mentioned.
He has sought to emphasise working with Republicans all through the marketing campaign.
“I run as a proud Democrat, however you noticed the second I received, I took that hat off and I serve each single household as a result of it is time for us to acknowledge {that a} good job is not Democrat or Republican,” Beshear mentioned Monday. “So, whether or not you are a Democrat, Republican or unbiased, there’s a place for you on this marketing campaign.”
Who is Daniel Cameron?
Cameron, 37, got here to workplace because the state’s first Black legal professional basic the identical 12 months as Beshear, in 2019.
He’s an ally of McConnell and shepherded Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch via his affirmation course of. Cameron.
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“Lots of people have usually underestimated McConnell and McConnell’s capability to type of farm campaigns and as strategic sufficient to know the place to place money and when,” Clayton mentioned. “I might enterprise to say this race is tied due to McConnell and McConnell’s presence and the bottom recreation that they’ve.”
Cameron’s ties to McConnell has helped him with institution Republicans, and he additionally received Trump’s endorsement over a 12 months earlier than the election. Trump, who testified Monday in New York in a civil fraud case concentrating on him and his firm, then held a tele-rally for Cameron.
What are the opposite main points within the race?
In March 2020, a Black medical employee named Breonna Taylor was shot to dying by law enforcement officials throughout a raid on her condo whereas she was sleeping. Taylor’s boyfriend thought the Louisville Metro law enforcement officials have been intruders, and fired his handgun at them. The officers fired 22 pictures into the condo in response, considered one of which struck and killed Taylor.
In September 2020, Cameron introduced a grand jury had “agreed” to not cost the three officers concerned, although One was charged with three counts of wanton endangerment for firing his gun outdoors of Taylor’s condo and later acquitted.
The lack of expenses made Louisville the epicenter of racial justice protests, and a few grand jurors emerged to publicly disagree with Cameron’s description of the closed-door proceedings.
He defended his actions in a 2021 interview with the Associated Press, saying that prosecutors in his workplace had an obligation “to carry ahead suggestions on which they assume they will show in entrance of a jury in a trial. That was what our prosecutors believed was applicable.”
In 2022, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland introduced civil rights expenses towards the 4 officers concerned.
Earlier this 12 months, Taylor’s mom, Tamika Palmer, endorsed a grassroots marketing campaign to mobilize voters towards Cameron within the race.
What time are the polls open in Kentucky?
The polls are open from 6 a.m. to six p.m. ET for the parts of the state on Eastern Standard Time, and 5 a.m. to five p.m. ET for the parts on Central Standard time. For a listing of polling places, go right here.
Taurean Small contributed to this report.
