Kentucky 2023 gubernatorial election megathread

[Arizona Iced Tea]

This is probably the first election in a long time where the majority of voters like both candidates.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

I would say this is around 50-50 for either side. Beshear does have incumbency going for him, and it is true that incumbents rarely lose if they are somewhat popular. The issue with this take though, is it ignores many incumbents do worse in re-election even if they still win.

A big part of the reason why I think Beshear is strongly favoured to win is that incumbent governors very rarely lose re-election, and popular incumbent governors basically never lose re-election. Consider:

Incumbent governor losses in the last 10 years:
Nevada 2022: Lombardo beat Sisolak
Kentucky 2019: Beshear beat Bevin
Illinois 2018: Pritzker beat Rauner
Wisconsin 2018: Evers beat Walker
North Carolina 2016: Cooper beat McCrory
Alaska 2014: Walker beat Parnell
Illinois 2014: Rauner beat Quinn
Pennsylvania 2014: Wolf beat Corbett

All of the very small number of defeated incumbents (only eight in 10 years!) were either massively unpopular (Bevin, Rauner, Quinn, and Corbett), hugely divisive (Walker and McCrory), or, at best, enjoyed decisively lukewarm approvals (Sisolak and Parnell). None of these currently apply to Beshear, of course, who is one of the ten most popular governors in the country. Perhaps also worth noting is that only two of the above eight defeated incumbents were Democrats. Furthermore, the winning challengers in the list above were basically all particularly strong and/or moderate candidates, which is certainly not true of Cameron; he, as has been noted in this thread, is running an uninspired generic right-wing campaign which would probably allow him to autopilot his way to victory in, say, an open Senate race, but seems very unlikely to cut it against a popular incumbent governor.

All the red states you see on that map are incumbents who ran in 2022 and did worse than 2018. Yes, all of them except Sisolak won re-election but they key is they all did worse than their first election in 2018. (For NH and VT I used 2020 to compare). We can also talk about LA 2019 and NJ 2021. So while incumbent governors losing re-election is quite rare, them doing worse than their initial election certainly is not.

So what is my point? Beshear BARELY won in 2019, so basically doing worse is pretty much a loss for all intents and purposes. He didn't win by enough of a margin to afford losing any votes, so while the red states on this map had their incumbents still win, if a shift comparable to what happened in any of those states (except maybe Alaska) occurs in Kentucky it points to a Beshear loss.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Is it pretty much guaranteed that Beshear finally loses the fabled Elliott county this year? Since his win in 2019, Trump improved his margin there from +45 to +51. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul both won it for the first time by very large 35+ point margins. Even in the abortion referendum it was +18 on the Yes side.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

If Bashear loses, blame will rest firmly on the squad and their more nuanced view on HAMAS.

Well is the Israel/Gaza war a pressing issue in Kentucky

Lol no

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Its interesting how one Emerson poll has changed the vibes of this race, ar least on the forum.

Emerson is the only non partisan or PAC pollster so it's all wr have.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

The KY posters may be able to confirm this, but my impression is that this race is slipping away from Beshear at the last minute.

Cameron has been far more on message in recent days, relentlessly nationalizing the race and painting Beshear as a national Democrat on two of the most unpopular political stances in the state: his support for Joe Biden and his support for draconian COVID lockdowns.

Previously, Beshear had managed to put Cameron on the defensive on abortion, his ties to Bevin, etc. while Cameron's own attacks were comparatively weak (e.g. on trans rights), but that seems to have changed, and it’s not good for Beshear.

Might turn into another example of "incumbent wishing the election had been held one week earlier."

I doubt Cameron is able to turn the race around in one week though.

It is more accurate to state Cameron has turned the race around already. He was tracking for a blowout loss.  The only question is whether, or not, his momentum will carry him to victory, or not.

Something in me doubts that it was ever really gonna be anything but close.

This.  In a state that strongly favors one party, it's normal for there to be movement toward that party late in an election. 

Both of these things can be true: Beshear is still favored, but Cameron has closed the gap.

And, also, both of these things can be true; the poll showing Cameron ahead, including leaners, can be an accurate snapshot of the race as it stood when the poll was taken, as opposed to an outlier, and, Cameron has such momentum that he is the favorite.

Beshear is very much still the favorite.

This presumes the poll is an outlier. If it isn't, Cameron is the favorite. Furthermore, the poll has almost certainly changed the race. Demoralized Republicans aren't going to be demoralized anymore. This should help Cameron's turnout. This is especially true after Donald Trump's enthusiastic endorsement. I don't know if the poll is an outlier, or not. Do you?

The poll looks pretty decent and properly weighed

The polls is by a notoriously bad pollster whose final polls of 2022 overestimated Republicans across the board.

FiveThirtyEight rates Emerson A- with a slight Democratic bias.

Then why would they suddenly be more accurate in 2023 than in 2022?

We don't know, Emerson could be more accurate this time or less. The answer will be out in a few more days.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

With mail inclduded, the early vote has ended at about D+9.8.
🔴Republicans - 130,877 (42.35%)
🔵Democrats - 160,994 (52.09%)
🟠Independents - 17,172 (5.56%)

Do you know what it was at this point in 2019? I would say looking it this it's anyone's game maybe Beshear with a slight favorite?

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Why is this race getting such little attention compared to VA 2021? In that one it was virtually the main story of the msm, and we had 1oo more pages on that thread than we do for this race a day before the election.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Why is this race getting such little attention compared to VA 2021? In that one it was virtually the main story of the msm, and we had 1oo more pages on that thread than we do for this race a day before the election.

obviously there's more going on in the news, so that's likely it. but the cynic in me believes that the press ate VA up more bc it was "GOP winning in VA!! GOP winning in blue state!!" which entices them way more than a D winning in a GOP state.

But why do you think interest from people on atlas is much lower?

[Arizona Iced Tea]

PredictIT currently has 70/30 in favor of Beshear. This is a historic and almost monumental moment for the website. The KY Gov race was one of its first ever markets, and the forecast was off massively with Conway as a 75/25 favorite to win the day before the election. 2019 rolls around and this time Bevin is a 70/30 favorite to win, only for a Beshear uspet to take place. Now that PredictIt is in its sunset days, this will probably be the last time the KY Gov race is up there. Will the bettors be correct, or will will the website be wrong 3 times in a row. Nevertheless, I think Predictit will wrap off with 2024 and end permanently in early 2025.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Is it true that we should have a pretty good idea of the winner within 30min-1hr after polls close?

[Arizona Iced Tea]

I think I'm going to revise to Beshear+4.5
I don't trust the GOP anymore in these odd year elections especially after 2022 and Beshear seems like a strong enough incumbent to escape partisanship. I also had Bevin winning last time so I want to reduce my R bias. That being said Daniel Cameron seems like a great fit for the future of the KYGOP, and if he doesn't win tomorrow I hope he replaces McConnell.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Does anyone have the county benchmarks that Beshear needs to be hitting to win again? I was thinking of using 2019 since he barely one, but I feel like his coalition has shifted enough since then.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Why are KY Democratic internals always D+8?😂😂😂😂like the KY Democratic Party could cease to exist tomorrow and I’m pretty sure their polls would still be D+8. This just means they’re tied but too afraid to admit it.

The state has 8 electoral votes?

[Arizona Iced Tea]

If Beshear ends up winning by a substantial margin tonight (>5 pts) what will be the explanation from the doomers?  The Bradley effect?  LOL

SnowLabrador jinxed the race for the GOP again.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

https://twitter.com/phillipmbailey/status/1721858487595028881?s=46&t=s3rMphx...

this is right at what it was in 2019 in louisville (47.9%)

sec. of state predicts statewide turnout will be 42% (two points down from 2019)

That tweet was from 6-7am this morning though. I don't think it has accomidated for the in person numbers yet.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

So glad I made Beshear+4.5 my final prediction.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Will be interesting to see what moves Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman makes in the next few years since she is the most apparent successor to Beshear. KY Dems starting off a little better than LA Dems did when JBE was termed out and had no apparent successor.

Coleman will probably be like Mike Cooney, the Montana LT Governor who ran after Bullock was term-limited. Above replacement tier vs a generic Democrat, but would still probably come up quite a bit short.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Also unlike 2019, Elliott county this time around has voted R and to the right of every statewide race result besides governor.