John Bel Edwards is Governor of Louisiana. I'm not sure what would be so shocking about Bevin not being re-elected. He's made it more difficult to be diagnosed with Black Lung by revoking the licenses of many doctors, he's made it more difficult to receive workers compensation, which is always a big issue in coal country, he's passed Right to Work, he's insulted teachers, he tried to shred Medicaid etc. He's done everything in his power to alienate coal country and waged a war against the region.
It's not as if coal country is loyal to the Republican Party. It's been voting for the KY GOP at the state level for all of four years! It's only become a stronghold of the GOP at the federal level over the past 5-10 years or so. This is not a place where people identify with the party. We already know that Bevin is hated in places where registered Republicans tend to be working class or poor because his no-name challenger wrecked him in those places. Usually, when this happens, those primary protest voters don't coalesce around the incumbent. See: Swearingen voters in Mingo County, WV.
Coal country is loyal to Trump and I'm pretty sure that will be enough for Bevin to win; I doubt people disillusioned with Bevin's cuts will trust Democrats on other issues enough to vote for them. I don't quite understand your point about Mingo County? Just like in the KY primary, voters in both parties picked protest candidates (Adkins/Goforth/Blankenship(!!)/Swearingen), since Appalachian voters don't align well with either party at the moment.
However, since Trump is aligned with the GOP and hated by the Dem party, I think the majority of eastern KY will fall in line behind the GOP candidates just as in WV 2018. Manchin hung on by the skin of his teeth because his brand was well-differentiated from national democrats, but Beshear is unlikely to replicate that. And even though Bevin is unpopular, it's not like Miller and Morrissey were great fits for the region either....
Miller in particular committed many of the same sins as Bevin and still handily beat a strong opponent. I know there was dumb speculation about a "negative personal vote" for Ojeda, but it's obvious from the primary map that this was not the case; I think the areas where he underperformed were linked by increased loyalty to Trump rather than dislike of Ojeda.
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