Kentucky 2023 gubernatorial election megathread

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Beshear's reelection chances largely depend on how popular he is by Election Day 2023. Remember that Bevin's approval rating was well underwater by Election Day 2019, which I believe is the biggest contributor to his loss. Additionally, high approval ratings earned John Bel Edwards, Larry Hogan, Phil Scott, and Charlie Baker reelection wins in the last few years despite their political parties being the opposite of their respective states' partisan leans.

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I wonder if Elliott county will stay Democratic.

In 2020, it voted Republican in every single federal contest, and it only voted Democratic in some local contests. In fact, a news report around Election Day 2020 indicated that many of the voters registered with the Democratic Party there vote Republican for most (if not all) races but are registered as Democrats out of convenience/tradition. Thus, whether or not this county stays D for the 2023 gubernatorial race depends on how nationalized this race becomes - if it is nationalized to a significant extent, this county will go R; if it is mostly localized, it may stay D.

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Ya'll think this might be another Laura-Kelly esq situation where a lot (but not all) of his rural crossover support erodes but be squeezes a few extra points out of greater Louisville, greater Lexington, the Cinci Burbs, and Bowling Green?

Also, 4 years of population shifts is prolly a slight net to Beshear in KY, but hard to say.

Whether this results in a win or loss is hard to say, especially since KY is a lot more rural than KS.

In terms of the rural vote, remember that there are many voters in rural KY counties who are registered as Democrats out of tradition (since their ancestors were also registered as such) and/or convenience (since most local elected officials are Democrats) but who have voted Republican in recent years, especially for Federal offices at or near the top of the ticket. If you compare the 2019 results with those from 2020 and/or 2022, along with the turnout data from those years (which are broken down by county, party, age, gender, etc.), you will come to the conclusion that there must have been a very sizable share of voters in these rural areas who voted mostly D in 2019 (along with most earlier election years) but then proceeded to vote mostly R in 2020 and/or 2022. The 2023 election results in these counties will tell us whether or not these voters will revert to voting D when no federal races are on the ballot.

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Tilt Beshear.

He's popular enough to be slightly favored, but he's veering a lot closer to the national Dem platform than would be optimal.

I think this race offers some clues for 2024 just due to the sheer similarities in the candidates' profiles and branding (see the previous posts in this thread), campaign issues (e.g. abortion and crime), and coalition changes (Beshear/Biden won with a very similar coalition in 2019/2020).

I see three scenarios for this race:

1) Scenario I: Very close race (within 2 points)

This might suggest that the polls showing Biden vs. Trump as a tie aren’t off the mark and that Trump is at least in it — another close/-ish race in 2024, with both candidates having a very narrow path.
 
2) Scenario II: Easier-than-expected Beshear win (5-10 points), race is called ~1 hour after poll closing time

This would suggest that Republicans are in for an avalanche in 2024 and haven’t been able to capitalize on a favorable environment or the incumbent's more liberal record due to their own party being viewed as even less of a viable alternative.

3) Scenario III: Cameron wins by at least 3, race is called ~2 hours after poll closing time

This would suggest that things really have changed since 2020 and 2022 and that there have been sizable shifts against the incumbent.

I’m aware that this is not perfect, but remember that the state has had a fairly good track record when it comes to forecasting shifts for the next cycle's presidential election.

Scenario II might be underrated — while a Pressley overperformance in MS would be another win for the JBE model, Beshear winning this race very easily on the same night would be an ominous sign for the GOP.

Some people have mentioned how downballot realignment might mean a rather unpredictable map in terms of which counties are carried by Beshear in the event of him winning. Would it surprise you if Beshear's winning map involves him being completely shut out of the Eastern KY Coalfield Counties (with the possible exception of Rowan, since it has continued to vote more D than the state at-large in recent elections)?

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Final turnout (makeup) for the election was only R+0.4:

Republicans 40%
Democrats 39.6%
Independents 22.8%

https://twitter.com/MichaelPruser/status/1732798985272725903

That certainly can't be right--how are independents half the % of dems and GOP when their vote share is almost a tenth?

Those percentages reflect the percentage of voters registered with each party (or lack thereof) who turned out to vote in the election. It means that 40% of registered Republicans voted (641203 out of 1602958), 39.6% of registered Democrats voted (604368 out of 1527115), and 22.8% of other registered voters voted (80870 out of 354754).

Additionally, on the KY government website, there are breakdowns of turnout by age, gender, party, precinct, county, etc. A cursory analysis of such numbers will reveal tons of crossover voting - i.e. in rural counties, there were many people who are registered as Democrats who voted for Republican candidates, whereas the inverse is true in suburban counties.