5. Daniel Cameron is Black.
This is the biggest factor as to why Beshear did well in Appalachian Kentucky specifically (as opposed to doing well in general, in other sorts of areas.
This is the swing map:
If race was the biggest factor in Appalachia, then why were most of the counties with the largest swings toward Cameron also in Appalachia? Are those places fake Appalachia because they're not racist?
I would suggest that explanation is that the cluster of counties in north Appalachia (centered on the famous Elliott county) is more traditionally Democratic
(mostly in the sense of having stuck for longer with the national Democratic party over the past 20-30 years, rather than necessarily how they voted 100 years ago) than the cluster of counties further to the south in Appalachia.
In particular, look at the 2004 Presidential map, and compare that to the 2008 Presidential map.
2004:
2008:
So whereas John Kerry (the white guy) won some counties in both Northern and southern Appalachia, where did Obama (the black guy) manage to hold on to a few counties?
In northern Appalachia, around Elliott County, but not so much in Southern Appalachia, around Breathitt county.
So yes, there is certainly historical psephological reason to believe that e.g. Elliott County is (somewhat) less racist than Breathitt County.
What is happening is there are 2 different competing electoral trends in Kentuckyan Appalachia.
1) There is still a gradual continuing general decline of Ancestral Dems across Appalachia. However, this decline is stronger in North Appalachia than in South Appalachia, because in North Appalachia there are still somewhat more Demasours around who, even though they may have voted for Trump in 2016/2020, nevertheless still voted Democratic as recently as 2008 for Obama, even despite him being a black guy. So there is still further for generic Dem support to fall in northern Appalachia than southern Appalachia. So you have a strong continued general tendency to swing Republican in any given election in north Appalachia, but a less strong continued general tendency to swing Republican in any given election in south Appalachia.
2) You have a generic racist anti-black-candidate swing. This is more even in strength across Kentuckyan Appalachia, but probably at least a bit stronger in southern Appalachia than northern Appalachia insofar as southern Appalachia is a bit more culturally southern.
What you see in the 2023 results is the outcome of those two competing trends, which pull in opposite directions but have different relative strengths in north and south Appalachia. In simple terms:
North Appalachia: 1) Strong generic trend of decline for Ancestral Dems causing a strong generic Republican swing. 2) Moderate-mild generic
"I ain't votin for no black guy" swing in favor of Dems/Beshear.
South Appalachia: 2) Mild generic trend of decline for Ancestral Dems causing a mild Republican swing. 2) Moderate generic
"I ain't votin for no black guy" swing in favor of Dems/Beshear.
Don't get me wrong, I would not say that flood response had
no effect whatsoever, all I am arguing is that these longer term historical trends are the larger factor.
Also, although they are not much more southern, the southern Appalachian countries still are, well, more southern... Whereas Elliott county is closer to Ohio (Union state, and arguably the heart of radical Abolitionist Republicanism, home to Benjamin Wade, John Bingham, and Ulysses S. Grant among others) than to Virginia/Tennessee (Confederate states), Breathitt County and southern Appalachia is closer to the Confederate States than to the Union States That simple fact does make some (small) bit of difference in terms of cultural identity. Remember that Kentucky is a "border state," not clearly north or south, so there is some variation within Kentucky.
