The Trumpiest Governor in the Country Is Tied for Reelection in Kentucky [View all]

[KelleyKramer]

The Trumpiest Governor in the Country Is Tied for Reelection in Kentucky

Matt Bevin is in a tossup a few weeks before Election Day


https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/10/kentucky-governor-matt-bevin-tied-poll-andy-beshear-donald-trump/

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Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin has spent the past four years acting like a mini Donald Trump, a politician prone to social media outbursts belittling his ideological opponents in the most bombastic fashion. And just a few weeks out from Election Day, it’s a toss up among voters on whether Bevin deserves a second term.

A new poll from Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy found that voters were evenly between Bevin and his Democratic opponent, current Attorney General Andy Beshear. As the Courier-Journal points out, the poll actually represented a slight improvement for Bevin; his approval among state voters has increased to 45 percent, up from 38 percent when Mason-Dixon last looked at the race in December. (Morning Consult, another polling company, has consistently found that Bevin is the least popular governor in the country.)

As I wrote in our September/October issue, Bevin’s reelection should, in theory, be a cinch. He’s running in a deep-red state where Trump beat Hillary Clinton by 30 percent; Republicans hold both US Senate seats, and Democrats represent just one of the state’s six House districts. And Bevin has done everything to cozy up to Trump, with the president returning that love with a re-endorsement tweet on Tuesday.

But Kentucky voters don’t seem to appreciate having a Trump-style governor. As Al Cross, a longtime political reporter in the state, put it to me, “Many Kentuckians see their governor as the personification of the state. And this is a state that often comes in for ridicule. Socioeconomically and demographically, culturally we get looked down on by people on the coast. And often get made fun of. And Kentuckians are sensitive to that. They don’t want their governor to be a jerk. I famously called Matt Bevin an arrogant jerk when he was running in 2015. He is still arrogant from time to time, and he’s still a jerk from time to time. And if it wasn’t for that, he’d be a heavy favorite for reelection.”

More on the link--

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/10/kentucky-governor-matt-bevin-tied-poll-andy-beshear-donald-trump/


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