Kentucky voters will have a chance to compare national politics to that of Kentucky

Remarks on Kentucky’s Attorney General Daniel Beshear and the Case of Breonna Taylor: “It’s Strange to See the Light,” he told Morning Consult

Democratic state Attorney General Beshear is playing against a Republican. Cameron has the endorsement of Trump, who remains overwhelmingly popular in Kentucky.

But despite being a blue dot in a very red state government, Beshear’s popularity has remained high. Morning Consult has found that a majority of Kentucky Republicans approve of Beshear.

Even before he first ran for office in 2015, his family name was familiar to many Kentuckians. His father, Steve Beshear, has been involved in state politics since 1974 and served as governor from 2007 to 2015.

The contest is intended to be a proxy for national political battles. The election will be used to see whether popularity of the president will be a factor in statewide contests.

“It’s unbelievable, I dare say crazy, that you’d have a governor who would endorse the policies and the president who have created this mess that we’re in,” Cameron said, referring largely to inflation.

Cameron, 37, is a relative newcomer to Kentucky politics, having served a single term as the state’s attorney general. He is close to McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader. After he received the senator’s scholarship for an undergrad degree, he eventually served as McConnell’s legal counsel and helped shepherd the confirmation process for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.

The election is a poignant reminder of Breonna Taylor, the Louisville woman who died in a police raid in 2020 and was the focus of protests across the country. As attorney general, he came under fire for not charging officers in the death of Taylor.

Some activists were against the National Guard being called in to Louisville in the midst of the race-justice protests years ago. The National Guard members were involved in the killing of the restaurant owner.

Unlike Ohio, abortion access is not directly on the ballot in Kentucky. But Beshear is still going to focus on the issue in his campaign.

“I believe that victims of rape and incest deserve options, that there has to be an exception,” Beshear said at a gubernatorial debate. “Some of these girls are as young as 9 years old and my opponent would make them carry their rapist’s baby.”

“This is to you, Daniel Cameron: to tell a 12-year-old girl she must have the baby of her stepfather who raped her is unthinkable,” the woman in the ad says.

The Supreme Court’s overturn of the constitutional right to abortion was cheered by the Prime Minister. After Beshear and his supporters ran ads accusing him of not supporting the exceptions for rape and incest, he reconsidered his stance on the issue.

“If the legislature works on this, I will sign those exceptions,” he said. I’m pro-life at the end of the day.

Does national politics trump all? Kentucky voters are about to find out if Donald Trump does not visit Kentucky to campaign with the Prime Minister

Beshear has pointed to recent economic development and large-scale infrastructure projects — which were partially funded by the bipartisan infrastructure law Biden signed in 2021.

While Beshear wasn’t talking about his own national political connections, he tout his own endorsement from Trump. Trump released an endorsement video on Monday night, but didn’t visit Kentucky to campaign with the Prime Minister.

“People should be able to vote for whoever they want, not stick to just one team or another but to actually look at the candidates and say, ‘Who is going to make my life better?'” Beshear said.

Voters in Kentucky have a tendency to gauge the national mood. The parties that won the last six gubernatorial elections in the state matched the results of the presidential election a year later.

“You have people that come out of the woodwork to vote for a president, and then the officers that are far more important to their daily lives and their quality of living — they don’t vote for that,” he said.

Adams said people look at you like they’ve never heard of it before. “And then you take questions and the questions are about Kevin McCarthy and Jim Jordan.”

Source: Does national politics trump all? Kentucky voters are about to find out.

Early Voting, Prostitution, and the Red Column: Kentucky Public Radio, Louisville Public Media, WKU, and WEKU Spectroscopy

Adams has been an advocate for introducing early voting in Kentucky, and this will be the first gubernatorial race in the state where Kentuckians had the option to vote an extra three days. More than 260,000 Kentuckians have taken advantage of this early voting, which is an increase over the last year’s election.

This year’s gubernatorial race has also been one of the most expensive in state history. The two candidates and their supporting PACs have spent over 59 million dollars since the primary, more than double the amount in the previous gubernatorial race.

The results of this election will shed light on just how much partisan lines are deepening and whether national political allegiances trump all ahead of the 2024 election cycle.

This is coverage that comes from Kentucky Public Radio and Louisville Public Media, along with WKU and WEKU. For more of their coverage from across Kentucky, click here.

In one of the most closely watched campaigns of the year,Ohio voters approved a ballot initiative that included abortion at least until fetal viability in the state constitution.

Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, which advocates for ballot measures to advance progressive policies, said the amendment’s passage represents voters in a red state — with a Republican governor and legislature — passing abortion protections.

Hall says that he thinks Ohio is the first state that can put in that red column that says, “We can go on offense, and we can win.” “And that is an inspiring example that shines a light on the path for other red states.”

The vote in Ohio followed a special election in August, when Republican lawmakers put a question on the ballot – also called Issue 1 – that would have made it more difficult to amend the state constitution. Ohio voters turned out in larger-than-expected numbers to reject that proposal.

Voting for Prohibited Abortion in Virginia, Mississippi, and a Supermajority of Republicans in the House of Representatives

Gov. Glenn Youngkin has supported a proposal to ban most abortions after 15 weeks, with some exceptions, and heavily campaigned with Republicans to try to win a trifecta government in Richmond, Va.

In the wake of the Supreme Court decision on abortion last year, only Virginia has not restricted the procedure. Currently, abortion is legal until 26 weeks and 6 days of pregnancy. That law seems likely to stay the same thanks to the incoming majority in both chambers.

Last year, Kentucky voters rejected a ballot initiative that was supposed to be friendly to abortion rights, in another sign that the state’s laws are not keeping up with public opinion.

The incumbent Republican governor in Mississippi won a second term. His opponent was an Elvis Presley family member who opposed abortion rights.