Vice President Mike Pence is coming back to Kentucky. This time to Appalachia.
Vice President Mike Pence is coming to Kentucky. Again.
Pence will be in Manchester Thursday, where he’ll visit an Eastern Kentucky University satellite campus with Gov. Matt Bevin and Alex Azar, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, according to a statement from the White House. He is expected to talk to about 200 people about Kentucky’s response to the opioid crisis.
This is the third time Pence has visited Kentucky in 2019. In March, Pence spoke at a campaign fundraiser for Bevin in Lexington, then he returned to Lexington to speak at Hallway Feeds just before the Kentucky Derby. Bevin, who has long touted his friendship with Pence and President Donald Trump, teased this weekend that the president and vice president would be in Kentucky soon.
“I would bet in the next few weeks you’ll see both him and the vice president here and then again later in the fall,” Bevin said Saturday. “So they’re coming. A lot of this is driven by Secret Service and scheduling and things so things don’t get announced far in advance, but they’ll be here, they’re good friends.”
Bevin’s close ties to the White House have been a key talking point in his reelection campaign for governor. He has painted himself as someone who has a friendly ear in Washington D.C. while describing his opponent, Attorney General Andy Beshear, as a candidate who would stand in the way of Trump’s policies.
Trump remains popular in Kentucky, a state he won by a wider margin than he did in Alabama during the 2016 election, while Bevin has struggled to win over supporters angry at comments he’s made about teachers.
Beshear has been reluctant to criticize Trump over the course of the campaign, choosing instead to talk about issues where he has partnered with the Trump Administration. In the meantime, he has joined a lawsuit attempting to block the Trump Administration’s expansion of association health plans, which Beshear says will undercut protections in the Affordable Care Act.
Pence’s decision to visit Manchester highlights a key battleground in Bevin’s reelection bid — Eastern Kentucky. Bevin lost Clay County, where Manchester is located, during May’s primary election, picking up only 25 percent of the vote against his opponent, Rep. Robert Goforth, R-East Bernstadt. Trump won Clay County in 2016 with nearly 87 percent of the vote.
On Saturday, Bevin said “it’s wonderful” that the two men will be visiting the state before Election Day.
“People in Kentucky appropriately love this president,” Bevin said. “They do because he stands up for America and people in Kentucky love America.”
This story was originally published August 6, 2019 at 2:53 PM.