Road to 2028: Andy Beshear on Bill Maher, atop moderate Dems’ presidential list
READ MORE
Road to 2028: Gov. Andy Beshear’s political future
Gov. Andy Beshear is increasingly in the spotlight as a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate. The Herald-Leader believes Kentuckians should know what he is saying and doing, where he is traveling and what is being said nationally about the two-term governor.
Expand All
Editor’s Note: Gov. Andy Beshear is increasingly in the spotlight as a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate. The Herald-Leader believes Kentuckians should know what he is saying and doing, where he is traveling and what is being said nationally about the two-term governor. To keep the commonwealth updated, our journalists will publish a regular round-up of the latest news and headlines about Beshear.
Gov. Andy Beshear has had a busy past couple weeks, even beyond his recent economic development trip to Europe.
Beshear joined two of the most popular left-leaning television personalities and found himself featured in a new report on how Democrats can take back the White House in 2028.
In “Deciding to Win,” a report published Oct. 27 by the centrist Democratic group Welcome, Beshear was highlighted as the highest-performing potential presidential candidate in the party.
Beshear outperformed expectations by 22.1%, according to the report, which is calculated by comparing the actual result in a given race and the “expected” result based on partisan lean, incumbency and other factors.
Beshear’s mark was more than eight points higher than the second-highest outperformer, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (13.8%), and far exceeding prominent 2028 potential candidate California Gov. Gavin Newsom (-9.6%).
The report’s conclusions also mirrored Beshear’s attitude and language.
In the wake of his own five-point victory in 2023 over GOP Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, Beshear has said that Democrats should be focused on pocketbook issues that nearly everyone cares about over issues like identity, climate change and gun control.
The report argued the party should hew closer to its message in 2012, when former President Barack Obama won reelection and Democrats made gains in the U.S. House and Senate.
“In comparison with the Democratic Party of 2012, today’s Democratic Party is more focused on issues like climate change, democracy, abortion, and identity and cultural concerns and less focused on the economy and the middle class,” the report reads.
The report also spent a significant amount of time harping on Democrats who “underperform,” claiming there’s a correlation between progressive stances and affiliations and underperformance.
It also pegged donors, party elites and staffers — all “highly educated and affluent” in the aggregate — and their niche concerns as part of the problem.
“To win again, Democrats need to listen more to voters and less to out-of-touch donors, detached party elites, and Democratic politicians who consistently underperform the top of the ticket,” the report reads.
Welcome is funded by WelcomePAC, a political action committee fueled by many wealthy donors including James Murdoch, a liberal-leaning heir of billionaire conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch; billionaire LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman; and an heir to the Walmart fortune.
Beshear appears on Bill Maher
Beshear has become something of a mainstay on mainstream progressive-leaning media. He’s an MSNBC regular, he’s done “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” he recently did an extended one-on-one with National Public Radio and his own podcast is airing on SiriusXM.
All of those programs take a more traditional approach to interview content. Overtime with Bill Maher on HBO, which Beshear was a guest on Oct. 24, is the most freewheeling television hit he’s done.
Maher — a moderate liberal frustrated with Democratic orthodoxy on certain social issues — threw the governor some curveballs in an interview.
For one, he got Beshear to answer how he’d consider picking a vice presidential nominee, leading with some criticisms of Democrats needing to “check boxes” and consider identity in how they elevate candidates.
“I’d want, number one, to pick somebody who could help govern. You want somebody who would do the best job, because if you only run for these offices to win — and trust me, you’ve got to win — then you’re not doing it for the right reason,” Beshear said.
“Sometimes the right-meaning policies of inclusion can lead to exclusion... We should be able to pull more seats up to the table, not ask somebody who’s been sitting at it to get up and move for somebody else.”
Maher also had an extended back-and-forth with Beshear over “gender bills,” making a reference to a bills Beshear vetoed banning gender-affirming care for minors and later the use of Medicaid funds to support that care at any age.
“I think it’s more about focus. People want you to be focused on issues that impact their lives every day,” Beshear said, repeating his line that politicians should spend 80% of their time speaking about issues that affect 100% of citizens.
When asked about recruiting and assisting governors for the next year when he will chair the Democratic Governors Association, Beshear struck a moderate tone. He said he wants to lift up candidates focused on “common sense, common ground and getting things done.”
Beshear said that the key to Democrats regaining prominence — currently Republicans hold the White House, U.S. Senate and House — is focusing on the restoration of the American dream.
“When you look at our folks right now, they’re crying out for help because they can’t afford a house in the same decade their parents did... People have to believe that American Dream is attainable,” Beshear said.
Beshear’s MSNBC, Jen Psaki appearance
In a different kind of setting, Beshear was the main guest in an episode of an MSNBC podcast hosted by former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.
Much of their interview focused on the language that Democrats use, a frequent subject of criticism for Beshear. In the recent months when he’s blitzed national media, he’s often spoken about how Democrats harm themselves when more detached terms are used, like “substance abuse disorder” instead of “addiction.”
Beshear also provided some analysis on why Trump won in 2024 and why New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a self-avowed Democratic Socialist who appears poised to win next month’s general election, won the Democratic primary in the country’s biggest city.
“Both of those candidates people saw as talking more about their everyday needs, and they believe they’d work harder on them and were less distracted by other things,” Beshear said. “Right now, the American people want that so badly they’ll vote for somebody that’s cruel, and that’s Donald Trump, or they vote for somebody that calls themselves a socialist.
“One didn’t put out any policies at all, the other put out some policies that probably aren’t attainable.”
The governor also addressed a question from Psaki about how Republicans might try to tie Mamdani, whose social media strategy and message on affordability helped rocket him from the state legislative backbench to household name, to other Democrats like Beshear.
Beshear joked that when he ran for office the first time “they morphed my picture into Barack Obama, so this is nothing new.”
“We’ve got to push back, sure, but we’ve got to be more than a party that’s just against someone, we’ve got to be for something... I think that’s not only how we win, it’s how we govern well. And hopefully it’s how we heal the country,” Beshear said.
This story was originally published October 28, 2025 at 11:32 AM.
