Blue path in a red state: Can Democrats repeat Beshear’s surge in urban areas?
The recanvass of the Kentucky governor’s election won’t be done until Thursday, when we find out if Andy Beshear’s razor edge over Gov. Matt Bevin will hold. Nonetheless, I’m still pondering Beshear’s huge, historic margins in Kentucky’s largest cities. While I don’t think they mean much for next year’s election, when political behemoths Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump will be on the ballot, they do point to an intriguing blue path through Kentucky’s future political landscape.
The urban/rural divide is interesting all over the country, but particularly in Kentucky because it’s never seemed as though the blue urban areas could outvote the red rural ones. Yes, Kentucky is losing population in rural areas. According to data from the 2000 and 2010 Censuses, the state grew by 7 percent, but 80 percent of that growth was centered in urban areas. The rural areas gained less than 1,000 people, according to a paper by Matthew Ruther, executive director of the Kentucky State Data Center at the University of Louisville.
But Ruther said, “whether a place is urbanized or not does not necessarily affect the political beliefs held by that population.” In other words, he said, if everyone from the very red Eastern Kentucky suddenly moved to Lexington, they won’t suddenly start voting for Democrats.
That kind of change takes more time, generally speaking, Ruther said. “In larger cities, there are younger populations who have higher levels of education, greater financial resources, and tend to vote blue. As new residents with fewer resources and lower levels of education move in, the incomes of these individuals may increase, but their educational attainment and political attitudes are likely to be much less fluid.”
Fair enough. But Beshear didn’t just win Lexington and Louisville. He won Bowling Green and all of Warren County, he won Owensboro, Frankfort, Paducah and the Cinncinnati suburbs of Kenton and Campbell County, which are usually Republican strongholds.
Could this path be replicated? It’s doubtful a Democrat could beat McConnell by nearly 100,000 votes in Louisville, McConnell’s historic stronghold, as Beshear did to Bevin, and doubtful that U.S. Sen. Rand Paul would lose his home county of Warren, as Bevin did. Beshear captured lightning a bottle, and he did it with an exceptional ground game in which 2,000 volunteers spent the last four days of the campaign knocking on 200,000 doors, making 125,000 phone calls and sending 175,000 text messages, said deputy campaign manager Jonathan Smith. They targeted voters who had an inconsistent voting history, “finding the voters who were likely to be for us but didn’t always make it to the polls.
“We invested in early, consistent messaging over and over again,” Smith said. “Multiple people heard from us two or three times. There was a feeling this was a close race that could be won. I think that’s why you saw so many people get involved and why there was such high turnout.”
Turning purple?
Beshear was obviously most helped by having an extremely unpopular opponent, given that Republicans dominated in all the down ticket races.
The election showed the strong and deep bench that Kentucky Republicans have, including the new Attorney General Daniel Cameron and returning Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles. Kentucky is still a conservative state, and will be for a long time. Trump is still popular.
But Jordan Harris, founder of the conservative Pegasus Institute think tank in Louisville, nonetheless sees storm clouds ahead for Republicans.
“It would be hard for Democrats to replicate the 100,000 vote tally in Jefferson County,” in the race next year between McConnell and Amy McGrath or whoever the next nominess is, he said. “But if you could get above 220,000 votes, then you’re talking significant gaps that make a long-time difference in Jefferson County.”
Harris said he was concerned by how well Beshear did in the far eastern areas of Jefferson County which are wealthier, typically more conservative areas. It probably won’t matter next year, but the next decade could be different.
“I don’t think there’s a path for (Amy) McGrath (McConnell challenger) with Trump on the ballot, but there’s a lot to look at in this race and say there’s a long-term demographic question about voters in cities turning the state blue,” Harris said. “Democrats aren’t dead in this state, Beshear showed them a pathway.”
In addition, Harris said, statewide redistricting will take place after the 2020 census, and that could give lawmakers in urban areas more control in the General Assembly.
But Patti Minter, a Democrat from Bowling Green who has long campaigned for LGBTQ issues and won a surprise victory to the General Assembly last year, said Beshear’s path can be replicated.
“Absolutely,” she said. “Warren County has been trending Democratic for a while, and when I was out knocking on doors, people clearly told me they supported Andy Beshear because they want things like good public schools and don’t want to be bombarded with wedge issues designed to distract them.”
The results are probably not a bellwether for Trump in 2020, Minter said, despite lots of national pundits pointing to it.
“I think one of the things that national observers don’t understand about the South is that it’s a complicated place, Kentucky is a complicated place. So much can turn on whether someone is perceived as fighting for them, so you just can’t pigeonhole rural and urban and suburban voters and put them in their respective boxes. We’re a complicated place and the results reflected that.”
