The political classes have a bad habit of trying to draw lessons from disparate and often unrelated data points — especially in state races that often hinge on local issues.
The latest example of this came earlier this month, when moderate Democrats won a pair of gubernatorial elections in Kentucky and Louisiana, states won by Donald Trump and Republican presidential candidates for years.
In Kentucky, Andy Beshear, the son of a former governor, knocked off an incredibly unpopular incumbent, Matt Bevin, by a bare 5,000 votes, while incumbent Democrat John Bel Edwards defeated Eddie Rispone by about 40,000.
These results are being touted by moderates in the Democratic Party as proof that Democrats can peel away Trump voters if they offer a watered-down message of unity and avoid big ideas. Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo, who heads the Democratic Governors Association, told the New York Times that her party could win those voters back next year by pushing a “message of unity” and by making “pragmatic promises on issues like health care and student debt.”
“Clearly, factually, people who voted for Trump voted for our Democratic gubernatorial candidates,” she said, though I would argue that it is not so clear cut. There were about a half million fewer voters than in 2016 — though turnout was up from the previous gubernatorial race.
Beshear, the son of a previous governor, was running against an incredibly unpopular incumbent. Bevin had a disapproval rating of 56%, compared with just 32% who approved of the job he was doing. That placed him last among all governors, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal. That kind of underwater rating should have allowed Beshear to coast — and yet, he managed the barest of possible margins.
While Bevin brought Trump to the state to campaign, which signals to some pundits that this was a Trump-driven vote, Vox points out that the race was waged on Kentucky issues.
“Beshear won on a campaign focused on statewide issues around health care and education,” Tara Golshon wrote for Vox.com. “He promised teachers raises and new funding streams for the pension system. He has said he is pro-choice, will protect Medicaid, pushing back against Bevin’s proposed Medicaid work requirements.”
The Kentucky contest reminds me a great deal of the 2009 gubernatorial election in New Jersey, which pitted incumbent Democrat Jon Corrine against Republican challenger Chris Christie. Corzine was deeply unpopular, but still managed to garner more than 45% of the vote in what was an election focused on the ineffective Corzine, a state budget shortfall, and rising property taxes.
As for Louisiana, Edwards ran well behind his 2015 totals, which could be a signal that his popularity has waned — or even that Trump’s popularity in Louisiana remains strong. I just don’t think we can know the answer to this.
I do not want to imply that statewide races say nothing about national ones. Corzine’s loss did come a year before Barack Obama lost his House majority. My point is that these connections are somewhat loose, and that drawing any hard conclusions from these two result about whether the Democrats need to tack the right or left seems foolish. My preference, obviously, is for the party to focus on a broad progressive vision and to build its legislative agenda from that. In the end, I believe that focusing on vision and message — and not on the false promise of electability — will be better for Democrats in 2020 and in long term.
Hank Kalet is a poet and journalist in New Jersey. Email hankkalet@gmail.com; Twitter @kaletjournalism and @newspoet41; Instagram, @kaletwrites.
From The Progressive Populist, December 15, 2019
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