He did it with a sterling economic record — bolstered by state spending spurred in part by President Biden’s investment programs — and courtesy of an unusually personal link with voters that he forged through empathetic daily briefings during the pandemic. They were so popular that his sign-language interpreter, Virginia Moore, became a beloved celebrity in her own right, and her death this year was mourned across the state.
Beshear’s campaign has no illusions about how hard a sell the Democratic Party is for Kentucky voters. With polls showing Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron closing fast by rallying his party’s base with attacks on Biden, Beshear is reminding voters that the Nov. 7 election is not about a certain white house some 570 miles away.
“What you’re seeing is fear and anger, and even encouraging Kentuckians to violate that golden rule and to get one Kentuckian to hate another,” Beshear told the appreciative crowd here. “Listen, this race is about us. It’s about Kentucky. But if we can send one message to the rest of the country, it ought to be that anger politics ends right here and right now.”
It’s a lovely thought, and it’s a reason Tuesday’s gubernatorial battles in Kentucky and Mississippi matter. Neither state is likely to vote for a Democratic presidential nominee any time soon. But Beshear and Brandon Presley, the surging underdog Democrat in Mississippi, have shown that their party’s brand can be detoxified on hostile terrain with a focus on jobs, education and health care — and by intensely personal campaigns that encourage voters to forget culture wars and partisan loyalties.
“What Andy has done is show people, ‘Hey, maybe Democrats aren’t so bad,’” said Dave Contarino, a Democratic consultant who leads the super PAC Kentucky Family Values. At the least, Beshear has shown them there is one Democrat they like.
As recently as the mid-1990s, Democrats had healthy majorities in Kentucky’s legislature. Now, it is overwhelmingly Republican, and the state has not backed a Democratic presidential candidate since 1996.
The erosion of Democratic strength in rural areas, especially in Appalachia and the western reaches of the state, echoes national patterns. The decline of the coal industry is part of the story. But so is the collapse of an infrastructure of community that once favored Democrats.
“There were labor unions in these areas, there were Democratic clubs in these areas,” Contarino said. “People were hearing alternative messages.” Now, as Lainey Newman and Theda Skocpol argue in their insightful book, “Rust Belt Union Blues,” the community-binding messages come from talk radio, conservative churches and other local groups that lean right.
That’s why Beshear’s pandemic briefings were so important. They allowed him to crack through those barriers by conveying empathy and cultivating solidarity across the state. “We will get through this,” he said over and over. “And we will get through this together.”
His willingness to admit uncertainty helped him develop a reputation for honesty. “They teach you never to say, ‘I don’t know,’” Beshear told the Louisville Courier-Journal in 2021. “And I had to say ‘I don’t know’ a lot.”
You know you’ve hit a cultural nerve when you inspire swag celebrating your leadership during a pandemic. “Beshear gear” featured signature quotations from the governor on coffee mugs, T-shirts, tote bags and babies’ onesies.
“During the covid period, people were really scared, and he reassured people,” said Brent McKim, president of the Jefferson County Teachers Association. “He came across as the gubernatorial version of Mr. Rogers.” His response to floods in eastern Kentucky and tornadoes in the west reinforced this image.
In an interview here, Beshear acknowledged that the briefings connected him to his state — but also people with each other. “We cried together just about every day,” he said. “We celebrated together when the vaccines came out, and we protected each other. It’s a lot bigger than me. It was about Kentuckians rallying to do the right thing.”
One other aspect of Beshear’s appeal that national Democrats might study: an open religious faith grounded in ideas quite different from those of the Christian right. “For me, faith is about uniting all people,” he told me. “It says all children are children of God. And if you’re truly living out your faith, you’re not playing into these anger and hatred games.”
Part of the reason that a Democrat this well-liked is in such a close contest is Biden’s unpopularity here. There is also Republican Attorney General Cameron’s skill in navigating the deep divide among GOP voters between those passionate about Trump and those loyal to the state’s senior senator, Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
But it also reflects a challenge visible in Beshear’s own campaign. Like all incumbents, he is claiming credit for his economic accomplishments. But Biden’s unpopularity makes it impolitic for him (at least before the election) to give a nod to national Democratic policies that have helped the state.
Democratic state Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong, who represents a Louisville-based district, grew up in the foothills of Appalachian Mountains. The author of “Hill Women,” a powerful tribute to her native region’s tenacity, Armstrong said rural voters often feel “overlooked by decision-makers in the outside world.” The Democrats’ “brand problem” in rural areas, she argued, will have to be solved by local Democrats who can make a case for “how these larger policies actually impact people’s lives.”
But this is a long-term project, she added, “best done outside the election contest.”
If he prevails, Beshear could be a powerful voice in that argument. No wonder Republicans are working so hard to beat him.
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