There weren’t many high-profile races on the ballot yesterday across the United States, of course.
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Airbnb, a vanguard of the so-called “sharing economy”, won a decisive victory in Tuesday’s elections when San Francisco voters rejected a measure that would have critically limited the company’s ability to operate in the city following a furious lobbying effort from proponents of both sides. Elsewhere, the ballot was filled with the mixture of local races and ballot measures typical in an off-off-year election. (The results in Virginia, where Democrats hoped to overturn the state senate, were particularly painful, and not much of a testimony to Governor Terry McAuliffe’s influence.) The first one is an old lesson, but one the party has yet to learn.
NORAH O’DONNELL: Kentucky voters have elected a Republican governor for just the second time in 44 years.
Bevin’s case against Kynect received a key political boost in the weeks leading up to the election, when the Kentucky Health Cooperative-the largest private provider on Kynect, with 51,000 enrolled-announced that it would be going out of business in early October. But, he added quickly, “we have a lot of work to do”. Mitch McConnell, against Democratic Attorney General Jack Conway for the open seat.
Bevin’s lieutenant governor, Jenean Hampton, becomes the first African American elected to statewide office in Kentucky. Traditionally, more Republicans turn out for midterm and off-year elections, giving them a built-in advantage. After a last-minute entry into the gubernatorial race, he beat two establishment Republicans by just 83 votes. But how did western Kentucky vote? Debbie Wasserman Schultz has to go, and she has to take her approach to building the party with her. How many times does Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy have to be vindicated before the Democratic Party admits that he was right, and that Rahm Emanuel (and DWS) were wrong?
“This changes the dynamics”, State Senator Robert Stivers, a Republican and the Senate president, said. They now qualify for Medicaid, but they aren’t happy about it and they voted for Mr. Bevin.
The consensus of support in the room did not come, however, because Bevin was a Republican. Conway didn’t win any counties in the Northern Kentucky area. Democrats argued throughout the campaign that his election would place thousands of Kentuckians’ health insurance in jeopardy.
The Obama administration has hailed Kentucky’s success at extending health benefits to more residents under the Affordable Care Act.
Bevin ran as an outsider, emphasizing his Christian faith along with his support for Kim Davis, the Rowan County clerk jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Rand Paul in next year’s Senate race. More telling, Bevin won 106 of the state’s 120 counties. One example can be seen in the fact that there had been so little polling of the race.
Beshear, the son of outgoing Gov. Steve Beshear, had a lead of roughly 1,800 votes with 99 percent of precincts reporting when the Associated Press called the race minutes ago.
In the months that followed his surprise primary win, Bevin sought to soften that position.
Republicans have dominated federal elections in Kentucky, but moderate Democrats have maintained control of state government.
The win in Kentucky has national implications in three respects.
It was a huge night for Republicans, winning races for treasurer, auditor, agriculture commissioner and governor. Only incumbent Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes and an upstart with a famous political name, Attorney General candidate Andy Beshear, narrowly survived.
Louisville businessman Matt Bevin will be Kentucky’s next governor. Democrats have unexpectedly clung to the Kentucky governor’s seat throughout the Obama presidency, so many expected a Republican to break through Tuesday.
Pennsylvania: In an expensive, statewide fight, Democrats won three state Supreme Court elections, which “locks in a [Democratic] majority on the seven-member court for at least a decade”.
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Bevin’s campaign was mostly self-funded, and he preferred to speak to small gatherings of voters instead of courting influential donors.
