Governor Beshear’s Progressive Mandate
By Henry Hoglund, Jason Ganz, Sean McElwee, Colin McAuliffe, and Ryan O’Donnell
Andy Beshear defeated Matt Bevin in the Kentucky Governor’s race on Tuesday, November 5th by a razor-thin margin – merely 5,000 votes separate the two candidates. Beshear’s victory relied on a strong confluence of events that overcame a substantial overall Republican lean: Donald Trump won the Commonwealth of Kentucky by 30 percent in 2016. Three factors loomed large in Beshear’s victory: a strong showing in rural and ancestrally democratic Eastern Kentucky, where coal miners reign supreme, a massive over-performance in the three northernmost Kentucky counties that comprise the Cincinnati suburbs and strong turnout in Lexington and Louisville, all helped by running on a relatively progressive platform that contrasted with Bevin’s Trump-like manner. Progressive policies such as Medicaid expansion, a just transition for fossil fuel workers, and support for the teachers’ strikes ran ahead of Beshear and presaged his victory. Beshear winning in a ruby-red state like Kentucky shows progressive policies can win anywhere in the US.
Health care remains a powerful voting concern for voters, and Beshear’s campaign emphasized both maintaining KYNect, the state exchange created under his father as well as expanding Medicaid without preconditions or work requirements.
These issues are very popular with the voting population of Kentucky, with Medicaid expansion support commanding 63 percent approval. However, other progressive health care agenda items are even more popular, such as Medicare drug price negotiation (69 percent support, 14 percent oppose) and ending the patents on insulin (81 percent support, 11 percent oppose). Kentucky is in the bottom five states for median annual household income, so programs designed to lower one of the central household costs being popular is not surprising, but an explicit commitment to those issues could drive more support for the Democratic candidate in the next election.
Another reason Bevin lost the election was the teacher’s strike against his budget-cutting agenda. We have seen the influence of teacher strikes in local and Congressional elections this past cycle, such as in Oklahoma’s 5th Congressional district, where the Democratic candidate, Kendra Horn, was almost certainly helped in her election by the protests teachers had staged in Oklahoma City the previous year. While Kentuckians themselves thought they were very unlikely to strike (73 percent saying very unlikely to personally strike), they supported a teacher’s strike similar to the one that happened in Kentucky (54 percent support, 34 percent oppose). This indicates that labor action, even in deeply red Kentucky, is not the political third rail Democrats assume it to be in all cases.
Also of interest is the strong support in the Kentucky electorate for increases in the minimum wage and capping interest rates on loans. A raise in the minimum wage to $15 an hour (which would be more than double the current minimum wage) has majority support (56 percent support, 38 percent oppose). Further, capping the interest rate on loans at 15 percent of the principle of the loan won overwhelming support in the Kentucky electorate (83 percent support, 63 percent strongly, to only 9 percent oppose).
Finally, progressive energy policies are popular even in a state like Kentucky with strong roots in the coal industry. A Green New Deal was surprisingly competitive in Kentucky, support being even with opposition, though the intensity is on the opposition side (44 percent support, 23 percent strongly, with 44 percent opposed, 35 percent strongly). More surprising was support for both a transition to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050, which commands over two to one support (55 percent support to 27 percent opposed) as well as a just transition for coal miners ensuring salary, housing and job training (54 percent support while 25 percent oppose). This strongly suggests both that a clean energy economy is a viable campaign issue even in Republican areas, and also that there may be some degree of confusion between the brand “Green New Deal” and the constituent parts, which show greater viability politically than the brand itself.
Kentucky has not become a blue state overnight - we show Donald Trump defeating a generic Democrat 53 point to 40, but even though our survey shows respondents overwhelmingly favor Trump for re-election, these conservative voters also support a broad range of progressive policies. This can help explain how Andy Beshear was able to pull off a victory (we found the race a tossup at 49-49). Democrats looking to mirror Beshear’s success would be wise to focus on the progressive policies that are popular in Kentucky and across the country.
Beshear’s victory was not easy to predict. Indeed, very few people polled this race, leaving professional prognosticators in the dark without internal polling. Beshear’s victory was a triumph of a rising coalition of working-class voters and blue-turning suburban districts that support a progressive agenda that far outstrips the window of possibility most forecasters would anticipate. We need to look no further than Democratic wins both in Kentucky and Louisiana to see that a progressive agenda is popular and a winning political platform even in the reddest regions of America.
Henry Hoglund (@HoglundHenry) is a Senior Polling Advisor to Data for Progress.
Jason Ganz (@jasnonaz) is Senior Vice President of Operations and Technology.
Sean McElwee (@SeanMcElwee) is Co-founder and Executive Director of Data for Progress.
Colin McAuliffe (@colinjmcauliffe) is a Co-Founder of Data for Progress.
Ryan O’Donnell (@RyanODonnellPA) is a Senior Advisor to Data for Progress.
Methodology:
Between November 1st and November 10th, 2019, Data for Progress conducted a survey of 722 likely voters matched to the voter file in the Commonwealth of Kentucky using a text-to-web survey from respondents from a commercial voter file. The sample was weighted to be representative of likely voters by age, gender, education, urbanicity, race, and voting history. The survey was conducted in English. The margin of error is ± 4.5 percent.
Question Wording
Medicaid Expansion - “Recently, Kentucky expanded its Medicaid program to give health care coverage to more people. This increased the number of people getting insurance from Medicaid by 400,000 people. To pay for the expansion, the state pays 10% of the cost and the federal government pays the rest. Do you support or oppose the state’s decision to expand its Medicaid program?”
Drug Price Negotiation - “Would you support or oppose allowing the government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies about the prices of all prescription drugs?”
Drug Patents - “Would you support or oppose an executive order ending the patents on ten high-cost drugs such as insulin, allowing for generic versions of the drugs to be produced?”
Strike Participate - “How likely or unlikely are you personally to participate in a strike or a walkout at your place of work in the next year?”
Minimum Wage - “Would you support or oppose raising the minimum wage in Kentucky to $15 an hour?”
Interest Rates - “Would you support or oppose a policy to cap the interest rates that credit card companies can charge at 15%?”
Strike Support - “Imagine that Kentucky public school teachers and staff went on strike to demand higher wages. How likely would you be to support the strike?”
Green New Deal - “The Green New Deal is a plan to create millions of jobs by transitioning to 100% clean energy and investing in public infrastructure, paid for by increasing income taxes on individuals earning more than $200,000 a year. Do you support or oppose the Green New Deal?”
Clean Energy - “Would you support or oppose transitioning to 100% clean energy in Kentucky by the year 2050?”
Just Transition - “Many coal plants in Kentucky are being replaced by clean energy facilities. Would you support or oppose a proposal to spend $1.3 trillion of government revenue ensuring that unemployed coal miners have 5 years of salary, job training, and housing assistance, as part of a just transition?”