Time now for an end of week review of the governor's race, essentially.

And this is happening on Thursday.

We're taping this on Wednesday.

Full disclosure.

And we have two of our favorites here, Abby Pyper and Jared Smith of Piper Smith.

And we're glad to have you.

I know you've gotten some rest, but the work now begins, right, Because we're how many days from session?

No, don't start that.

5050.

Some.

Okay, So let's enjoy a breather while we've got it.

But, you know, you guys never breathe.

But let's talk about the main takeaways from Tuesday night and the Beshear decidedly, of Governor Andy Beshear.

Does he have a mandate?

Dare I ask you that?

He got over that 50% fit.

What, 50 to 53%?

Does he have a mandate?

I mean, I think he could say he does, yes.

You know, he performed very strongly.

He won counties that people didn't do not think he was going to win.

Like Boyle Henderson, you know, And so I do think he has a mandate.

But the problem is you have a supermajority in the legislature that's Republican.

And, you know, they have a history of not playing.

They being both the governor's office and the legislature have a history of not playing well together.

Well, we heard on Wednesday the governor had a press conference and he was asked about his relationship with the Republican dominated General Assembly.

And he says, well, the phone works both ways.

And he made a comment about how one lawmaker who had just been in his office went on the floor and said that he hadn't spoken with the governor.

We've seen some tweets from legislative leaders that pretty much say, you know, we have nothing to gain by really working with him.

That's right.

How do you think this is going to go?

I think it'll go much like it has the last four years.

But I will say there are very strong accounts of even Democrat legislators who say Beshear did not approach them, did not talk to them through some of the especially, sir, through some of the covered things.

And so I, I don't think it's going to change much as it relates to that relationship.

And I don't think that there's interest really on either side.

Or no motivation on either side.

So is he a lame duck governor?

Really like really lame duck and starting out.

Right.

Governors do have a good degree of bandwidth for what they can do through executive order and some of those things.

And I he has left.

Sure.

It'll be interesting to see what he chooses to do with that.

And we obviously have a new attorney general and that's always the check to that.

So it will be interesting to see what kind of power each decides to wield.

That's going to be an interesting dynamic between Russell Coleman and the governor.

It will be I think, will be very interesting and it'll be interesting.

You know, Russell Clemens, a rising star in the GOP.

So be interesting to see if he tries to nationalize a lot of stuff and, you know, sue Biden over stuff or just hop on to those RGA or ragga lawsuits with the other Republican attorney generals that are, you know, usually have no merit.

Don't go anywhere just for clicks and whatever.

Or if he plays more like like like he was a US attorney, you know, right by the book, I'm here to do a good job.

I'm going to do a good job.

You know, stuff like that.

But it'll be interesting to see.

I do think the real question is, is he another attorney general, aspiring governor?

We don't know yet.

We don't know yet.

And when Jacqueline Coleman was asked at the Wednesday press conference about what about next, you know, the four years after this?

Well, I'm just concentrating on what they all say.

Right.

But that's going to happen.

Yeah.

Time will tell.

Time will tell.

So so let's talk about General, as he still is right now.

Attorney General Daniel Cameron.

Talk about how he underperformed and what's next for him.

There is a pretty good piece by Dave Cantonese about how one statewide failure election does not pretend.

You know, you're the rest of your political future.

You look at presidents and governors.

Bill Clinton, who lost and who went on to become president.

I mean, so they're still he's 37, will be 38 in a couple of weeks.

There's still time for him to ascend the political.

Ladder, certainly.

And I don't think he's going anywhere unless he chooses to.

And he's he's got places he can land for a little bit.

We talk about lily pads and politics, and I think he's got some places he can land for a while.

But even with Jonathan Schell, we saw that after his his defeat, he managed to get back in the field.

He really worked his tail off for McConnell and came back to to land back in a seat where he can wield some power and and do some good for Kentuckians.

I think you'll see something similar from Cameron.

Yeah, that's the ultimate redemption story right there, isn't it, That he had lost his primary in 2018 to an educator?

Because all that conversation about that, Travis, Brenda.

It is curious to see that Daniel Cameron underperformed.

Even Matt Bevin, which I thought was very odd.

I wouldn't have expected that.

It makes you think that maybe the Republicans put the wrong candidate forward.

And the candidate quality matters right?

I think so.

I think Daniel, in a decent campaign, I think his closing argument was was the best argument from the campaign.

Why did he do.

So long to do that?

So long?

You know, I think the commission quarrels, I think would have been a different story.

I think he broad statewide appeal, you know, but the Trump the Trump wing of the Republican Party decided they wanted Cameron.

And, you know, Andrew governor won.

So, Abby, I have to ask you, had there been commissioner quarrels as the Republican nominee?

Would there have been a different outcome on Tuesday night?

I think the race would have been much tighter.

I think that if we learned anything, even just looking at some of the outcomes in Ohio and Virginia, even Mississippi over last night, that we are seeing that people come closer to the middle are going to do and perform better.

And quarrels certainly would have been able to do that.

And I think that's what happens with primaries, is that, you know, when you have all Republicans, are all Democrats choosing the person that goes forth often, it's hard to get the most moderate person, the best person to win through that through that gate.

And I think that's what you saw.

Yeah.

And so there's already conversation, Jared, about 2024.

And there is complaints that the governor hasn't done enough to help those state legislative seats and that they've lost more since he's been in power.

So there's a lot of work he has to do with when the legislature comes up next year.

There is.

But what you saw in Virginia, where they went from a lot of the media was focused on the Republicans flipping the Virginia Senate and instead the Democrats flipped the House and kept the Senate back, you know, pretty much ending Duncan's national presence right away.

You're seeing voters are voting on abortion, whether they say it or not.

The Dobbs decision.

Somebody said that Joe Scarborough said the Dobbs decision was the worst thing to happen to the Republican Party since Watergate.

And so I think you're seeing that.

I mean, you the ballot amendment here, the one in Ohio, where they changed the words and put an unborn child in in the statute.

And it's still it was still defeated.

The one I can't remember which one.

But, you know, so I think women's reproductive rights is a winning message for Democrats across the country, no matter what state, no.

May have red the state is.

Yeah.

Which is a flip from what we thought before, when Republicans often use that as as one of their social wedge issues.

So a referendum on abortion, perhaps a referendum on former President Donald J. Trump as well.

So we'll have more conversation later about those things.

Thank you, as always.

Guys, always a pleasure.

Thank you.