Time now for a midweek check in of the major political news of the week, which was the governor's race, with our good friend, Rowland Barden of Kentucky Public Radio.

Thank you so much.

It's good to see you.

Good to see you, too, Renee.

So let's talk about last night.

Size up for me.

Like what's the main headline from last night?

I think the main headline is that Governor Andy Beshear built a coalition of urban and rural voters to win his reelection campaign.

That was a big question whether whether he could do that.

He did that partly by really running up the board in Lexington and Louisville.

But also taking out a really large swaths of rural Kentucky, most notably in in eastern Kentucky, which is kind of a historic Democratic stronghold, which is voted for Republicans much more in recent years, especially in southeastern Kentucky, where some of the tragic and deadly flooding took place in 2022.

It's an area that Governor Beshear was there a whole lot and also is providing aid there and comfort to people who were stricken by that disaster, which they're still dealing with.

Also in western Kentucky, a bit with folks who had gone through the terrible tornadoes in late 2021, which is something we've talked a lot about with that's really embarked.

So much of this year's first four year term in office is all these disasters and him being this consoler in chief, somebody who was on statewide broadcasts, not really talking about politics, but talking about what we're doing to try and get through this and how government can kind of help in these instances.

But in western Kentucky, he did lose an important county, and that's Graves County, this home of Mayfield, where the mayor there, Kathy Onan, had been in some commercials and been on site with the governor when he was in that area.

Is that surprising that he lost to Graves County?

Not by much.

It's not terribly surprising because western Kentucky is, you know, arguably like the Republican stronghold of Kentucky at this point.

But something that you point out is that Beshear actually performed better in Graves County this time around than he did in 2000 and in 2019.

I have the number up here.

It was a little bit more it was like 3% better.

And that's really what earmarks a lot of this.

Sure.

There's still large swaths of the state that were won by Daniel Cameron, but a lot of that Beshear still performs better in that.

And this is a statewide race.

This isn't a this isn't a an Electoral College type deal where it's all or nothing in a particular county.

Beshear actually just racked up more votes than he, you know, than Daniel Cameron did.

In the end, he actually both he and Cameron had fewer got fewer votes than, you know, Beshear or Bevin did in 2019.

Well, that's not yeah, that's an interesting point, too, that the governor overperform, shall we say.

But Daniel Cameron underperformed from Matt Bevin in 2019, and we all have talked extensively about the candidate that Matt Bevin was four years ago.

Yeah, Cameron got about 80,000 fewer votes than than Bevin netted in 2019.

But again, Beshear netted about 17,000.

And I think it was fewer of voters than he did in 2018 as well.

But, you know, no matter what, it's a it's a game, not a game.

It's a contest between, you know, who gets the most votes.

And relatively Beshear still really outperformed Cameron this time.

Yeah, it's going to be interesting to get some granular data on demographics.

Right.

And early voting and how that turned out and who they voted for.

So it's a lot to digest to come in the weeks to come.

Let's talk about the issues that were perhaps on the ballot.

Was Tuesday night a referendum on abortion?

Trump?

Anything else, do you think?

Is that what really drove Kentucky voters to the polls and scored a victory for Andy Beshear for a second term?

I think it's it's important to think about these issues when we're talking about elections like this.

We're going to be hearing a lot about it from national media in the coming months, if not over the coming year, going into the presidential election, really using Kentucky as a test case for some of these issues.

And I think that that's right to think about it.

But it's not everything.

There is some there are some other intangible factors going on here.

One most notably is that, you know, this year an incumbent governor with a very famous name.

His father was the governor just eight years ago and who's been in politics since the mid 1970s.

So that and also some of these nonpartisan factors that we talked about.

However, I think it's important to think about abortion and some of these other issues in the sense of, okay, well, this is not an issue that that tanked Andy Beshear, his campaign.

In fact, he went on the offense, which was really remarkable.

This something a Democrat in the South running a statewide campaign, as far as I know, has never done before, attacking his Republican opponent for not supporting any exceptions to the state's ban on abortion.

That, I think, is something that national Democrats and or Democrats across the South and in Kentucky going forward are going to be thinking about looking at.

Same deal with with Joe Biden.

Somehow, you know, Joe Biden is still very unpopular in Kentucky, just low approval ratings.

Beshear has always had much higher approval ratings than the president.

And somehow he was able to detach himself from that national issue.

Despite the the efforts of Cameron and other Republicans supporting him, that is a that's a lesson to be learned in politics, I think, because it's something that has really colored a lot of politics for the last 10 to 15 years, that the national has informed so much of the local and the sheer in this one particular case was able to separate himself from it.

And I don't know if anybody else is able to pull off something like that.

But again, I think a lot of folks are going to be trying to figure out a way to do it.

Well, and there is some conversation, too, about had Ryan squirrels been the Republican nominee, what the outcome on Tuesday night been a lot different since, you know, he was considered maybe more moderate sometimes.

He had been called at some times the adult in the room.

But considering how the primary system is set up, it wasn't meant to be.

So something to just think about and ponder as we go forward.

And he and other Republicans, you know, didn't really come out so much or there was some questionable unity around Daniel Cameron and some of those counties he lost, like Taylor County and other counties where Max Wise, he was a lieutenant governor candidate.

Like, you know, there's this didn't show up for Daniel Cameron the way perhaps that he would have wanted.

Yeah, there definitely seem to be a lack of enthusiasm here.

Just not a lot of Republicans excited to come out for Cameron in this particular case.

And and whether that's an exciting lack of excitement for Cameron or excitement for Beshear, that's something we haven't really been able to suss out yet with our, you know, about any turnout returns.

But yeah, and maybe that is part of it.

Some of these other candidates not really coming together and forming that unity ticket.

You know, they certainly were coming out and blasting him or anything, but it wasn't it wasn't enough to to beat the incumbent.

Yeah, we'll have to leave that there more to come as we approach 50 something days, I think, until the legislative session begins on January 2nd.

And that's when the fun begins.

When you go from politicking to governing to different ball games.

Well, thank you, Roland Martin, always for breaking it down for us.

Take good care.

Thanks, Renee.