True, but bear in mind that, up until the early 1960s, while much of the South was staunchly Democratic, many white Democrats from southern states were segregationists, who left the Democratic party for the GOP in the wake of Democratic support for integration and the civil rights movement.
What’s relevant for a modern comparison is looking at the parties of Kentucky governors since 1970, though that still proves your point, since most have, in fact, been Democrats.
The Kentucky win is a minor snub to Trump, Virginia looms much larger for the Democrats fortunes.
While true, McConnell has similar unfavorable ratings to Bevin. That doesn’t bode well for Moscow Mitch next year against American Hero Amy McGrath.
Kentucky Republicans are talking about nullifying the Governor’s election and letting the Republican controlled legislature decide.
Beshear vs Bevin: Legislature could decide race, Senate president says?
This was their statement following the election:
Just to throw some data at “similar”, according to this, Bevin’s approval ratings were 34% approve and 53% disapprove. That same polling outfit’s Senate ratings show McConnell at 37% approve and 50% disapprove, so, maybe 6 points better than Bevin, who lost by less than 1%. Against a generic dem, McConnell is probably on track to win by 5%. I suppose your hope is that McGrath is going to significantly out-perform a generic dem. Maybe she will, I don’t know, but the KY-6 voters didn’t go for the "American Hero Amy McGrath in the 2018 “blue wave” election.
To me what it indicates is that Trump has a very large stranglehold on the Republican party. If Bevin is so unpopular he should have lost the Republican primary. It’s similar to what happened in Alabama with Roy Moore. Trump was able to convince the Republicans to go with someone so far to the right that they lost the general election to a Democrat in a ruby red state.
“Stivers said he thought Bevin’s speech declining to concede to Beshear was “appropriate.” He said believes most of the votes that went to Libertarian John Hicks, who received about 2% of the total vote, would have gone to Bevin and made him the clear winner.”
Izzat so?
Maybe, but the Kentucky Republican party picked Bevin (albeit narrowly) way back in May of 2015. President Trump didn’t even declare his candidacy until June. He didn’t have anything like a “stranglehold” the first time Kentucky primary and general-election voters picked Bevin.
Kind of reminds of when the liberals in Hollywood were begging Trump electors to do something similar.
Probably. I’d say almost certainly. I think I’ve only ever known one guy who was essentially a Democrat but voted Libertarian and he’s some Gary Johnson devotee.
But “This guy got the votes we wanted” doesn’t make a race “Contested” and I think the largest hurdle for the state senate picking is that the race is unlikely to actually be contested if it’s been recanvassed and potentially recounted and Beshear is still the winner by thousands of votes. At that point, you’re not settling a contested race, you’re just overthrowing the election.
“If you took the votes away from that guy, and gave them to our guy instead” seems logical enough for today’s Republican party.
Seems like there’s a significant difference between a random person saying “Government person, overturn it for the love of humanity!” and the actual government person stroking his chin and saying “You know, we COULD just ignore the election and do this instead…”
That is NOT why Roy Moore lost, because he was “too far to the right.” It’s because the optics of his past creepy sexual behavior were impossible to overcome. If that scandal hadn’t come to light, he would have won.
The scandal came to light prior to the Republican primary, and prior to his being endorsed by Trump. It wasn’t an “October surprise”, it was well known in advance, with plenty of time to go in a different direction.
I agree, except you drew the line too early. I grew up in a Southern state, and I would say the switch from Democratic party to Republican was still ongoing into the early 2000s. There was a huge political/ideological realignment of the parties, which took a long time to fully happen.
Here is a list of House members who switched parties. List of United States representatives who switched parties - Wikipedia. Starting in the mid-20th Century, you can see a marked shift in Southern state representatives moving from Democrat to Republican, with many occurring into the early 2000s. I take pretty much any “It’s been X-long since a Democrat . . .” whatever, in a Southern state as a fairly meaningless statement because of party realignments in the South.
The members of the state legislature are not electors.
You’re welcome!
-Superdude, Kentucky resident
Er, you seem to have confused the actor from the musical (whose name I don’t recall offhand, but whom I stipulate may have been a “Hollywood liberal”) with the actual Alexander Hamilton:
Trump endorsed Roy Moore’s opponent in the primary. Moore was a Trump-like candidate, and that may well have been why many Alabama Republicans voted for him, but Trump wasn’t actually trying to convince them of any such thing. (He did, however, endorse Moore after he became the nominee.)
And the scandal absolutely was an October surprise, or at any rate a November one. There were, of course, people in Alabama who had firsthand knowledge that he had a creepy level of interest in young girls, and some of those people talked about it, but the Washington Post didn’t officially break the story until November 9, well after the primary. Polling shows a strong swing toward Jones after the story broke, although there had certainly been fears among Republicans that Moore was too extreme to win before that (which is why Trump endorsed his opponent in the first place).
Not gonna argue against the idea that Trump has a stranglehold on the party, but the Alabama special election isn’t the best example. If anything, it shows that an endorsement from Trump is not an especially powerful force, even in a very red state.