Some other thoughts:
–You can’t overstate how much people around here (deep in the KY coalfields) hate Obama. It’s a far more personal hatred than you find among conservatives in general, because most of the coal mines we had left around here have shut down in the last six or seven years and it’s accepted as gospel truth that it’s 100% Obama’s fault. Consequently, he tends to get the blame for all of our woes around here, as if things were just hunky-dory in rural Appalachia until 2008.
Mention in conversation around here that you kind of like the President and you’re going to get looks like you just said that you worship Satan. A lot of people have honestly never talked to anybody who supported him in any way. I’m acquainted with two different grade schoolers (from different classes) who casually told their parents that they hate Obama because “he hates coal”, which is disturbing enough if they got it from their classmates and reprehensible if they got it from their teachers (though it wouldn’t surprise me).
I’d say that 80% of the ads by the Republican candidates were little more than “Obama Obama Obama”. In a particularly memorable one against AG candidate Andy Beshear they just straight-up called him “Andy Obama”. But most of the Democrats also claimed they’d “stand up to the Obama administration”.
The thing is, though, in four years Obama’s going to be gone, and Hillary’s name just isn’t the lightning rod that Obama’s is. (We sent Bill to the White House twice, and he still has enough good name around here that he came through last year to campaign for Grimes.) People really do think that the second Obama is gone the coal mines are going to open up again, and a lot of them think that’s true even if Hillary is the one taking his place. So I think the buyer’s remorse is going to hit hard.
–I’m told by my friends who attend several different conservative churches in the area that sermons in recent weeks got even more political than they already had been, and a couple of them specifically told their congregations how they needed to vote. I’m sure they did it so that it couldn’t be proven, but I’ve heard enough of it that I suspect there was some wrangling behind the scenes.
–I really don’t understand the split with a lot of the down-ticket races. A lot of people voted for Allison Lundergan Grimes for SOS, for instance, who must have voted for Bevin for Governor, and I really don’t understand that mindset. I’ve heard rumblings that people are questioning the veracity of the results, which I don’t believe at all. I think a better explanation is that a lot of people wanted to prove that they’re not beholden to a party and split their votes on principle.
–It sucks that Adam Edelen lost the race for Auditor, but there was a lot of money poured into that race by Rand Paul and the national Republicans in general because he was expected to challenge Paul for his Senate seat next year. (And it’s not like he had the money to counter it–it’s a race for Auditor, after all.) I guess it could mean that he has time to devote to the Senate election, but I think he’s more likely to run for Congress against Andy Barr in Lexington, which he’d win easily.