When Republicans Can't Win, They Always Try Cheating-- It's Part Of The Nature Of Conservatism... And Kentucky Is A Good Case

Gangsta President by Nancy Ohanian

Last week, Mehdi Hasan interviewed Bernie for The Intercept. I dealt with some of it last night, but not this interaction about 2020:

Hasan: I’ll hold you to that. I’ll hold you to that definitely, Senator. One last question before I let you go. Let’s say November, you beat Donald Trump. You win the popular vote. You win the Electoral College. It’s clear. It’s decisive. And he says, “No, I don’t accept the result. It’s fake news. It was the deep state. It was a coup. It was illegal immigrants voting for the Democrats.” What do you do in that scenario?

Bernie: I share the paranoia of many people. Trump is a pathological liar and a very dangerous person. Trump will accept the election results and when I defeat him, I will become the president of the United States.

Let's hope. Sportsmanship and patriotism aren't exactly part of Trump's wheelhouse. Yesterday, New York Times reporters Matt Rosenberg and Nick Corasaniti took a look at how Trump and his cronies tried-- and are still trying a week later-- to steal the gubernatorial election in Kentucky. They called the efforts "an omen for 2020." They reported that "A few hours after polls closed in Kentucky last Tuesday, a Twitter user writing under the handle @Overlordkraken1 posted a message to his 19 followers saying he had 'just shredded a box of Republican mail-in ballots.' It was clear that the Kentucky governor’s race was going to be excruciatingly close, and that the Republican incumbent, Matt Bevin, could be headed to defeat. But just in case anyone missed the significance of the destroyed-ballots claim, @Overlordkraken1 added a final touch to his tweet: 'Bye-Bye Bevin,' he wrote. For those eager to cry fraud as a reliably red state leaned blue, the fact that @Overlordkraken1 did not appear to be in Kentucky-- Louisville was misspelled in the location tag on his tweet, for one thing-- was not going to get in the way of a useful narrative. Nor was Twitter’s decision to suspend his account."

Within hours of @Overlordkraken1’s tweet, as it became apparent that Mr. Bevin was trailing in the vote tally, hyperpartisan conservatives and trolls were pushing out a screenshot of the message, boosted by what appeared to be a network of bots, and providing early grist for allegations of electoral theft in Kentucky. High-profile right-wing figures were soon tweeting out their own conspiracy theories about the election being stolen-- messages that were in turn pushed by even more trolls and bots-- and the Bevin campaign began talking about “irregularities” in the vote without offering any specifics or evidence.

The talk has only intensified in the days since, though it has yet to be matched by any evidence of actual election rigging. But with Mr. Bevin’s choosing not to concede, and Kentucky authorities’ preparing to recanvass all of the votes at his insistence, Kentucky is shaping up to be a case study in the real-word impact of disinformation-- and a preview of what election-security officials and experts fear could unfold a year from now if the 2020 presidential election comes down to the wire.

Since his election four years ago, Mr. Bevin has hitched himself to President Trump, and his allegations of irregularities echo the Trump playbook. Mr. Trump has sown doubts about a “rigged election” system since before his own election, including openly questioning the mail-in ballot process in Colorado. He then contended that fraud had lost him the popular vote (which Hillary Clinton won by 2.9 million votes). And he has amplified similar theories while in office, tweeting at least 40 times about unfounded voter fraud allegations, according to an analysis by the New York Times, including a claim after the midterm elections last year that “many ballots are missing or forged” in Florida.

Such divisive rhetoric after close elections has always risked shaking public faith in essential democratic institutions. But in a profoundly polarized country where narrow margins are hardly uncommon, sophisticated networks of social media users-- human and bot-- can quickly turn partisan rancor into grave threats, rapidly amplifying disinformation and creating an initial veneer of vast discord that can eventually become self-fulfilling.

“It shows how the same divisions that the Russians sought to expose in 2016 remain real vulnerabilities in our democracy,” said Laura Rosenberger, director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a nonpartisan group in Washington focused on election security. “The ugly partisanship that is dominating our democratic discourse continues to create openings for those who want to weaken our institutions and use the online space to fuel conspiracies or advance their own agenda.”

Mr. Bevin has not elaborated on the nature or source of the perceived irregularities, and his campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The campaign of Attorney General Andy Beshear, who is leading the governor by roughly 5,000 votes, said in a statement that “it’s deeply concerning to see shady coordinated disinformation campaigns trying to undermine our democracy.”

The Kentucky secretary of state’s office said federal law enforcement officials were investigating both the tweet about shredding ballots and the subsequent rapid amplification. The United States attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Kentucky did not respond to a request for comment.

Twitter, in response to questions from The Times, said the trolling and spread of disinformation about the Kentucky race appeared scattershot and haphazard, but largely appeared to originate in the United States. The company described @Overlordkraken1, whose profile said his name was Luis, as a user with a history of small-time trolling.

Graphika, a company that specializes in analyzing social media, agreed with the conclusion that much of the activity around the Kentucky vote was domestic and not likely to have been pushed by any foreign power. Graphika said the tweets about electoral fraud appeared to land in what it calls a “Trump core”-- a large number of highly interconnected social media accounts, many run by real people, that are typically reactive and loud and can keep a conversation going for days at a time.

But much like the Russian-backed networks of bots and trolls that impersonated Black Lives Matter activists in 2016, or more recently seized on divisive issues like gun rights after a mass shooting, the accounts that quickly amplified doubts and disinformation about the Kentucky election seemed ready for the occasion.

The tweet about the shredded ballots was first noticed by the secretary of state’s office, which alerted law enforcement officials and Twitter. The tweet was quickly taken down, but by then it had already been captured in a screenshot and would be widely shared.

Data compiled by VineSight, a start-up that detects disinformation on social media, showed that many of the accounts that tweeted the screenshot of @Overlordkraken1’s ballot-shredding claim appeared to be bots. Their tweets, in turn, were spread by other bots.

Of the more than 3,800 accounts that VineSight detected tweeting the screenshot, at least 2,350 appeared to be bots, based on an analysis of the accounts’ activities, including how quickly and how often they tweet.

One was an account that went by the handle @ConservaMomUSA and had both human and bot characteristics. @ConservaMomUSA’s post about the ballot shredding was retweeted about 1,300 times, and nearly 60 percent of that traffic was from bots, VineSight found.

The volume of bot-like tweets of the vote-shredding screenshot prompted VineSight to alert the Democratic Governors Association in Washington. Despite growing fears about national disinformation campaigns, the news startled some officials there.

“I was a little surprised,” said David Turner, the group’s communications director. He noted that while some small-scale bot activity had been detected after the 2017 elections in Virginia, “we didn’t see any of that in our close elections last year.”

The disinformation quickly grew beyond the allegation of shredded ballots. The conspiratorial hashtag #StopTheSteal, which had been prevalent in the 2018 midterm elections, then silent for nearly a year, spiked late on election night, tweeted more than 1,200 times, largely by accounts with bot-like characteristics.

Tweets explicitly claiming that the election had been “rigged” were also picked up. A quick sample of nine tweets decrying a “rigged” election were retweeted roughly 1,800 times, with nearly 60 percent of the retweets coming from bot-like accounts, according to data compiled by VineSight.

Other bot-like accounts were resurfacing unfounded allegations of “voter intimidation” by George Soros, the billionaire Democratic donor and favorite boogeyman of the far right.

Talk of possible electoral fraud was not limited to the fringes of online discourse. Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch, a prominent right-wing activist group, tweeted that Kentucky had weak voter ID laws and “dirty election rolls,” though he was careful not to make any direct allegation of wrongdoing.

Michael Coudrey, an entrepreneur and activist with more than 180,000 Twitter followers, posted a message on Wednesday that Kentucky had switched to machines that scanned votes and provided no paper backup, and “oddly enough the entire state turns blue.”

In an email responding to questions from The Times, Mr. Coudrey said warnings from federal officials about possible foreign interference in elections made Kentucky’s use of scannable voting machines a cause for concern. Still, he later deleted the tweet after it became apparent that Republicans had scored significant wins in the state. But by then it had been retweeted hundreds of times.

“Now we see as a reality that Kentucky was prime fertile breeding ground to amplify tactics that have previously been used in the 2016 election, and try out new tactics that I do believe will most likely continue to be used in the 2020 election,” said Alison Lundergan Grimes, the Kentucky secretary of state, a Democrat who ran unsuccessfully in 2014 against Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader. She said it foreshadowed “what is to come in elections not only here in the Commonwealth, but all across this nation.”

By Thursday, the online campaign was melding with real-world action. A supporter of Mr. Bevin, Frank Simon, had set up a robocall network telling people to “please report suspected voter fraud” to the state Department of Elections.

There are no indications of any voter fraud in Kentucky, according to Ms. Grimes.

“Beyond the routine calls that we field, up to and on Election Day, there are no irregularities that would substantiate a 5,000-vote difference margin that now separates unofficially Governor-elect Beshear with Governor Bevin,” she said.

While the Kentucky election, held in an off-year, remains a sideshow to most people outside the state, election security experts see in it a worrying sign of what Americans may be forced to contend with next November.

A situation like Kentucky’s, but on a national scale, would at the very least leave the government “paralyzed in terms of any real policy, domestically or abroad,” said George Beebe of the Center for the National Interest, a conservative think tank in Washington.

“We are not going to be able to actually do things,” Mr. Beebe said. “It’s going to be a challenge, I think, to hold things together. Where this is pointing is a crisis of systemic legitimacy.”

To better understand how Beshear won in beet red Kentucky, let's turn to Bill Bishop at Daily Yonder: Where the Vote Shifted in Kentucky from 2015 to 2019. it wasn't just the voter enthusiasm against Trump and Bevin the the cities-- and there was huge Democratic voter turn out in Louisville, Lexington and the Cincinnati suburbs-- but also a shift towards Beshear across the state compared to Bevin's election in 2015. Bishop acknowledged that "the areas that gave the Democrat a lead over incumbent Governor Matt Bevin were in the state’s major cities and close-in suburbs... Only 39 of Kentucky’s 120 counties were more Republican this week than four years earlier. Almost all counties were rural or exurban (the remotest suburbs) and they are concentrated in the western portion of the state. The counties that moved most strongly toward the Democrats were central city counties of the major metro regions of the state and their suburbs (including those neighboring Cincinnati, Ohio). Of the seven counties where Democrats increased their share by 10 percentage points from 2015, five were attached to major metro areas."

As I mentioned right after the election, most of the big coal counties that had been Bernie Country in 2016 and then went for Trump in the general, either outright voted for Beshear or gave him far more voters than they had given Democrats in recent times. Bishop: "There was a strong Democratic trend in a number of Eastern Kentucky counties. Magoffin, Knott and Perry counties (all once dependent on the coal industry) had some of the strongest Democratic shifts in the state. But since the urban and suburban counties have much larger populations than rural counties, most of the surge in Democratic votes was tied to the cities. Democrats increased their total vote by 283,000 from 2015 to 2019. Nearly two-thirds of that increase (177,000 votes) came from the state’s major cities or suburbs. In fact, nearly 40 percent of that increase came from just two counties, the central parts of Louisville (Jefferson County) and Lexington (Fayette County). The increase in voter turnout was massive in Kentucky, compared to 2015. The Democratic vote increased by 66 percent from 2015 to 2019. The Republican turnout increased by 37.7 percent-- a huge gain but not enough to offset the Democratic surge. The Democratic vote in downtown Lexington nearly doubled."

The Washington Post has a sophisticated analysis of the urban, suburban and rural shifts in Kentucky’s elections. It finds that the split between central cities and counties farther from city centers has widened since 2015.

The Yonder finds the same widening gap. For example, there was a 22.5 percentage point difference in the Democratic vote between Louisville (Jefferson County) and the state’s most rural counties in 2015. This week, the gap was 29.6 points.

Trump Has Led The GOP Into A Death Spiral-- Last Night Was Just A Taste Of What's Coming

This morning, Aaron Blake noted at the Washington Post that "When President Trump was elected, he promised the GOP that they would win so much they would get tired of it. But for a third successive election year since then, the Republican Party has walked away the loser." Also this morning a top Democratic congressional staffer told me that she spoke to "two different Republican Hill staffers who have expressed serious concerns with how badly last night went for them. They described Virginia and Kentucky outcomes as canaries in the coal mine for 2020. Despite all the negative news and concerning polls, they were holding out hope that the DC news cycle wasn't breaking through in the rest of the country. That illusion was shattered last night and now congressional Republicans are starting to realize what it will be like to run with Trump in 2020. It appears impeachment politics aren't as catastrophic to Democrats as initially thought; the Kentucky gubernatorial race was pitted as a referendum on impeachment in a state Trump won by 30 and the incumbent Republican still lost. Trump made the election about him (which he will of course do in 2020) and the result was a complete disaster for his party." As we mentioned last night, the Democrats won and Trump lost. Even in Mississippi, in the heart of the Confederacy/Trumplandia, Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves' less-than-stellar win is dimmed when put into historical context:

• 2019- Reeves (R)- 443,063 (52.3%), Hood (D)- 394,177 (46.5%)
• 2015- Bryant (R)- 476,697 (66.4%), Gray (D)- 231,643 (32.3%)
• 2011- Bryant (R)- 544,851 (61%), DuPree (D)- 348,617 (39%)
• 2007- Barbour (R)- 430,807 (57.9%), Eaves (D)- 313,232 (42.1%)
• 2003- Barbour (R)- 470,404 (52.6%), Musgrove (D)- 409,787 (46.8%)

Reeves had the worst results of any Republican candidate in recent times. And that was the best news Trump and the GOP had yesterday.

Kentucky is one of Trump's best states. The PVI is R+15. Only Idaho, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming are redder. These are the 2016 results that were the best for Trump:

• West Virginia- 68.50, Hillary 26.43
• Wyoming- Trump 67.40%, Hillary 21.63%
• Oklahoma- Trump 65.32, Hillary 28.93%
• North Dakota- Trump 62.96%, Hillary 27.23%
• Kentucky- Trump 62.52%, Hillary 32.68%
• Alabama- Trump 62,08, Hillary 34.36%

If Trump's best effort-- and his non-stop efforts on behalf of Bevin was the best he is capable of-- couldn't win the day in Kentucky, how will Trump be able to help anyone anywhere? On Monday night Trump was in Lexington playing the role of clown on behalf of Bevin: "If you lose, they’re going to say Trump suffered the greatest defeat in the history of the world. You can’t let that happen to me!" They did. Two days before the election, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundegan Grimes predicted that turnout would be 31%, essentially the same miserable turnout Kentucky had in the 1015 gubernatorial election (30.7%). She was way off. By yesterday 42% of eligible voters had cast ballots. It was 45% in Jefferson (Louisville) and 47% in Fayette (Lexington) counties, an increase in the two counties that put Beshear ahead of Bevin.

Moscow Mitch isn't the only Republican incumbent who slept poorly last night. GOP senators in Arizona, Maine, Colorado, Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia, Alaska and Montana did not sleep well last night. Last chart. This one shows Trump's net approval/disapproval in each these key Senate battleground states-- along with how much Trump's approval has fallen in each state since he occupied the White House. (It didn't rise in any state).

• Kentucky- plus 15 (down 19 points)
• Arizona- minus 4 (down 23 points)
• Maine- minus 13 (down 21 points)
• Colorado- minus 15 (down 16 points)
• Iowa- minus 14 (down 22 points)
• North Carolina- minus 3 (down)
• Georgia- plus 1 (down 17 points)
• Alaska- plus 1 (down 23 points)
• Montana- minus 3 (down 27 points)

As the AP made clear this morning "The suburban revolt against President Donald Trump’s Republican Party is growing. And if nothing else, the GOP’s struggle across the South on Tuesday revealed that Republicans don’t have a plan to fix it. In Kentucky, Trump and his allies went all in to rescue embattled Gov. Matt Bevin, who literally wrapped himself in the president’s image in his pugnacious campaign. In Virginia, embattled Republicans ran away from Trump, downplaying their support for his policies and encouraging him to stay away. In the end, neither strategy was a sure winner... [T]there’s little doubt Tuesday’s outcome is a warning to Republicans across the nation a year out from the 2020 election and a year after the 2018 midterms: The suburbs are still moving in the wrong direction."

“Republican support in the suburbs has basically collapsed under Trump,” Republican strategist Alex Conant said. “Somehow, we need to find a way to regain our suburban support over the next year.”

...[T]he GOP’s challenge was laid bare in places like Virginia’s Henrico County just outside Richmond.

Republican state Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant won there by almost 20 percentage points four years ago. The area has recently been transformed by an influx of younger, college-educated voters and minorities, a combination that’s become a recipe for Democrats’ support.

With the final votes still trickling in Tuesday night, Dunnavant was barely ahead [final: 50.88% to 48.95%] of Democrat Debra Rodman, a college professor who seized on Trump and her Republican opponent’s opposition to gun control to appeal to moderate voters.

In northern Virginia, Democrat John Bell flipped a state Senate district from red to blue in a district that has traditionally favored Republicans. The race, set in the rapidly growing and diverse counties outside of Washington, D.C., attracted nearly $2 million in political advertising.

Democrats’ surging strength in the suburbs reflects the anxiety Trump provokes among moderates, particularly women, who have rejected his scorched-earth politics and uncompromising conservative policies on health care, education and gun violence.

Republicans’ response in Virginia was to try to stay focused on local issues. In the election’s final days, Dunnavant encouraged Trump to stay out of the state. The president obliged, sending Vice President Mike Pence instead.

Struggling for a unifying message, some Republicans turned to impeachment, trying to tie local Democrats to their counterparts in Washington and the effort to impeach Trump.

No one played that card harder than Kentucky’s Bevin, who campaigned aside an “impeachment” banner and stood next to Trump on the eve of the election.

But even in ruby-red Kentucky, Trump was not a cure-all and the trouble in the suburbs emerged.

Bevin struggled in Republican strongholds across the northern part of the state, where the Democrats’ drift and increased enthusiasm was clear.

In 2015, Bevin won Campbell County south of Cincinnati handily. On Tuesday, Beshear not only carried the county with ease, he nearly doubled the number of Democratic votes there, compared to the Democratic nominee of four years ago. Beshear also found another 74,000 Democratic votes in urban Jefferson County, home of Louisville.

Beshear led Bevin by the narrowest of margins Tuesday night.

Republicans were quick to blame Bevin for his stumbles. The governor was distinctly unpopular and picked fights with powerful interests in the state. Still, it was difficult for Republicans not to note the warning signs for the party next year and beyond.

“They continue to lose needed support in suburban districts, especially among women and college-educated voters,” said Republican strategist Rick Tyler. “That trend, if not reversed, is a death spiral.”

Democratic enthusiasm and turnout was sky-high in Kentucky and Virginia, where Democrats ran on Democratic issues and values. In Mississippi, where the fake-Democrat ran on a repulsive anti-Choice/pro-NRA, GOP-lite record, there was no enthusiasm and Democratic turnout was terrible. (As I noted last night, even in New Jersey's only state Senate race-- the one to replace Blue Dog ass-wipe Jeff Van Drew-- Van Drew's handpicked right-wing candidate, Bob Andrzejczak, ran on a GOP-lite record and lost to the real Republican, Mike Testa 27,163 (53.47%) to 23,636 (46.53%). Count on the Democrats-- especially the DCCC-- to absolutely not learn a lesson from this.

The were local races all over the country and the Philadelphia Inquirer reported on how dismally they went for Republicans in Pennsylvania. "The political forces that shaped last year’s midterm elections," wrote Julia Terruso, showed no signs of abating Tuesday, as voters turned on Republicans and establishment Democrats alike in races from Philadelphia and Scranton to the suburbs of Delaware and Chester Counties... Locally, Democrats will hold all five seats on the Delaware County Council, a Republican stronghold since the Civil War, and also assumed a majority on the legislative body in Chester County. In Bucks County, Democrats also held a late lead for control of the board of commissioners in a close race. And in Philadelphia, a third-party insurgent candidate weakened an already marginalized GOP by securing one of the at-large City Council seats reserved for minority parties-- a seat Republicans have held for decades. 'It’s a new day in Delaware County,' said Elaine Schaefer, one of three Democrats elected Tuesday in Delaware County. Democrats had never held a majority on the county council in its history, let alone every seat."

We Met The Enemy And They Are Us by Nancy Ohanian

In Virginia and Kentucky Republicans did everything they could to tie Democrats to Bernie and AOC and to "Socialism!!" and the Green New Deal. The backfired for them badly. In Kentucky the top coal counties are Pike, Harlan, Hopkins, Muhlenberg, Perry, Letchner, Floyd, Union, Knott, Webster and Ohio. Trump beat Hillary in every one of them in 2016-- and by a lot. But in the primaries, Bernie won these counties. In Pike Co. Trump won with 80.1%. It was 77.2% in Perry, 72.0% in Muhlenberg and 84.9% in Harlan County.

Hillary won the Kentucky primary, entirely because of the black turn-out for her in Louisville and Lexington. But she was swamped in every one of the coal counties. Bernie beat her. But Bernie also beat Trump in every one of these counties

Pike- Bernie- 4,848, Hillary- 2,335, Trump- 840
Harlan- Bernie- 1,092, Hillary- 451, Trump- 189
Hopkins- Bernie-2,696 , Hillary- 1,690, Trump- 574
Muhlenberg- Bernie- 1,632, Hillary- 1,544, Trump- 338
Perry- Bernie- 1,666, Hillary- 839, Trump- 421
Letchner- Bernie- 1,788, Hillary- 838, Trump- 410
Floyd- Bernie- 4,010, Hillary- 2,327, Trump- 278
Union- Bernie- 1,106, Hillary- 672, Trump- 92
Knott- Bernie- 1,114, Hillary- 583, Trump- 37
Webster- Bernie- 1,169, Hillary- 693, Trump- 116
Ohio- Bernie- 943, Hillary- 778, Trump- 663

Last night, Beshear won some coal counties and lost some-- but out-performed Hillary massively in all these counties. The biggest coal county in the state is Pike. Beshear took 42.94% compared to Hillary's 17.4%. Beshear won Floyd County with 52.56% and won Knott County with 49.43% compared with 24.3% for Hillary in Floyd and 21.6% for Hillary in Knott.

That billboard was produced and placed by the DSCC, attempting to tie state Senator Erica Smith--the progressive running for the North Carolina U.S. Senate seat-- to AOC and Rashida Tlaib. They produced similar campaigns against Andrew Romanoff in Colorado and Betsy Sweet in Maine. This morning Erica turned the tables on them and ran the billboard as part of a fundraising appeal for herself!

"Republicans," she wrote, "aren't the only ones engaging in rigging elections and suppressing the will of voters in our state. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) has been rigging the US Senate race in NC for far too long and it has had disastrous effects on Democracy. They recruited their endorsed candidate after he had been campaigning for Lieutenant Governor for a year. The DSCC doesn't want the people of North Carolina to choose their next Senator. They would prefer a 4 term Senator from New York to tell you how to vote! It didn't work in 2010 when they did the same thing with the same Democratic candidate. Together, we can make sure they don't get another chance to corrode our progressive coalition! 

• People are rationing their insulin and other life-saving medication because they can't afford it.
• Refusal to expand Medicaid reduces the leverage that lawmakers have to negotiate down drug prices.
• The wealthiest 1% receive the bulk of the benefits of our tax code while hard-working Americans continue to lose leverage with their tax dollars.

"If my devotion to your voice and these platforms for progress are considered radical," she concluded, "then sign me up! It should not be radical to amplify the voices of the people over the powerful. Help us continue to spread the good word of the Erica For Us Campaign by giving what you can. This is the people's campaign, now more than ever!"

Election Night 2019-- Trump Stunk It Up For The GOP

Let's follow up on last night's pre-election special for Virginia, Kentucky, Mississippi and New Jersey. The results look excellent tonight... unless your name rhymes with DUMP. Trumpanzee did the trick in Kentucky, a scorching red R+15 state... where the GOP lost the governor's mansion. Trump was there last night campaigning for his clone Matt Bevin and today Kentucky voters went to the polls and ignored Trump's pleas and retired Bevin. Andy Beshear won 711,955 (49.18%) to 707,297 (48.86%). Trump was in Fayette County last night (Lexington) and today Beshear won 65.1% of the vote there. In Jefferson County (Louisville) Beshear did even better-- 66.99% of the vote. And in Virginia, the GOP lost-- despite Pence practically camping out in the state-- control of both chambers of the legislature. The Senate looks like a 21-19 split in favor of the Democrats and the House should be at least 54 Democratic seats in the 100 seat chamber. The Democrats haven't controlled the House of Delegates in two decades! Tonight they won both chambers. Voter turnout, at least for Democrats, was superb-- and a good indication of what to expect one year from now. In Virginia Beach, the most hotly contested area of the state, around 96,000 voters turned out-- as opposed to 63,000 in the 2015 legislative elections. So... how does this look to you?

Kentucky was the most important of all the races to Trump and he and Pence spent a lot of time and political capital on trying to bolster the unpopular right-wing multimillionaire governor, Matt Bevin. Every Republican in the Senate has got to be rethinking their support for Trump right now. If he can't win in Kentucky, where exactly can he win?

Yesterday, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) predicted that about 31% of the state's 3,451,537 million eligible voters would take part in today's election. In 2015 it was 30.7%. That's how Republicans win. The Lexington Herald-Leader reported that "Grimes, who is not seeking re-election because of term limits, said she was disappointed in the projected voter turnout. 'It’s simply not OK that only a small portion of Kentuckians will possibly elect our next constitutional officers,' she said. 'Our democracy depends on people showing up to the polls to make their voices heard. I challenge all registered voters to get up, get out and get loud and exercise their right to vote on Tuesday.' Grimes tracks absentee ballot totals as an indicator of final voter turnout. As of Monday, nearly 19,318 voters had voted in person on machines in county clerks’ offices or were sent absentee ballots, she said. About 8,169 of the 13,967 mail-in absentee ballots that have been issued had been returned."

Bevin could have never expected to be reelected on his own record. It was clear he was going to make it only on the basis of his adhesion to Trump. But it turned out not be be enough. If Trump couldn't save Bevin, who is he going to be able to save-- and we're talking about KENTUCKY! Last night Trump was in Lexington's Rupp Arena, ostensibly rallying the true believers for Bevin but, of course, talking about the only thing he ever talks about: himself... a stand-up routine that lasted an hour and twenty minutes. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul was there as well, defending Trump more than Bevin. "Trump," reported Politico this morning, "did tout Gov. Matt Bevin of Kentucky ahead of his reelection bid Tuesday, but he also offered a post-impeachment playbook for his own reelection bid 365 days away."

A few minutes ago, the count in the Mississippi gubernatorial race was up to 87% of precincts counted, with Republican Tate Reeves leading right-wing quasi-Democrat Jim Hood 390,544 (52.79%) to 339,897 (45.94%), closer than it should have been and closer than anyone thought it would be. At least Trump can run around claiming responsibility for winning that one. But members of Congress will all know what the loss for Bevin means and understand the scope of the catastrophe-- for their party-- in Virginia.

The Democrats maintained the majority in the New Jersey Assembly, although losing some seats. The special Senate election for the seat Jeff Van Drew gave up when he went to Congress to pretend to be a Democrat while voting with the GOP, pitted a pathetic Van Drew clone, ultra-conservative Bob Andrzejczak, against Republican Mike Testa. Testa beat the fake Democrat 27,163 (53.47%) to 23,636 (46.53%). Do you think it will teach the Democratic Party to run real Democrats with real Democratic values instead of shlubs from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party? I don't.

Meanwhile... back in the loony bin:

The Likely Big Loser In Tomorrow's Elections: Donald J. Trumpanzee

I don't know much about Democratic strategist Kevin Walling other than he was one of the founders of-- and the first political director for-- the right-of-center Inside-the-beltway group No Labels-- and that he is often called upon by right-wing media to play the role of "the Democrat," particularly on Fox New, Fox Business News, Newsmax and the neo-Nazi One America News Network (OAN). His firm Hamburger Gibson Creative does work for non-progressive Democrats. Yesterday Walling penned an op-ed for The Hill, Democrats will win back the Senate majority in 2020, all thanks to President Trump. He asserts that if the election were held today, Trump would lose and McConnell would become Senate minority leader. He foresees Democratic wins in against Republican incumbents in Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Maine and North Carolina and possibly in Georgia as well as Democratic holds in New Hampshire and Michigan and possibly even Alabama.

How do we test out his theories? Well... we're going to learn a lot more about where the electorate is tomorrow-- specifically in Virginia, a swing state trending blue, New Jersey, a solid blue state, and 2 solid red states, Kentucky and Mississippi. Kentucky (R+15) and Mississippi (R+9) have statewide races. In 2016, Trump beat Hillary 700,714 (57.86%) to 485,131 (40.06%) in Mississippi and 1,202,971 (62.52%) to 628,854 (32.68%) in Kentucky. Let's start with Kentucky. With that kind of PVI, how does a Republican not win in a landslide? Watch Matt Bevin tomorrow. He may win, but not by much. He's widely disliked in the state-- including by Republicans, some of whom, like state Sen Dan Seum and Rep. Bill Woods, have endorsed his Beshear-- and the state's Attorney General, Andy Beshear (D), is well-liked and well-respected.





Bevin, a crooked multimillionaire, is out-spending Beshear but the Kentucky Education Association and the Kentucky State Fraternal Order of Police have both endorsed Beshear as have the state's two biggest newspapers, the Louisville Courier-Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader. Bevin has endorsements and active campaigning from Trump (including tonight in Lexington, where Bevin is likely to lose by a wide margin) and Pence. The two most recent public polls were done last month> Mason-Dixon shows a 46-46% dead-heat and Tagoz Market Research shows a big win for Beshear-- 55-36%. Trump has staked his reputation on this race. If Bevin loses tomorrow, expect Trump to go out of his mind.

The only thing that would make Mississippi newsworthy would be if Democrat Jim Hood actually beats Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves. If that actually were to happen, Senate Republicans would start abandoning Trump for real and rallying around Mitt Romney. Hood has been serving as Mississippi's Attorney General since 2003-- and he keeps winning reelection by big margins-- so it's not like people don't know him. He's an NRA-supporting, anti-Choice fall-Democrats, but still a win by him would be nothing short of catastrophic for Trump. The most recent polling shows Reeves ahead, 46-43% with 9% undecided. Reeves has massively outspent Hood, $15,587,007.24 to $5,257,753.31 as of last week.Tonight Pence is headlining a rally in Biloxi for Reeves.





Yesterday the Washington Post pointed out that the old adage about all races being local is under assault in the Age of Trump, when all races are about Trump. Tim Craig and Seung Min Kim wrote that Democrats see the governors’ races as "an opportunity to prove that voters still want local leaders to prioritize issues of health and economic well-being in states that continue to rank among the poorest in the nation. Political strategists from both parties warn the Democrats’ issue-centric strategy comes with risks as partisan polarization creeps deeper into voters’ everyday lives."

“There are not local races anymore,” said Brad Chism, a Mississippi Democratic strategist who has been advising Hood. “Every doctor’s office, every gas station, every barber shop has a T.V. in it, and eight out of ten of those in Mississippi are airing Fox News … I am personally hopeful that local issues such as infrastructure, public education and transportation supersede this, but the thing about Trump is he just sucks up all the oxygen, every day.”

...[T]he impeachment inquiry “being on the front page of every newspaper has certainly been a rallying cry for a lot of conservatives in the state.” Though national polling has indicated an electorate almost evenly divided on impeachment, 65 percent of voters in Kentucky say they oppose efforts to impeach Trump and remove him from the White House, according to a Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy survey.

...But both Couvillon, a Republican, and Chism, the Mississippi Democratic strategist, caution that Trump’s strategy of trying to nationalize the governors’ races could backfire.

Despite Trump’s broad popularity in both states, Couvillon and Chism say Trump’s involvement could increase turnout among black voters who traditionally vote Democratic.

There are also tens of thousands of voters in both states who lean Republican in federal races but are still considered up for grabs in state elections. Democrats are fighting hard for those voters by focusing on transportation, education and health care, including Medicaid expansion, Chism noted.

In Kentucky, Beshear is betting on a similar strategy. Instead of talking about Trump or national political issues, Beshear says, he’s keeping his message simple.

“When you talk about public education, pensions, health care and jobs, they are good for every Kentucky family, and I believe we are tired of being divided,” Beshear said.

Deep State by Nancy Ohanian

In New Jersey, all 80 seats in the general assembly are up for grabs. Currently the Democrats have a 54-26 super-majority there and control the state Senate 26-14. Democrats have outspent Republicans by a wide margin and could actually gain one or two seats. The only state Senate election is for the seat Jeff Van Drew gave up went he went off the Congress to vote with the Republicans while pretending to be a Democrat. The incumbent, conservative Bob Andrzejczak, was appointed to fill the seat and has done everything possible to discourage Democrats from bothering to support him; tomorrow he faces Republican Testa.

The most important state to watch tomorrow, though, is Virginia where the Republicans are likely to lose their narrow control of both chambers of the state legislature. All 40 state Senate seats and all 100 House of Delegates seats are are for grabs.

In the last election, Democrats won 53.17% of the Delegates races but just 49 seats. The Republicans won 43.76% of the votes and 51 seats. Several districts have been redrawn by court order to mitigate the extreme gerrymandering and Democrats are expected to pick up several seats and win control of the House. The most red to blue flippable seats:

• HD-27- Republican Roxann Robinson won by 0.5% in 2017 and faces Larry Barnett in Chesterfield County.
• HD-28- Republican Bob Thomas, who won by 0.4% in 2017, was defeated by Paul Milde in the primary, who faces Joshua Cole (bad news)-- Stafford County and Fredericksburg.
• HD-30- Republican incumbent Nick Freitas screwed up and has to run as a write-in candidate against Democrat Ann Faulkner Ridgeway-- parts of Orange, Culpeper and Madison counties.
• HD-40- Longtime Republican incumbent Tim Hugo won by 0.4% in 2017 and faces Dan Helmer (D)-- parts Fairfax and Prince William counties.
• HD-61- Longtime GOP incumbent Riley Ingram is retiring in a swing district where Carrie Conyer (R) faces Lindsey Dougherty (D)-- parts of 5 counties: Mecklenburg, Amelia, Nottoway, Cumberland and Luneburg.
• HD-66- redrawn district should mean Democrat Sheila Bynum-Coleman will oust GOP incumbent Kirk Cox-- Chesterfield County plus Colonial Heights.
• HD-76- redrawn district gives Clint Jenkins a chance to beat Republican incumbent Chris Jones-- Suffolk and Chesapeake cities.
• HD-81- redrawn district gives Len Myers a chance to beat Republican incumbent Barry Knight in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake cities.
• HD-83- redrawn district should mean Democrat Nancy Guy will oust GOP incumbent Chris Stolle-- Virginia Beach and Norfolk cities.
• HD-84- Independent Russell Braddy may spoil Republican Glenn Davis's reelection and allow Karen Mallard (D) to slip in in Virginia Beach.
• HD-91- redrawn district plus retiring incumbent should mean Democrat Martha Mugler will beat Republican Colleen Holmes Holcomb-- Hampton and Poquoson cities plus a piece of York County.
• HD-94- redrawn district (+ a strong Libertarian challenger) should mean Democrat Shelly Simonds will oust GOP incumbent David Yancey-- Newport News.

Currently the state Senate has 21 Republicans and 19 Democrats. This one also looks good for a flip tomorrow. It looks like the Democrats can pick off 4 Republican-held seats, all of which were won by Gov. Ralph Northam (D) 2 years ago and by Hillary in 2016. These are the seats where I expect to see Trump's raging disapproval numbers drag the Republicans down to ignominious defeat tomorrow:

• SD-7- Incumbent Frank Wagner (R) is retiring and both Hillary and Northam subsequently won the district. Expect to see Delegate Cheryl Turpin (D) beat Jennifer Kiggans (R)-- Virginia Beach with a bit of Norfolk.
• SD-10- Glen Sturtevant (R) is a weak incumbent in a district Hillary won in landslide. Ghazala Hashmi (D) should win tomorrow-- Chesterfield County, Richmond and Powhatan County.
• SD-12- Democrat Debra Rodman should oust Siobhan Dunnavant (R) in this anti-Trump area of Henrico County plus a bit of Hanover County.
• SD-13- Incumbent Richard Black (R) is retiring in a district Hillary won by over 8 points and Democrat John Bell is likely to beat Geary Higgins (R)-- parts of Loudoun and Prince William counties.

What Happened In Kentucky Last Night? What Does It Mean For The Rest Of Us?

Andy Beshear and Matt Bevin

First the results. The winners of the primaries were given before the election yesterday. Republican primary voters renominated Governor Matt Bevin, but with just 52% of the vote. The Louisville Courier-Journal reported that "the relatively narrow margin indicated that Bevin's support among Republicans is strained, particularly in Eastern Kentucky."

• Matt Bevin- 136,060 (52.36%)
• Robert Goforth- 101,343 (39.00%)

The Democrats nominated Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear, also as expected.

• Andy Beshear- 149,438 (37.88%)
• Rocky Adkins- 125,970 (31.93%)
• Adam Edelen- 110,159 (27.92%)

Note that not only did Beshear win more votes than Bevin, the total number of Democratic votes (394,490) was significantly more than the total number of Republican votes (259,854).

A couple of weeks ago, people paying attention to the contest for the Kentucky governor's mansion, noted that the only thing Matt Bevin, hoping for reelection in less than 6 months, has just one thing going for him: Trump. Bevin is the least popular governor in the country in his own state and Trump is the least popular president in history. But, unlike Bevin, Trump is still popular in Kentucky. And Bevin sells himself as Trump's boy. Bevin originally beat Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway in 2015 with 511,771 votes (52.5%) to Conway's 426,827 votes (43.8%). But look at this current polling from Morning Consult.

In Kentucky, Trump beat Hillary in a landslide-- 1,202,971 (62.52%) to 628,854 (32.68%). The state has 120 counties and Trump won 118 of them. Today there are only 4 states where Trump has a higher approval than in Kentucky. 53% of Kentucky voters approve of Trump; only 33% approve of Bevin. Trump and Pence will both be campaigning for Bevin this fall. No one doubted Bevin was headed for a primary win yesterday. Even if his approval has cratered among Democrats and independents, 50% of Republicans still approve of his job performance. Trump tweeted out an endorsement yesterday:

Despite a record number of Kentuckians registered to vote (3,421,796), voter turnout was low yesterday. Only 654,344 people voted in the gubernatorial contest.

Andy Beshear is a moderate Democrat, Kentucky's Attorney General and son of Steve Beshear, the state's popular governor prior to Bevin. Former state auditor Adam Edelen was the progressive favorite-- also endorsed this week by the Louisville Courier Journal -- and state House Minority Leader, Rocky Adkins is the anti-Choice conservative in the race. As of May 6, Edelen had spent $2,728,266 to Beshear's $1,870,823 and Adkins' $1,153,071. An Edelen PAC, Kentuckians for a Better Future-- most of whose money came from Edelen's running mate's wealthy family-- spent over a million dollars attacking Beshear.

Bevin drew 3 primary opponents but newly elected state Rep Robert Goforth seemed like the candidate likely to do Bevin the most damage. He ran as a native Kentuckian, constantly pointing out that Bevin is an outsider. "I believe Kentucky deserves a governor who is one of us . . . Our commonwealth needs a chief executive who is a conservative molded not by New England and Wall Street, but by Kentucky and Main Street."

As of May 6, Bevin had spent $752,272 to Goforth's $289,212.

What do we want to read into this? Bevin can be defeated in November, regardless of how much he and Trump are tied together. Bevin's unpopularity with Kentucky voters is comparable with another even more well-known Kentucky Republican, McTurtle. His political demise would be, literally, second in importance, nationally speaking, only to that of Trump himself.

Can Andy Beshear Beat Bevin This Coming November? Trump Is Flipping Out Over This Race

Kentucky is a weird and intriguing state when it comes to politics. Just watch the great explanation of what's going on there in the Samantha Bee video above before you read another word. It's one of the reddest states in the Union (PVI is R+15-- worse than Alabama, Mississippi, Texas or Kansas) and Trump beat Hillary there 1,202,971 (62.5%) to 628,854 (32.68). She won just two of Kentucky's 120 counties. Hillary even managed to lose Elliott County, which had never-- in its 150 year history-- voted for a Republican before, not Reagan, not Eisenhower, not Harding... just Trump. Anyway, that's not what's intriguing. What is, is how much Kentucky voters hate their Republican politicians and vote for them anyway. Kentucky voters, for example, hate Mitch McConnell more than the voters in any state hate their senator. Every year since dinosaurs roamed the planet McConnell has been rated the most hated senator in America. His approval from Kentucky voters was 36% this year, an actual improvement over the 30% it was a couple of years earlier. Unlike in other states, though, Kentuckians keep reelecting the politicians they detest.

Alex Isenstadt, writing for Politico yesterday, reported that Trump has his own people racing to save Matt Bevin, a Trump loyalist in a red state who's deeply unpopular and on the ballot in November. "Bevin," he wrote, "is a presidential phone-buddy and White House regular who’s become one of President Donald Trump’s loudest surrogates. He’s also one of the most unpopular governors in the country, facing a treacherous reelection in November. And the White House, fearing that an embarrassing loss in a deep-red state would stoke doubts about the president’s own ability to win another term, is preparing to go all-in to save him." Trump keeps sending Pence down to Kentucky to raise money and to fire up gay-haters among the evangelical base.

The Trump team has watched with growing concern as Bevin’s approval ratings have plummeted to the low 30s. With the presidential campaign kicking into gear, the Kentucky governor’s race is likely to be the most closely-watched contest in the run-up to 2020, and Trump aides acknowledge alarm bells will go off if one of the president’s closest allies loses in a state that Trump won by nearly 30 percentage points.

“You want to be winning and not losing in red states ahead of your reelection bid,” said Scott Jennings, a Louisville-based Republican strategist who served as a top political aide in the George W. Bush White House. “I think having the president come and remind everyone what’s at stake is important.”

Bevin has visited the White House so frequently that his presence in the West Wing has become a running joke among some Trump aides. Since Jan. 2018, the Kentucky governor has visited the White House 10 times, according to a count provided by an administration official. Over the past year, the White House has dispatched at least nine cabinet heads and top officials to Kentucky to promote the Trump agenda with the governor. First daughter Ivanka Trump has gone twice.

...The governor’s plight has caused unease across the party. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who defeated Bevin in a bitter 2014 primary, has put aside the past rivalry and instructed his political team to be helpful to the governor in any way he wants. Aides to both men have been in touch.

McConnell, who wields a formidable political apparatus in the state, has much at stake in the governor’s race. Like Trump, the GOP leader is on the ballot in 2020 and a Bevin loss could further energize Democrats who are eager to take McConnell down.

The fact that Democrats are even competitive in the Kentucky governor’s race represents a remarkable turn of fortunes. Republicans control both U.S. Senate seats, five of the state’s six congressional seats, the governorship, and both chambers of the state legislature. Barack Obama’s aggressive efforts to address climate change, many believe, deeply undercut the Democratic Party’s prospects in the coal-dependent state.

But Bevin in nonetheless in jeopardy. After narrowly winning the 2015 gubernatorial primary, he picked a series of high-profile fights, most notably with public school teachers. Last week, Bevin, who’s waged an intense campaign to reform the state’s pension system, came under fire for blaming striking teachers for the shooting of a 7-year-old girl who had stayed home because school had been shut down.

“The governor has a tough reelection, largely because he’s not a part of the political establishment and has ruffled feathers and gotten into fights in Frankfort,” said Nick Everhart, a Republican strategist with extensive experience in the state.

The governor’s political standing is so precarious that he's being forced to spend campaign funds more than six months before the election. Bevin on Thursday purchased about $500,000 worth of May commercial airtime.

State Attorney General Andy Beshear, the son of popular former Gov. Steve Beshear, is widely considered the front-runner in a May 21 Democratic primary that also includes state House Minority Leader Rocky Adkins and former state Auditor Adam Edelen.

People close to Bevin say his general election campaign will focus heavily on the president. The hope, they say, is that the president will help win over many of the blue-collar voters who backed Trump in 2016 but who’ve soured on the governor over his push for pension reform.

And they’re eager for Trump to savage Bevin’s eventual Democratic opponent.

“I hope the president uses his political capital in Kentucky because he’s got it here,” said Steve Robertson, a former Kentucky GOP chairman. “I think he could make a huge difference.”

In February, PPP surveyed Kentucky voters in regard to the 2020 Senate race and found that a generic Democrat is within the margin of error-- 45-42% in a race to release McTurtle. Their key findings:

• There are signs Mitch McConnell is losing Trump voters. Among people who voted for Trump in 2016, 36% disapprove of McConnell’s job performance and 40% say they think it’s time for someone new to hold his Senate seat.

 • Many who voted fro McConnell in 2014 have soured on him. Among people who voted for McConnell in 2014, 30% disapprove of his job performance and 32% say they think it’s time for someone new to hold his Senate seat.

 • McConnell’s standing in Kentucky among Republicans pales in comparison to Trump’s. Only 47% of Republicans approve of the job McConnell is doing, compared to 87% of Republicans who approve of Trump’s job performance. 39% of Republicans disapprove of the job McConnell is doing while only 12% disapprove of Trump’s job performance. Only 47% of Republicans think McConnell deserves to be reelected, and 44% of Republicans think it's time to elect someone new.


Kentucky Legislature Passed A Tax Hike For 95% Of Kentuckians-- But At Least The Rich Get Cuts

Beshear and Bevin

A Democratic campaign operative friend of mine does so well that he generally gets to pick any race he wants to run and he can avoid races that have been infiltrated-- even body-snatched-- by the DCCC or EMILY’s List. And unlike them, he wins, even in long shot match-ups. He loves Kentucky-- it must be the bourbon-- and he may run Andy Beshear’s campaign for governor in 2020. Lucky for him-- and Beshear-- the Republican-dominated state legislature just handed the Democrats a winning issue. The new tax cut they passed on this week and sent to the Republican governor, Matt Bevin, Thursday reduces taxes for the rich and races it for the bottom 95%. Jeff Stein reported some reticence on the part of a wary Bevin:

The proposal arrives on the Republican governor's desk at a charged moment in Kentucky politics: The bill flew through the legislature on short notice, and thousands of teachers went to the State Capitol building earlier this week to protest cuts to their pension system.

Bevin's position on the tax overhaul, Kentucky's biggest in more than a decade, remains unknown. He said in a statement that the bill and the state budget, which was also passed by the legislature and is awaiting his signature, may not be “fiscally responsible.” Bevin has until April 13 to sign or veto the bill or send it back to the legislature with modifications.

The plan would flatten Kentucky's corporate and personal income-tax rates, setting both at 5 percent. Currently, Kentucky's corporate tax rate runs between 4 and 6 percent, while its income-tax rate ranges from 2 to 6 percent. The new flat rate of 5 percent for everyone means that small companies and Kentuckians with below-average incomes will face tax hikes, and higher earners will get tax cuts.

The bill attempts to make up for those cuts by nearly doubling the cigarette tax and imposing sales taxes on 17 additional services, including landscaping, janitorial work, golf courses and pet grooming. The state's nonpartisan legislative staff estimated the plan will, on net, raise money, although other experts are skeptical.

Residents of Kentucky, like everyone else in the country, are also affected by the federal GOP tax law passed in December. The Kentucky plan shares some characteristics of that overhaul, including the proposal to lower taxes faced by some businesses. But in contrast with the congressional GOP effort, Kentucky Republicans are aiming to avoid dramatically increasing the deficit.

That is one reason the Kentucky plan includes an expansion of the sales tax, which is expected to hit most state residents. Overall, the plan would give an average $7,000 tax cut to the richest 1 percent of Kentuckians, who average more than $1 million of annual income, according to a report released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Kentucky Center for Economic Policy. But 95 percent of the state's taxpayers would see a tax increase, and those earning between $55,000 and $92,000 a year would face the largest tax increases-- about $213 a year, the analysis found.

Meanwhile, someone earning $8 million a year-- such as John Calipari, the head coach of the University of Kentucky men's basketball team-- would receive a tax cut of close to $80,000 a year, said Jason Bailey, the executive director of the center. As a share of their income, the poorest Kentucky residents would face the biggest tax hikes, in part because of the increase in the cigarette tax, according to Bailey.

The plan would generate an additional $239 million in state revenue in 2019 and an extra $248 million in 2020, according to the legislature's nonpartisan scorekeeper.