As Washington braces for next week’s kickoff of public hearings on impeachment, Tuesday’s off-year elections in Kentucky and Virginia offered preliminary answers to two tantalizing questions hanging over the current political environment. First, will Democratic candidates  pay a political price for trying to remove President Trump from office? An early answer from Virginia: No. Second, is there Trumpism -- or only Trump? In other words, can Donald Trump’s ideology exist without Donald Trump himself? Another early answer, this one from Kentucky: No. Republican Gov. Matt Bevin tried making the race into a referendum on impeachment. It didn’t work, and he fell behind Democratic candidate Andy Beshear. The challenger won 709,577 votes while the incumbent earned 704,388. According to unofficial results from the Kentucky Board of Elections, Beshear now leads Bevin by 5,189 votes. Even late into election night, the Associated Press said the race was too close to call. Beshear declared victory anyway while a belligerently on-brand Bevin refused to concede.  And while avenues exist for the governor to contest the results, it seems likely that the Republican just lost reelection in a state that President Trump carried by a whopping 30 percentage points. The vote offers insight, a year in advance, into what might happen during the next general election. “It’s a big [frigging] deal,” one senior Democratic National Committee official told RealClearPolitics late Tuesday night. “Trump spent big there and lost.” Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez agreed the next morning but with more polite language, telling reporters that Kentucky is a sign of things to come. “We believe that our diversity is our greatest strength,” he said of the campaign that carried Beshear to an apparent victory. “And Mr. President, when you continue to divide America, that is not only un-American, that is going to prove to be terrible politics for you, because that's not who we are.” Even Trump admitted a loss in Kentucky would look bad, and he knew Bevin was making a gamble by tying his fate to the controversy over impeachment. “If you win, they are going to make it like, ‘ho-hum,’” Trump warned at a rally the night before the election. “And if you lose, they are going to say Trump suffered the greatest defeat in the history of the world.” A loss would be a disaster, he warned Bevin: “You can't let that happen to me!” But the one-term governor lost anyway, and there was more bad news for Republicans in Virginia. There, Democrats picked up two state Senate seats and six House seats. If that electorate had any qualms with removing Trump from office early, it didn’t stop them from handing both chambers of the legislature over to the impeaching party. The state Trump lost by five points in 2016 is now entirely blue. (Gov. Ralph Northam is also a Democrat.) Other developments disheartening for the GOP followed in Pennsylvania where Democrats won local races in districts that will be coveted come 2020. The night wasn’t entirely bleak for the Grand Old Party. Republican Tate Reeves (pictured) won his race in Mississippi to keep the governor’s mansion red. And in Kentucky, Republicans were elected attorney general, treasurer, auditor, secretary of state and agricultural commissioner. Each contest was easy for the GOP, except for Bevin’s at the top of the ballot. A second Bevin term was always questionable in a state where voters have only elected three Republican governors since the Second World War. He also earned the ignoble designation, according to a Morning Consult analysis, of being the least popular governor in the country. This was probably because he feuded with teacher unions and reorganized public pensions and beefed with the media. It was also because, some are now arguing, Bevin did his best to be a bluegrass version of the New Yorker president. But before votes were counted, it only made sense to Bevin to do his best Trump impression. He did that by trying to put impeachment on the ballot. “Governor Bevin is not the one making impeachment an issue. Impeachment already is a big issue in Kentucky because congressional liberals are trying to invalidate the 2016 election, which saw President Trump win Kentucky by 30 points,” Michael Antonopoulos, a senior adviser to the campaign, told RCP a month before the election. “The real question is whether Andy Beshear agrees with 95% of House Democrats that President Trump should be removed from office.” That argument boiled down to an us vs. them calculation. Was Beshear with 118 (out of 120) Kentucky counties that voted for Trump? Or with House Democrats who voted to begin an impeachment inquiry? The electorate, who voted overwhelmingly for other Republicans, didn’t buy the premise. Their temperature will be taken again in less than a year when the president’s name – barring removal from office -- is actually printed on the ballot. Even the boldest pundits don’t yet dare whisper that he would lose Kentucky. Trump the politician, it seems safe to say, will be secure in deep red states. But the candidates who wrap themselves in Trumpism and accept his endorsement haven’t always met with populist success. Trump endorsed 96 candidates during the last midterms. He averaged 58% success with 56 of those Republicans winning and 40 losing. His clout is still up in the air in 2019. He endorsed Ralph Abraham for governor in Louisiana, who lost in the “jungle” primary on Oct. 12, and Bevin in Kentucky, who appears to have lost. Tate Reeves won his race for governor in Mississippi, but Eddie Rispone could win or lose in his effort to unseat Democrat John Bel Edwards as Louisiana governor when the runoff is held Nov. 16. Trump has called special elections perfectly this year, going three for three. That record, plus the sheer weight of a presidential endorsement, will make his nod valuable. And it isn’t as if Trump support makes a candidate a political pariah. White House Senior Adviser Kellyanne Conway made sure to hammer this point home. Surrounded by reporters on the driveway of the president’s residence, Conway said that, yes, Bevin lost but noted he was out-funded by Democrats. If anything, she insisted, Trump helped make that race more competitive. He also helped make some history: The president endorsed Daniel Cameron for state attorney general. “First independently statewide-elected African American in Kentucky's history,” Conway told reporters before sarcastically chiding that “I'm sure you'll all be writing about the history that was made yesterday in Kentucky." But Cameron is soft-spoken where Bevin was bombastic. That, and Cameron won a race that was never billed by Republicans as a national referendum on the man in the Oval Office.Source: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/

By GUEST AUTHOR | May 8, 2019 5:45 am Republican candidate for governor Robert Goforth | Via screengrab from Goforth campaign ad By Perry Bacon Jr. The Democratic gubernatorial primary on May 21 is obviously the bigger story as it’s unclear which candidate will win. But the GOP gubernatorial primary results could be telling as well. Gov. Matt Bevin has one fairly serious Republican opponent in the primary. And if a significant number of Republicans back state representative Robert Goforth over the governor, that would be another bad sign for the re-election of prospects of Bevin, who got booed at the Kentucky Derby last weekend, is regularly criticized by state legislators from his own party , and according to one polling firm is the most unpopular governor in the country. There are three Republicans running against Bevin. But Goforth is likely the biggest threat to the incumbent. The pharmacist has had a fairly brief tenure in state politics — winning a special election for his state house seat in eastern Kentucky in February 2018 and then being elected to a full two-year term last November. What makes him a potentially serious challenger is that Goforth has pumped more than $750,000 of his own money into his campaign this year, basically matching ($814,000) Bevin’s fundraising. Goforth is running ads on television and campaigning across the state. Goforth has traditional Republican stands on many issues. He is a strong supporter of President Trump, gun rights and abortion limits. At the same time, Goforth is taking on the governor where he may be most vulnerable — Bevin’s policy stands on education and pensions and his tone. Goforth’s website notes that “Robert supports our public schools 100%, and opposes any public dollars going to establish charter schools.” In addition, the site says, “Pensions are inviolable contracts that cannot be broken.” In his speeches and commercials, Goforth has defined himself as a leader who “listens more than he lectures” and “leads more than he lambasts” — clear critiques of Bevin. So can Goforth win? He’s a long shot, but I wouldn’t completely rule it out. It’s likely that Kentucky Republicans (as compared to Democrats) aren’t very tuned into this primary — the Democrats have three candidates running in a more wide-open contest. So maybe GOP is turnout is fairly low and anti-Bevin Republicans are more motivated to vote than those who support him. This is not an impossible scenario. Last year state representative Jonathan Shell, who was in the Republican leadership, stunningly lost in the GOP primary to a teacher who campaigned against changes to the state’s pension system. But Bevin isn’t likely to be totally caught off-guard by Goforth. The governor’s re-election arm has started running ads touting Bevin’s record and alliance with President Trump. These ads don’t mention Goforth, but “Primary Election May 21” flashes across the screen at one point. This approach allows Bevin to avoid engaging Goforth directly, but also could both remind pro-Bevin Republicans to turn out for the May primary. A group called Putting Kentuckians First that is affiliated with the Republican Governors Association is running pro-Bevin ads on radio ahead of the primary, another potential boost for the governor. Goforth may not win, but the big question is how much does he lose by. According to the polling firm Morning Consult, about 37 percent of Republicans in Kentucky disapprove of Bevin, with 19 percent saying that they strongly disapprove of the governor. (Fifty-two percent approve of him.) A December Mason-Dixon survey found that 63 percent of Kentucky Republicans approve of the governor, compared to 30 percent who disapprove. That’s a lot of potential voters for Goforth. It’s likely that some Goforth primary voters will back Bevin in the general election: he will be the only GOP candidate in November. That said if a quarter or a third of Republicans back Goforth, that suggests a sizable bloc of Republicans who are turned off by Bevin and might back the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in the general election. To conclude, Bevin is vulnerable because the majority of Democrats (72 percent, per Mason-Dixon) and a plurality of independents (50 percent) disapprove of him. Bevin has annoyed some prominent Republicans in the statehouse. May 21 will be a good test for how much Bevin has turned off rank and file Republicans — the people he needs most to win a second term.   Source: https://insiderlouisville.com/government/news-analysis-how-worried-should-matt-bevin-be-about-the-republican-primary/

By Steven Ertelt | APR 29, 2019 Last month, Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin signed a second pro-life bill into law to protect unborn babies who are targeted because of their sex, race or a disability such as Down syndrome. But there was no ceremonial bill signing ceremony to commemorate it becoming law. Today, that important pro-life law got the public attention it deserves. The law passed the state Senate by an overwhelming majority; it passed the state House in February. It prohibits abortionists from aborting unborn babies if the sole reason is because of the unborn baby’s gender, race or disability. Abortionists who violate the measure could have their licenses revoked and face felony charges. The law took effect immediately after Bevin signed it but the American Civil Liberties Union and EMW Women’s Center, the only abortion facility in Kentucky, already have filed a lawsuit to block the law. “This is a historic day for Kentuckians and the pro-life movement,” said Bevin. “We are blessed to live in a state where legislators across the political spectrum have definitively said that denying a child the opportunity to live based solely on their skin color, gender or perceived disability is unacceptable. We will continue standing up unapologetically for life — the taking of innocent life in America must come to an end.” Responding to the lawsuit, Bevin’s legal team said the ACLU is arguing in favor of discrimination and eugenics. “EMW and its abortionists have responded with a novel claim: Women have a constitutional right to undergo race-based abortions, gender-based abortions, and disability-based abortions,” they said. “In (the) plaintiffs’ view, somewhere in the Fourteenth Amendment’s penumbra lies a secret protection of eugenics.” Bevin also criticized the ACLU for its eagerness to defend abortion by filing a lawsuit before the bill even became law. He encouraged the legal group to watch an old “Schoolhouse Rock” video that explains how bills become law. “People that are supposedly defending the civic rights of people in this country nonetheless think it’s appropriate that you can kill a child based on its race or kill a child based on its gender,” Bevin wrote on Twitter. “The people in Kentucky … fortunately don’t agree with that.” The ACLU, however, called the law a “thinly veiled effort” to ban abortions. “The passage of House Bill 5 represents a thinly veiled effort of the Kentucky General Assembly to advance their anti-abortion agenda under the guise of an anti-discrimination bill. This law will do nothing to improve the lives of Kentuckians with disabilities,” said staff attorney at the Kentucky ACLU Heather Gatnarek, according to Cincinnati Public Radio. Bevin also signed a law to prohibit abortions after an unborn baby’s heartbeat is detectable. A judge quickly blocked it upon the request of the ACLU. Pro-life lawmakers argued that women do not need to abort an unborn baby simply because she is a girl or because he or she has Down syndrome. In February, state Rep. Melinda Gibbons Prunty, the sponsor of the bill, said abortion has become a modern method of eugenics, WKYU FM reports. “Demanding the right to extinguish or eliminate the life of an unborn child because of their gender, race or possible physical or mental disability is reminiscent of the evil social philosophy of eugenics,” Gibbons Prunty said. Right now, pro-lifers are watching the U.S. Supreme Court closely as it considers a similar Indiana law that bans discriminatory abortions based on an unborn baby’s race, sex or disability. One of the groups supporting the Indiana law, the American Center for Law and Justice, urged the high court to hear the case on behalf of 44 families of children with disabilities. “Indiana’s law protects children like theirs and recognizes that unborn children deserve protection from invidious discrimination,” the legal group wrote in its brief. “Though many of these families ultimately lost their children, these parents do not consider that to have diminished the importance of the children’s lives.” Describing the law as a ban on eugenic abortions, ACLJ pointed out that many vulnerable parents are pressured into the “irreversible decision” to abort unborn babies with disabilities. Unborn babies with Down syndrome and other disabilities are discriminated against at alarming rates. Parents frequently report feeling pressured to abort them by doctors and genetic counselors. The rate of unborn babies who are aborted after a Down syndrome diagnosis is about 67 percent in the U.S., according to CBS News. Some put the rate as high as 90 percent, but it is difficult to determine the exact number because the government does not keep detailed statistics about abortion. Indiana was the second state to establish a safeguard to protect unborn children with Down syndrome and other disabilities. Eight states also prohibit sex-selection abortions prior to viability.   Source: https://www.lifenews.com/2019/04/29/kentucky-gov-matt-bevin-signs-bill-to-ban-abortions-on-babies-with-down-syndrome-2/