Issue #139: In The Coal Fields - Andy Beshear Wins and Joe Manchin Retires
Good and bad news for Democrats
On Tuesday, I published a substack looking at the dynamics surrounding the Kentucky Governor’s race. In it, I examined if Andy Beshear, the state’s democratic governor, would be able to secure re-election. Read that here for the background.
For Beshear, the battle was between his personal popularity and an electorate that has grown increasingly Republican. Well, on Tuesday, Beshear secured re-election by just over 5 points!
I want to look at that victory quickly, and then discuss the news around Joe Manchin retiring from the West Virginia Senate seat. Both states share a border and are well known for their ties to Appalachia and coal fields.
This newsletter will be quicker, offering some initial thoughts on both states. I plan more in-depth looks at the Kentucky Governor results once I finish up some precinct maps. I also plan to do a West Virginia respective as well.
The Beshear win in Kentucky
As I discussed in Tuesday’s newsletter - Beshear was in a tough spot heading into re-election. While popular, Beshear leads a state that has long-abandoned federal Democrats, but has increasingly abandoned local Republicans as well. In 2019, Beshear won his post by just 5000 votes despite Governor Matt Bevin having an approval in the 30s. For Bevin, his GOP ties was almost enough to save him.
Each cycle has led to the Democratic caucus in the legislature shrink, as well as the scores of local elected Democrats. Beshear, the son of former Governor Steve Beshear, was facing his own Attorney General, Daniel Cameron. While Beshear led in money, he still had close polling and both sides believed his early polling leads had begun to shrunk.
Well, as the results began coming in on election night, it seemed early on that Beshear was looking to be in decent shape. Rural counties did not show Cameron making major ground from 2019. Once major population centers like Lexington showed Beshear gaining even more support there, it was clear the Governor would be re-elected. When all was said and done, Beshear won re-election by a 5 point margin.
The results show Beshear gain ground in most counties, including suburbs and in the rural coal counties. Beshear made MASSIVE gains in the eastern coal counties that suffered catastrophic flooding in 2022. Locals hailed the Governor’s handling and visibility in the situation, and it is widely credited with that major spike in support.
Beshear not only improved across most counties in terms of %, he also increased his raw vote margins in many counties. In this map, blue counties indicated Beshear made a NET GAIN of raw votes compared to 2019 (for example - going from winning by 500 votes to 530 votes, or to go from losing by 500 to only by 450 votes). Red means his raw vote margin got worse. Note, turnout dynamics mean that even if a county swung in terms of %, it would not always equal the same swing in raw vote margin.
In 2019, Beshear had netted 99,000 out of Jefferson County, home of Louisville, and 36,000 out of Fayette County, home of Lexington. For Beshear, the goal was to increase those margins if possible, or at least hold then. Any rural losses (which turned out did not come as expected) would need to be offset. If turnout was too low in the cities, that raw vote margin might not be there. Well as the above map shows, Beshear netted 4,100 additional NET votes from Louisville, and an astonishing 8,200 additional votes out if Lexington. These urban and suburban net gains would have offset any foreseen losses in the coal fields
But as stated, those rural losses did not happen at the level expected. Beshear gaining ground in the east, an area that has long seen Democratic support slide, is stunningly good. Of course I had to start there as I began creating the precinct map.
The first precinct map I did was for Pike County, which sits at the far-east end of the state. This 80% Trump county didn’t vote for Beshear, but his 9 point loss there was an improvement from 2019.
I wrote about the politics of Pike County in my 2023 Halloween Article, which looked at the 2022 red wave that hit the county. Last year, Pike ousted several local democratic officials and elected an entirely-GOP county commission. That historic wave makes Beshear improving in the county all the more impressive.
Had Beshear done worse in the rural counties, he would have then benefitted from weakened turnout. The eastern counties specifically saw a notable drop in votes cast compared to 2019. While the state overall saw 8% fewer votes cast, it topped over 20% in several eastern coal counties.
The coal counties of the east having a vote drop is not shocking, as much of their registrations are stagnant or down as well. Thee counties, many very poor due to the loss of coal jobs, are seeing populations move out or die off.
On the reverse side, the only modest drops within the major city centers, and the fact that Beshear still improved his raw vote margin there, is especially impressive. Also a note on Monroe County’s massive gains (which granted was from 3300 votes in 2019 to 4000 now) - the big driver there was a Wet/Dry referendum on alcohol.
And finally, as I talked about in Tuesday’s newsletter, Beshear made abortion rights a notable piece of his campaign messaging. So how did Beshear do compared to the 2022 amendment vote? See below. Remember, NO was the pro-choice side. Go here for my newsletter on the 2022 abortion campaign.
Beshear remained much stronger in the western and eastern coal fields, but the pro-choice position remained more popular in the suburbs. There were still plenty of pro-choice counties willing to vote Cameron, while many pro-life counties still backed Beshear. This still may shock many readers, but this kind of contradiction is classic with voters.
That was a brief(?) rundown of the Kentucky Governor race. As I said I plan much more to delve into with it once I get some precinct maps and more research done.
Manchin’s Retirement in West Virginia
In the other big news out of the coal fields (and the entire country) conservative Democratic Senator Joe Manchin has decided to retire next year. This means a guaranteed pickup for the GOP when it comes to his Senate seat. The state voted for Donald Trump with 68% of the vote in 2020.
Once a steadfast Democratic bastion, similar to other coal-producing regions, West Virginia has rapidly shifted to the right. In 2020, it voted 43 points to the right of the nation.
Manchin has had a long career in West Virginia politics. I covered all his races when I wrote about him in 2019 - as we waited to hear if he would make a move to run for Governor in 2020. Manchin would not make that jump, but his career retrospective is a good way to examine how the state’s politics changed.
You can read the Manchin Electoral History Here!
Manchin’s last re-election was very close, a 3% plurality in what was blue midterm under the Trump presidency. Manchin was never so close to a general election loss.
Since then, the situation for Democrats in the state has only gotten worse. Back in 2018, Democrats still led in voter registration. However, by 2021, Republicans finally took the lead. They have not lost it since.
Even when Democrats led in registration, a large number of them were conservatives that would often cast protest votes in federal primaries. These were your type of coal democrats who came out to vote for the local sheriff but disdained the Democrats running for President or other federal offices. In 2020, we could see this when 14% of Democratic primary ballots were simply left blank.
The reason for the large blank ballots is many democrats were showing up for their local primaries. Mingo County Democrats wanted to vote for their Democratic sheriff, but saw both Sanders and Biden as environmentalist socialists, and hence left that race blank. These Democrats already planned to vote for Trump in the general. Heck many of did vote for a candidate still had that in mind.
I covered more on protest votes in these articles. Manchin also saw a protest vote in his 2018 Primary
Primaries aside, the situation for West Virginia Democrats in general elections was getting worse and worse.
In 2020, the longtime State Treasurer, John Perdue, lost his re-election by 13 points. While he far outperformed Biden, it was not enough.
Perdue’s loss made Manchin the last statewide Democrat in the state. Democratic efforts to win back the Governorship that same day fell flat badly. Governor Jim Justice easily won, and has filed to run for the Senate race against Manchin. The two have no love for each-other, which I detailed in my Manchin retrospective.
Manchin’s retirement will guarantee a Republican pickup. That said, Manchin was already an underdog to win. Against Justice, Manchin trailed badly in the polls. His lone hope was to face AG Morrisey again, who was weaker in those polls. That said, the path for a Manchin victory was slim. Perhaps the biggest issue is Manchin not going down righting allows the Republican Party to divert money into other states.
As I said, I intend to delve even more into the last few years of West Virginia politics later in this cycle.
In the meantime, back to working on more Kentucky items!