In this issue, I will look at an interesting politician in an interesting state, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear.  If you know anything about politics, you would know that Kentucky is a very conservative state and home to Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell. This makes Governor Beshear interesting because he is a Democrat. He was elected in 2019, beating the incumbent Republican governor Matt Bevin with  49.2% of the vote against Bevin’s 48.8%. For some context, Trump won 62% of the vote in Kentucky in both the 2016 and 2020 elections. So this means 12%, or a higher proportion of people that voted for Trump, also voted for Governor Beshear. This is partly because the Republican governor at the time was very unpopular and angered the teacher unions, which is never a smart idea if you are a politician. Beshaer, though, is part of a political family in Kentucky, and his father used to be a Democratic governor in the state from 2007-2015. So people in the state knew Beshear and the family; he was not new to politics in the state. 

Beshaer has done a hard thing by getting elected in a very conservative state and has been able to get more moderate people and Republicans to vote for him even though he is a Democrat. He is the Democratic governor with the highest approval rating, and has been able to stay popular in a very Republican state while still trying to pass liberal bills: he has been a big defender of abortion in the state and he has vetoed all abortion bans that the legislature has proposed during his tenure as governor. With the Dobbs decision coming this past summer which leaves abortion legislation up to the states, Beshear has been doing his best to defend these  rights in Kentucky. He has also been fighting to put policies in place to combat climate change like trying to create more green jobs to make up for the coal jobs that Kentucky is losing as the US moves away from coal. He also supports same sex marriage and does not think that the federal government has any place in telling people who they can and cannot love. 

Beshaer has made his way into the news with the most recent mass shooting that killed five and injured eight at a Louisville bank.  The shooter used an AR-15 and died in a shootout with police. Beshear gave a statement after the shooting, voice shaking, saying that two of his close friends died in the shooting and one was in the hospital. He used to say that he does not believe in an assault weapon ban but he does believe in strong red flagging bills to try to keep guns from getting in the hands of shooters. I am interested to see if that policy stance stays the same after this shooting that happened at the bank in Louisville. 

I am also covering him because he is a young hot shot in the Democratic party, and if Joe Biden does not run in 2024, some people think that there is a good chance that he will run. He has a wide appeal among ideological and party lines, and some Democrats think that he can put southern states like North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida back in play for the presidential election.