Americans will need to wait 15 months before the presidential election, but three states are holding elections for governor this year, November 2023.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, will be facing re-election this year.
The closely watched race could provide insight into voter sentiment heading ahead of the 2024 elections to determine control of the White House and Congress.
Kentucky has voted for the GOP’s presidential candidate in every election since the year 2000. 62 percent of the electorate voted for former President Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020.
However, the state looks more surprising in off-year elections. In 2015, the Bluegrass State elected a new attorney general, and it chose a Democrat to succeed another, term-limited Democrat. It elected a Republican governor on the same ticket that year.
Pollsters aren’t usually paying very close attention at this stage in a state-level race… but, between May 22 and 23, pollsters at Cygnal surveyed 600 registered voters via text message.
They described the race as a nail-biter.
Beshear would win 46.8 percent of the vote in a hypothetical election held today… and Attorney General Daniel Cameron, the Republican challenger, would win 46.7 percent.
Pollsters surveyed such a small sample that they estimated the margin of error at more than 3 percent.
It’s anybody’s race.
Amid the governor’s race, Cameron has declined to run for re-election as attorney general. In so doing, he’s opened that race, too. More than a third of registered voters remained undecided as of May, according to the poll.
Beshear, the first-term governor, is already running ads mirroring President Joe Biden’s statements about low unemployment.
The governor’s campaign has rolled out a TV ad featuring a Republican business owner praising his record as “great for business.” The businessman says he opposed Beshear four years ago, when he unseated Republican incumbent Matt Bevin, but now supports the Democratic governor.
Cameron and other Republicans say the governor routinely takes credit for pro-growth policies championed by the GOP-dominated legislature. Looking to counter Beshear’s rosy economic message, they have pointed to the state’s sluggish rate of workforce participation, which has left some businesses struggling to find enough employees.
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article.