Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Department

Political Science

Additional Departmental Affiliation

History

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

Democrat Andy Beshear won his first election as governor of Kentucky in 2019, surprising many by defeating an incumbent Republican governor in a GOP-dominated state and a state that Donald Trump had won handedly in 2016. While Democrats had historically been the dominant party in the commonwealth, by the time of Beshear’s 2019 gubernatorial campaign, that was no longer the case. Beshear’s ability to not only win again but to win by a larger margin against a Trump-backed candidate in 2023 begs two questions: how did Beshear win, and is his success replicable for future Democrats?

Following a discussion of previous electoral history and a comparative analysis of Beshear’s elections to each other and to adjacent presidential elections, five factors that create Democratic win conditions are identified through analysis of election data, voter registration statistics, and more. These five factors create a framework that give Democrats an opportunity to win again in the state, but that framework will be difficult to follow given increasing Republican dominance in the commonwealth. Using Beshear’s elections as case studies, these five factors will become clear and emphasize the importance of Democratic popularity, Republican unpopularity, running on issues that give Democrats an advantage, capitalizing on national trends, and activating ancestral partisans to support Democrats across the state.

Advisor(s) or Committee Chair

Scott Lasley, Ph.D.

Disciplines

History | Political Science

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