I don’t know if Beshear or Cameron is going to win. Neither does anyone else.
Andy Beshear won by 0.4 percent over then-Gov. Matt Bevin in 2019. It was an extremely close race. While in office, Beshear has had high approval ratings. But Kentucky’s voters are very Republican-leaning.
So that makes it unlikely either Beshear or Cameron will get above 55 percent of the vote or below 45, barring some major scandal. I suspect polls will show a fairly close race throughout the summer and fall. And when the polls are close, you can’t rely on them to predict the winner.
So unless I see several polls where either Beshear or Cameron is leading by double-digits, I will assume that we don’t know who’s going to win.
And that’s okay! That means we can focus less on predicting the race and more on understanding it. There is a big bloc of swing voters in this race—the people who supported Beshear over Bevin in 2019 and opposed last year’s anti-abortion ballot measure but also have voted for Rand Paul, Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump in the last few elections. You might know one of these people. They will really matter.
If Beshear wins, Kentucky will remain a state that enacts conservative policy the first few months of each year when the legislature meets but not otherwise. The big questions are what happens if Cameron wins.
Would he push the legislature in an even more conservative direction, in the manner of Republican governors in other states, most notably Ron DeSantis of Florida? In particular, would he push the state’s public colleges to the right in the way that DeSantis has?
Would he try to impose his will on the state’s liberal areas, particularly Louisville and Lexington, the way that DeSantis and other Republican governors have? Bevin took an initial move in this direction. Bevin-allied Education Commissioner Wayne Lewis became deeply involved in Louisville’s school system to the frustration of officials in the city.
What is his vision for education and policing, the two issues where the state’s Democrats and Republicans arguably disagree the most?
Being black probably helps Cameron
I expected Cameron to win the primary because he is a well-known Louisville figure. I did not expect him to easily defeat Ryan Quarles in the state’s more rural counties, which I assumed would be a natural base for Quarles, the longtime agriculture commissioner.
But Cameron’s overwhelming victory in the Republican primary (he was at 48 percent, Quarles at 22 percent, Kelly Craft at 17 percent) offers fairly strong evidence that being black didn’t hurt Cameron with Republican voters, who are sometimes cast as racist.
It’s important to underscore that a black Republican candidate and a black Democratic candidate aren’t facing the same racial dynamics. The stereotype of the Democratic Party is that it cares about the poor, minority groups and others who often face disadvantages—and perhaps goes too far in that direction. Also, there is research suggesting that black politicians are perceived as more liberal than they actually are (since black people are overwhelmingly Democrats.) So a black candidate in some ways reinforces the Democrats’ electoral problems (seeming too friendly to minorities and the poor.) A candidate who is black and a Democrat may be perceived by some swing voters as too liberal no matter what the candidate says or proposes.
The danger for Cameron in the Republican primary was being perceived as more liberal than the other Republican candidates because he is black. That’s why his endorsement from former President Trump was so important. That was conservative validation.
For a general election, Cameron’s race may be an asset in two ways. First, I suspect a lot of white stalwart Republican voters will be very excited to vote for Cameron as a demonstration that they and their party are inclusive. (This is not just a Republican dynamic. White Democrats have used “I voted for Obama’ as a signal about their virtues on racial issues so often that it has become a joke.)
Secondly, the Republican Party’s biggest baggage is that it’s perceived as not going far enough in helping the poor, minority groups and others who are often disadvantaged —and perhaps being outright racist, sexist and homophobic. But black politicians are perceived as more liberal and black people generally are not cast as racist. So it’s likely that some swing/moderate voters will be more open to Cameron than they would another candidate who was strongly backed by Trump.
We should have a smart discussion about race in this campaign.
I’m speaking entirely about perceptions here. In reality, America desperately needs more education and a deeper understanding of race and racism. It is entirely possible that a black person in power makes policies or decisions that hurt individual black people or don’t align with the broader black community’s interests. That person may not be racist (if that term is defined as hating people simply because of the color of their skin) but their decisions might be (if that term is defined as taking actions that negatively affect people of a particular race in particular.) Think for example about the black police officers in Memphis who killed Tyre Nichols and participate in very aggressive tactics that disproportionately target black people.
In this race, it will be important to discuss Cameron’s views on policing issues, such as Breonna Taylor’s killing. Based on Cameron’s endorsements and stands as attorney general, I would argue that the most anti-racist candidate and the one with the best policy vision for black Kentuckians is Beshear. And that’s not a particularly close call.
It’s certainly worth watching whether A. a sizable bloc of black Democrats cross over to back Cameron in part because of racial solidarity and/or B. a sizable bloc of white Republicans back Beshear because of some anti-black sentiments. But I strongly suspect that neither will happen.
This will be a big win for someone
If Beshear is able to win again in this deeply-red state, he should certainly vault ahead of, say, a person (Pete Buttigieg) who has only been elected mayor of South Bend, Ind. (population 103,000) in the speculation about who will be the next Democratic presidential nominee.
Cameron would be only the fourth black person ever elected governor of a state in United States history and the first Republican.