Thoughts in the Aftermath of the Virginia, Kentucky and Mississippi elections
It looks as if many in the suburbs have had it with the Donald J. Trump Republican Party. It also appears that Democrats are not much closer to winning back rural and small town white ex-Democratic voters in the South.
In Kentucky, moderate Democrat Andy Beshear won because the state’s urban centers of Louisville and Lexington and the Cincinnati, Louisville and Lexington suburbs turned out and mostly voted for him. The big changes in voting were in the suburbs where Matt Bevin’s tone and policies on education, teachers and also on health care (Medicaid expansion, women’s reproductive rights and the state’s successful exchange) cost him with suburban women. Kentucky is a very poor state with poor health status; under Governor Beshear (father of the Governor elect) Kentucky made phenomenal progress in reducing its uninsured rate and improving health status in poor rural communities; Governor Bevin in partnership with the Trump Administration sought to undo the state’s progress in insuring its citizens. Governor Bevin’s margins in rural Kentucky may have suffered as a result. Kentucky for some time has been a very reliable Republican voting state in national elections even though it has had a majority Democratic registration. Donald Trump won Kentucky with a 30% margin in 2016.
Matt Bevin won the Governorship by 10 points in 2015 in a year when Republicans swept to power in statewide offices and both houses of the state legislature, cementing Republican control of Kentucky. In 2019, they kept all the statewide offices, other than the Governorship. The eastern, southern and western parts of the state outside the cities voted for Bevin. There was not a blue tsunami in Kentucky; there was a revulsion with Bevin, who was Trump before Trump. Beshear’s winning messages were on education and health care, and he was aided by the teachers enraged by Governor Bevin. In other words, if the election in 2020 is all about Trump and his abusive and intemperate rhetoric and his chaotic and erratic decision-making and his efforts to take away health care for Kentuckians, he might lose the state for the GOP. On the other hand, if it’s about the most progressive policies endorsed by Sanders and Warren such as the large tax increases needed to fund Medicare for All, the Democrats readily lose Kentucky.
In Virginia, Democrats took control of both Houses of the state’s legislature. According to the Wall Street Journal “Democrats picked up two seats in the Senate for a one-seat majority over Republicans, according to the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project. Gains in the House give Democrats a 55 to 45 advantage, building on their 15-seat pickup in that chamber during the 2017 election.” This will allow the Commonwealth of Virginia to fully adopt the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act.
The gains were abetted by a court ruling that dismantled the Republican gerrymander, by the GOP’s legislative unwillingness to address gun control after the Virginia Beach shootings. The Democrats won in the Norfolk/Newport News/Virginia Beach region, the DC suburbs, the Richmond area and the college towns like Charlottesville, Blacksburg and Roanoke. Virginia is a state in the process of switching and evolving from solid red to purple to blue. Trump revulsion was at play in GOP losses in the 2018 Congressional and again in the 2019 state legislative elections.
In Mississippi, the GOP won the Governor’s race by 6 points. By comparison, Trump won the state by 18 points in 2016. The western part of the state voted for the moderate Democratic candidate, Jim Hood. The largest city, Jackson and surrounding Hinds County voted overwhelmingly for Hood. The southern, central and eastern portions voted overwhelmingly for the Republican candidate Tate Reeves. https://www.politico.com/election-results/2019/mississippi/ State voting patterns are dominated by race; Mississippi whites began to vote strongly for the GOP in the 1990’s while African Americans (37% of the state’s population) continued to vote Democratic. Mississippians who have a very high rate of poverty, and very poor health status are voting against their own best self interests in electing a Governor who rejects Medicaid expansion and rejecting the candidate who supports the Medicaid expansion that could be so beneficial to so many of their state’s citizens and health care providers.
Interestingly Mississippi and Kentucky, which are both very poor states compared to the national averages, were in the top 5 in reliance on federal aid for support of their state’s budget. (https://taxfoundation.org/federal-aid-reliance-rankings/) In the 80’s many poor Southern and Appalachian states like Mississippi or West Virginia were aggressive and highly strategic in seeking and securing federal assistance to help their state’s citizens. Now the poorest Southern states like Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee have taken the opposite tack; it is not clear what accounts for the change of direction, but the difference in improving health coverage with the Medicaid expansion is salient between Kentucky and West Virginia, Arkansas and Louisiana who do so vs. Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi who do not. See https://www.americashealthrankings.org/learn/reports/2018-annual-report/state-summaries-mississippi and https://www.americashealthrankings.org/learn/reports/2018-annual-report/state-summaries-kentucky
Prepared by: Lucien Wulsin
Dated: 11/7/19