Abortion Rights Take Center Stage in Kentucky Governor’s Contest

On Tuesday, voters in two states, Kentucky and Mississippi, will go to the polls to choose their governor, with Kentucky’s election being the most competitive of the two.While off-year elections tend to get less attention than midterm or presidential elections, no gubernatorial race this year has attracted as much attention as Kentucky’s, where Governor Beshear is facing off against Attorney General Daniel Cameron.Mr. Beshear has hung his campaign on his record as a popular Democratic governor in a state where Republicans typically prevail statewide and on the issue of abortion rights, which has proved to be a winner for Democrats even in typically red states like Kentucky.According to a Morning Consult survey, Mr. Beshear is the most popular Democratic governor of a red state, with a 60 percent approval rating overall and 41 percent among voters who supported President Trump in 2020 in the state.On abortion, Mr. Beshear has relentlessly criticized Mr. Cameron for his support for restrictions. Mr. Cameron’s office has touted its efforts to force abortion providers to close.“The same day as the Dobbs ruling, General Cameron’s decisive actions led to Kentucky’s two abortion clinics immediately closing their doors and canceling approximately 200 scheduled abortions,” a statement from Mr. Cameron’s office reads.Mr. Beshear has also attacked Mr. Cameron on the debate stage over his support for Kentucky’s current abortion ban, which has no exceptions for rape or incest, saying at a forum hosted by WKYT that Mr. Cameron “cannot and he will not look into the camera and tell girls like Hadley that they deserve exceptions and he will support them.”Hadley Duvall is a 21-year-old woman who has appeared in a series of ads from Mr. Beshear’s campaign in which she describes her trauma due to being raped by her stepfather.“These are little kids that he would force to carry the baby of their rapist,” Mr. Beshear said. “That is wrong, that’s extreme, and that’s not who we are as Kentuckians.”Mr. Cameron has since said that he would sign a bill into law that would create exceptions for rape and incest in Kentucky’s abortion ban.Mr. Cameron’s campaign has focused on a different slate of issues, criticizing Mr. Beshear for his policies during the Covid pandemic and saying that he would have worked to end Covid-era restrictions faster than was the case with Mr. Beshear.Adjacent to the attacks on Kentucky’s pandemic policies, Mr. Beshear has campaigned on “catching up kids from the shutdown” and improving Kentucky’s public schools.“Andy Beshear shut you down for two years. Your kids are behind on learning — reading, science and math,” Mr. Cameron said at the debate. “This governor, because of pride, won’t tell you that he has regrets.”Mr. Cameron has refused to say whether he supports a school voucher system, which is banned under Kentucky’s constitution but has been enacted by Republican administrations in states like Florida.In the polls, Mr. Beshear has been the favorite throughout the race, even in Republican-sponsored polls, like an October survey from co/efficient showing him leading Mr. Cameron by 47 percent to 45 percent.After Kentucky, the second most competitive gubernatorial competition this year is in Mississippi, where the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Brandon Presley, is aiming to unseat Governor Reeves.Mr. Presley, who is a relative of a rock and roll icon, Elvis Presley, has focused his campaign on opposition to Mr. Reeves and getting the state’s large Black population to vote.Black voters make up a larger proportion of the population in Mississippi than any other state — 38 percent — and most of them disapprove of Mr. Reeves.More Black voters are also expected to show up at the polls this year after the Fifth Circuit struck down an 1890 law that disproportionately disenfranchised Black voters convicted of certain felonies. According to the Sentencing Project, Mississippi had the highest rate of voter disenfranchisement of any state in America, at 11 percent. This year’s election will be the first test of the effect the court’s ruling will have on elections there.

Abortion Rights Take Center Stage in Kentucky Governor’s Contest

Abortion Rights Take Center Stage in Kentucky Governor’s Contest

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