Mason-Dixon is the first pollster to release numbers for next year’s contest for governor in Kentucky, and they have some unwelcome news for GOP incumbent Matt Bevin. The governor posts an ugly 38-53 approval rating, a big drop from his (already meh) 45-41 score Mason-Dixon found a year ago. Morning Consult likewise gave Bevin an awful 30-55 rating during the third quarter of 2018.
Mason-Dixon also tests Bevin against three prospective Democratic opponents. Attorney General Andy Beshear posts the strongest numbers, with a 48-40 lead over the incumbent, while state House Minority Leader Rocky Adkins edges Bevin 42-41. However, Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes trails the governor by a narrow 47-46. Beshear and Adkins have already announced that they’re competing in the May primary, while Grimes hasn’t announced her plans yet; the filing deadline is Jan. 29.
Kentucky is a very conservative state, but Bevin has excelled at making enemies. Most notably, teachers in over two dozen schools went on strike in the spring after the GOP-run legislature passed a bill changing their pension system. The walkout ended weeks later after the legislature overrode Bevin’s vetoes and passing a separate budget bill that included new money for education.
Bevin reacted poorly to the whole episode, particularly the strike. “I guarantee you somewhere in Kentucky today a child was sexually assaulted that was left at home because there was nobody there to watch them,” he ranted. “I guarantee you somewhere today a child was physically harmed or ingested poison because they were home alone because a single parent didn't have any money to take care of them.”
Bevin was widely condemned even by fellow Republicans, and he soon issued a classic no-pology thanking “those of you who understood what I was saying,” while saying he was sorry only to the “tremendous number of people did not fully appreciate what I was communicating or what I was trying to say.”
While Bevin’s comments and attempted cleanup were bad enough, the underlying issue remains an ongoing problem for him.
Last week, the Kentucky Supreme Court struck down the pension law that led to the strike, ruling that it was rushed through so quickly that it violated the state constitution’s requirement that legislators to have a “fair opportunity” to consider bills before they need to vote on them.
The development was good news both for the teachers’ unions and for Beshear, who sued to overturn the law. In response, Bevin called a surprise special legislative session to pass a new pension bill. However, Republican leaders in the legislature have so far refused to even promise to produce new legislation.
Despite all of Bevin’s continuing woes, he’s still far from finished with almost 11 months to go before Election Day in this very red state. For starters, while Bevin has been in the hot seat for three years, his Democratic foes haven’t been exposed to many GOP attacks yet, something that will certainly change once the primary is over.
Wary Democrats will also remember that back in 2015, Bevin pulled off a 53-44 win against Democrat Jack Conway even though Bevin had trailed in almost every poll; even a Bevin internal taken in mid-October had Conway ahead 44-41. There’s of course no guarantee that the governor will defy the polls again in 2019, but it’s a good reason for Democrats to be cautious about this contest. It’s also worth noting that this Mason-Dixon poll gives Donald Trump just a 46-37 favorable rating in Kentucky, a state he carried 63-33, so it’s possible their sample isn’t conservative enough.