Donald Trump’s victory was a wrecking ball to the Democratic Party, but a boon to Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear.
Had Kamala Harris been elected, Beshear’s presidential ambitions would have been deferred beyond 2028 — not a good thing for a governor whose term ends in December 2027. The national shelf life of a Democratic ex-governor in a Republican state isn’t very long.
Now, Beshear is among his party’s leading prospects for president in 2028, when Trump cannot run again. And there will be no Democratic president trying to persuade him to run in 2026 for the Senate, a place not suited to his executive personality. He has pledged to serve out his term.
Some Kentucky pros remain skeptical of Beshear’s presidential chances. Democratic consultant Jared Smith told me, “I just don’t know if he has the stature to lead the top of the ticket nationally because we have to get the blue wall back,” meaning Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, which Trump took back this month.
But familiarity can breed contempt. Former U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, a Louisville Democrat with good national connections, said Beshear is now “on every list” for president — because he was on Harris’s short list for vice president, campaigned for her and headlined Democratic events around the country, some for the political action committee he formed almost a year ago.
“He made a huge impression during the campaign,” Yarmuth said. “Seems to me that while Andy is popular here, he is regarded in an even more impressive way around the country.”
Sizing up Beshear’s potential opposition, the liberal Yarmuth said Govs. Gavin Newsom and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania are too “coastal,” and while Transportation Secretary Pete Buttegeig has superb political skills, Yarmuth said the country is a generation away from putting a same-sex couple in the White House.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is well positioned to retake the blue wall, but her gender left her out of Harris’s running-mate selection process, and her campaign work was largely limited to her own state. Meanwhile, Beshear was building his stature. His profile is one of four featured on the Democratic Governors Association website, and he did a post-election piece for The New York Times.
Beshear’s next stature-building opportunity could be the Democratic National Committee’s election of a new chair to replace Jamie Harrison, who says he will step down. In 1972, after George McGovern lost 49 states, his DNC chairwoman wanted to stay, but governors led by Kentucky’s Wendell Ford got her ousted in favor of Robert Strauss, who became one of Ford’s biggest friends and assets when he went to the Senate.
“Beshear has got tremendous potential. …That’s one avenue he could focus on,” said Paul Patton, governor in 1995-2003, who headed the Southern, Democratic and national governors’ associations.
Beshear has strength on the DNC through Kentucky member Jack Dulworth of Louisville, who is on the group’s executive, budget and finance committees. The executive group meets Dec. 13, and the full committee is likely to meet in January. Dulworth said election of a new chair “is going to be very important because it’s going to be about direct communication to our base,” and “a moderate” is needed to help win back voters who abandoned the party this month. But don’t look for Beshear to seek the job, a place more to make enemies than friends.
Dulworth and other Democrats expect to regain traction as Trump implements perhaps the most radical agenda of any president since Franklin D. Roosevelt. That, and the Democratic leadership vacuum, could play into Beshear’s hands, especially if Trump appointees play fools with basic public-health policy. Beshear solidified his popularity in Kentucky by following experts’ advice during the pandemic.
Beshear has taken advantage when Republicans have gone too far. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, invoking a near-total ban on abortion in Kentucky, he became the first Democrat to win a major election by running on abortion — emphasizing the need for exceptions to the ban but rarely mentioning he favored restoration of Roe.
One Beshear vulnerability could be his overridden veto of a bill banning transgender females from girls’ sports. This year, Republicans used the sports issue and the ability of federal prisoners to get free gender-transition surgeries (a Trump policy), to cast Harris and other Democrats as outside the mainstream — and they didn’t seem to realize the damage it was doing to them.
Andy Beshear is not that sort of Democrat. He’s been elected three times in a Trump state, the first time as attorney general when Trump was leading Republican polls.
Beshear knows the types of voters his party needs to get back, and how to talk gently about his faith in a way that can resonate with millions of Americans, as another Southern governor did 50 years ago. His name was Jimmy Carter.
This column is republished from the Northern Kentucky Tribune, a nonprofit publication of the Kentucky Center for Public Service Journalism.
Al Cross is professor emeritus of journalism at the University of Kentucky. He was the longest-serving political writer for the Louisville Courier Journal (1989-2004) and national president of the Society of Professional Journalists in 2001-02. He joined the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame in 2010. The NKyTribune is the home for his commentary which is also offered to other publications.
