Kentucky 2015 - Predictions and Results Thread

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Pike County is now 100% in, going for Conway 54.1-42. Good news?

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Owen County now says 100%, with Conway winning 49-44. Is that real?

Edit: It's not. They really need to stop making these mistakes.

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The Pike County thing was apparently a misprint, but now Owen County is all in, and Conway won it by 5%. I thought Bevin would win Owen.

Nope, Owen was a misprint as well.

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Pike County went 74% for Romney in 2012.  It's comparing apples to oranges but still...

Speaking of which, what's the best comparison for this race? I've been comparing it to the 2011 gubernatorial election.

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I think it's way too early to write either candidate's political obituary at this point.

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Congrats Governor Bevin

Bevin isn't someone who deserves "congratulations."

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Bevin will probably be another Brownback that hangs on at re-election thanks to it being in an off-year.

At least he'll lose to Patrick Murphy in the 2028 Presidential race.

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If it helps the Democrats here any, the new mayor of Indianapolis is a Democrat, Joe Hogsett.

Yeah,  the Democrats are doing really well in the NJ legislature as well.

It really seems like Country = Republicans and Cities = Democrats is becoming all too true across the country.

Indian reservations are a pretty big exception, as well as right along the Mexican border and the Black Belt, but otherwise, yes.

Vermont too

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So ugly.

Is the Democratic Party worth it? Evidence points no.

It's not as terrible as it might appear at first glance. WI, MI, NJ, and ME will probably flip in the next cycle; MD, MA, and IL will be solid D seats once their incumbents retire, and the Dems will have a decent shot in the next election besides. The map is as lopsided as it is right now because the GOP had a really good year in 2014, when most of those governorships were up for election.

No.

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"@joesonka: Democratic Sen. Ray Jones on KET saying that Kentucky Democrats don't criticize Barack Obama enough."

This is a glorious march towards extinction.

Maybe Democrats should invest more in their state parties instead of patting themselves on the back for an Electoral College advantage and openly ridiculing the lifestyles of huge segments of the populations.  Despite calls that the RNC has shifted way right, it's perfectly comfortable running socially liberal candidates in places like MA and IL; I think most Dems feel they're "past" needing social conservatives, and that's just wrong if they want to keep governors' mansions and win back legislatures.

What are you talking about? Conway pandered to the right virtually every step of the way.

I seriously hope the people on this board don't keep buying into the delusion of "If we just transported a genuine liberal democrat to run then he'd obviously Win!!!/Do much better!!!


Yes the moderate candidate lost, but not as much had the dems just ran a generic progressive.

Yeah, but there are certain issues where you should pander to the right to win Kentucky, and certain issues where you shouldn't.

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So ugly.

Is the Democratic Party worth it? Evidence points no.

It's not as terrible as it might appear at first glance. WI, MI, NJ, and ME will probably flip in the next cycle; MD, MA, and IL will be solid D seats once their incumbents retire, and the Dems will have a decent shot in the next election besides. The map is as lopsided as it is right now because the GOP had a really good year in 2014, when most of those governorships were up for election.

No.

Yes? Are you insinuating that with a generic Dem vs a generic Rep, MA would be anything but solid D?

Lmao.

Look at the recent list of governors, and see when each was elected. There's been one Democrat since Dukakis, and he was elected in a Democratic wave year.

I'm hardly a MAGOP hack, and I'm not one of those who says "Baker is 100% safe!!!!!" but it's equallyy wrong to say that MA is solid D on the gubernatorial level.

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Good lord! People actually voted Democratic in places where people actually LIVE!!!

lol i love progressive tears

LOL! Depriving people of their health insurance (possibly killing them) is so fun! LOL!

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KY votes more like TN now, than its Appalachian counterparts. Dems are no longer electable in KY, statewide, but in local elections.

It appears to be trending that way, but it hasn't fallen to Tennessee levels quite yet.

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KY votes more like TN now, than its Appalachian counterparts. Dems are no longer electable in KY, statewide, but in local elections.

It appears to be trending that way, but it hasn't fallen to Tennessee levels quite yet.

It has potential to fall significantly further than Tennessee.  Louisville isn't Memphis.  Wouldn't be surprised at all if KY/WV/AR are voting consistently 70% R in federal races in the 2020's.  Also, Manchin now needs a miracle, or a Republican president with 30% approval.

Not sure about Manchin, but I agree that KY will probably at some point in the near future be more R than TN (maybe TN will actually start trending D slightly, although not enough to really make a difference). However, it hasn't happened yet. Jack Conway is not Charlie Brown.

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I don't know about JCL, but I've heard a lot of conservatives on this site and elsewhere complain about urban areas like Detroit "deciding elections" for entire states. It's obviously ridiculous when either side does it, but Bandit is the only person I've seen make the opposite argument from the usual one.

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How the f*** did Conway manage to win Rowan County?

I know this site's wet dream is a political world where poor, rural, Evangelical Whites make up all Republican votes and wealthy, educated, cosmopolitan post-grads (and of course the minorities they so graciously save) make up all Democratic votes, but that's simply not the case.  According to Wikipedia, that county is relatively poor and registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by an almost 3:1 margin ... Not exactly a shocking results.  Shows how lame Conway is as a candidate that he didn't win more counties like this, in fact.

No, most of us actually want poor rural Whites to vote for us. It's you that seems to be bigoted against them.