The establishment was amazingly quiet in this primary, other than some nasty comments by some McConnell operatives but I did not see or sense any indication the McConnell machine was directly involved in this campaign for what would have been the likely preferred candidate, Hal Heiner.
I’m not sure how they will react. Backing the Democrat would only create a future potential strong opponent for themselves - something they may not want to risk. Moreover, they want to take the House of Representatives in 2016, something that would be much more difficult if the Democrats still sit in the governor’s mansion. There were some in the establishment actually commenting about how much more polished and organized Bevin was in this campaign, and one commentator during the election returns said Bevin would be the strongest candidate to unite the party since things got so personal between Heiner and Comer...I couldn’t agree more. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Bevin was pretty good against McConnell. He was simply overwhelmed by big money and power. Knocking off a party leader isn’t easy, especially when they see you coming. It’s the law of overwhelming force and it usually works.