KY 20 years out, a pretty damn good corollary...
Thanks, I just know it had little bearing in KY from 1979 to 1991. I wouldn’t put much stock into such governor’s elections here, but maybe you are right for 2016.
Yes and no. The problem is that KY has only voted on two* occasions for the GOP Gubernatorial nominee since after 1967.
*The likelihood is that the 1995 race was stolen by Paul Patton over Larry Forgy (so that would be 3 times). No indication for 1996 (a winnable race, but Dole wasn’t the right challenger).
Patton was effectively unchallenged in 1999 (the GOP candidate was a desultory flake that they gave no support to). That was no indication for 2000.
2003 marked 36 years since a GOP victory, and that was almost a given for Dr. Fletcher. Had the corrupt scumbag Democrat Stumbo not waged complete war from the AG’s office to trump up charges against Fletcher (Fletcher daring to hire GOP state workers ! The horror !), he would’ve won reelection in 2007, so this was a stacked deck (though I would say so was the stacked deck fake election in 2008 with a designated loser/ringer in McQueeg against Zero).
Beshear was defeatable in 2011, but a subpar GOP nominee and third party candidate split the opposition (so this again perhaps reflected the national scene for ‘12, with a second-in-a-row designated loser/ringer in Willard).
I have to wonder with Bevin if he made a last minute rally, or if he was ahead almost all along given the messed up polling data (overpolled Dem). Despite the concerns regarding Bevin, I regarded him as the strongest nominee over Hal Heiner and James Comer, since there was too much bitterness between the two others that would’ve spilled over into the general that would’ve cost us. Bevin was able to unite the primary voters.
Hopefully this will be a positive harbinger for 2016.