Living in SW Ohio, we get lots of Kentucky advertisements on Cincinnati Based TV since Northern Kentucky is in the viewership area. Right now I have not seen a single ad critical of Governor Andy Beshear or in support of his opponent. Every ad is 1) Pro Beshear, 2) attacking Daniel Cameron on his support of funds for private schools, 3) attacking Cameron on Abortion (an effective ad involves a teenage girl who claims she was impregnated by her step father in a rape and is critical of Cameron's anti abortion position Are pro Cameron or anti Beshear advertisements being aired outside the Cincinnati area?
This is a worthwhile question you have raised. Andy Beshear is the incumbent governor, associated with the Democrat party, in a very conservative-leaning state. Daniel Cameron won the Republican nomination for governor. Andy Beshear does have a strong approval rating among voters, at 64%. It may be that Republicans do not expect to oust Beshear in the upcoming election.
Just saw my first advertisement for Cameron-it tried to tie Beshear to Senile Joe. Now that is less than a month away from the election. I have seen at least 100 for Beshear plus a bunch more by some abortion advocacy groups against Cameron.
I lived in Cincinnati (the mighty Queen City Avenue) in mid 90s, and Covington, KY across the river was like the Wild West compared to Cinci.
I have lived in Kentucky since 1985. It would surprise just about everyone to know that in local politics Kentucky has been a very dark blue state for decades and decades. For whatever reason they seem to vote blue in local elections and red in national elections, which is where they get their so-called red state reputation from. It has only been very recently that Republicans took over the state legislature and even the governorship, as short lived as that was. So, it is no surprise really that we currently have a democratic governor, who will probably be re-elected. It's actually the norm and has been for a very long time. When I first moved here the media wouldn't even acknowledge there were such a thing as Republicans. Whichever candidate won the Democratic primary for governor was talked of as being the next governor, barely mentioning the fact that that person would be running against a Republican in the November election.
When I actually figure that out I'll let you know. However, over the last several years, the state has moved considerably in the red direction. I would guess that a lot of the districts are in the city areas and vote blue while fewer districts in the rural areas are very deep red. In a way we are similar to both California and New York where many of the counties are actually red but the states get a blue reputation because the city areas are just so overpowering. Maybe here in Kentucky the cities aren't overpowering enough to turn the state blue. It has been very perplexing to understand this. The latest polls are now showing either a tie for governor or Republican Cameron with a very itsy bitsy lead. Over the decades we have had very few Republican governors.
Beshear, despite efforts of the GOP to tie him to Biden, seemed to escape that kiss of death and has been declared the winner. I believe the advertisement of a teen girl who couldn't get an abortion after being raped by her stepfather was extremely effective in bashing Cameron. He was also effectively tied to the former GOP governor who was hated by the heavily Democrat leaning teachers unions. On top of that Cameron was late to the game in advertising. I would not the GOP is crushing the Democrats in all the other big state wide elections. So Beshear is yet again governor of a state where the rest of the elected officials are Republicans. Beshear steered aways from some of the third rail issues for Democrats in KY-he wasn't howling for gun bans like many Democrats have done. He touted bringing more hi-tech high paying jobs to KY and he had some republican business owners backing him on that. He did not veto (nor did he sign) the law that turned KY into a "constitutional carry" state.
