Kentucky’s bitter race for governor went into overtime as Democrat Andy Beshear declared victory while Republican Governor Matt Bevin, a close ally of President Donald Trump, refused to concede with results showing he trailed by a few thousand votes.
With 100% of precincts reporting, Beshear — the state’s attorney general and the son of Kentucky’s last Democratic governor, Steve Beshear — had a lead of 5,333 votes out of more than 1.4 million counted, or a margin of nearly 0.4 percentage points. In competing speeches late Tuesday (11/5), Beshear claimed victory while Bevin refused to concede. Bevin hinted there might be “irregularities” to look into but didn’t offer specifics.
In Meade County, Bevin carried the majority vote with 4,787 votes over Beshear’s 3,984 votes. In the other state races, Republicans claimed seats across the state prompting Daniel Cameron to be the African American Attorney General in Kentucky; Micheal Adams won the Secretary of State race; while incumbents Mark Harmon, Auditor of Public Accounts; Allison Ball, State Treasurer; and Ryan Quarles, Agriculture Commissioner kept their offices.
In the local 46th Judicial District Judge race, Bradley Butler swept the race with the majority of votes by 10,786 votes (52%) over Beth Constant Ratley’s 6,532 votes (31.55%) and Zanda Myers’ 3,384 votes (16.35%) in Breckinridge, Grayson, and Meade Counties. Butler will be installed on the bench shortly after the results are finalized by the secretary of state.
In Grayson and Hardin counties, Republican Samara Heavrin won the unexpired term in the 18th District State Representative race with 8,655 votes over Democratic challenger Becky Miller’s 5,701 votes.
You may review all of the votes from Tuesday (11/5) in our Election Coverage section.
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