Democrats pick up Kentucky governorship

Incumbent Matt Bevin conceded on Thursday to Andy Beshear to finally settle last week’s election for Kentucky’s governor. Vote tallies showed Beshear, a Democrat and the state’s attorney general, leading by less than 0.4 percentage points over the current Republican governor. Election officials double-checked the totals at Bevin’s request on Tuesday.

Doesn’t Kentucky lean Republican? President Donald Trump carried the state in a landslide in 2016, and Bevin leaned on the president’s popularity in his reelection campaign. But the governor made enemies over his response to teacher strikes and by scaling back the state’s Medicaid expansion.

Dig deeper: Read my report in Liberties on the Bevin administration’s attempt to get out of paying legal fees in the case of former Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis, a Christian who stood for Biblical marriage. A federal appeals court ultimately ordered the state to pay $224,000 incurred by same-sex couples who sued Davis.