As the 2023 governor’s race continues to ramp up in Kentucky, incumbent Andy Beshear’s approval rating remains one of the highest in the country.
According to Morning Consult Political Intelligence tracking surveys, six in 10 citizens of the Commonwealth approve of his job performance — with 34% disapproving.
It currently makes him the most popular Democrat governor in the United States, and puts him in eighth of the top 10 governors — below Phil Scott of Vermont, Mark Gordon of Wyoming, Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, Larry Hogan of Maryland, Jim Justice of West Virginia, Bill Lee of Tennessee and Doug Burgum of North Dakota.
Surveys conducted quarterly in 2021 and 2022 include at least 5,000 Kentucky voters serving as representative samples for data points.
Among the data, half of Kentucky’s Republicans gave Beshear negative remarks, but 46% gave him a “thumbs-up” to his handling of the job, which makes him the nation’s most popular Democrat governor with voters from the opposite party.
Nearly half of Kentucky’s independently-registered voters (49%) also noted approval of Beshear’s performance, while 87% of Democrats checked in support for their candidate.
Morning Consult, however, did issue that “positive perceptions of job performance do not always ensure victory.” Beshear certainly faces an uphill battle in Kentucky — a state that’s voted overwhelmingly Republican in federal races over the past 20 years.
Beshear flipped the governor’s seat in 2019 mainly behind Matt Bevin’s overwhelming unpopularity, and this fall, he’ll face a Republican nominee that will have battled from a difficult primary pool that included Attorney General Daniel Cameron, former U.S. Ambassador to Canada and the UN Kelly Craft, and current Agricultural Commissioner Ryan Quarles.
Some high appeal with the state’s non-Democrats, however, could bode well for Beshear.
According to the Kentucky Democratic Party, Beshear has already raised more than $5.2 million since announcing his run for a second term — a fundraising record for a sitting governor going into a re-election campaign.
A super-majority in the House and Senate have played their roles in success, particularly fiscally, but Beshear’s COVID-19 efforts have been federally lauded. During his three years in office, Kentucky has experienced two of its best years in consecutive job growth, worked to rebound against three natural disasters, announced multiple historic infrastructure investments, and maintained a record-high budget surplus alongside record-low unemployment rates.
Detractors, meanwhile, will likely point to his “rule by executive order,” his perceived “nanny-state approach” of the pandemic and his support of the Biden-Harris presidential platform as concerns.
