For Young People In Kentucky, This Election Was A Sign Of Things To Come

By Rainesford Stauffer


On November 4, President Donald Trump issued a warning to the people who showed up to his rally in Lexington, Kentucky, a red state he won by 30 points in 2016. He had traveled there to rally alongside Republican Governor Matt Bevin, the incumbent facing reelection the next day, and reported from the stage that a potential loss from Bevin in would send  “a really bad message.” His upsell to Republican voters: the idea that voting Bevin out means voting Trump out, also. “You can’t let that happen to me,” he bellowed.


Nevertheless the following day, Kentucky youth activists huddled around laptops and TV screens, and scrolled through social media as they watched people around their state send a message by voting Matt Bevin out, and electing Democratic candidate Andy Beshear as Governor by a margin of around 5,000 votes.


“Last night’s result was surprising to me,” Andrew Brennen, a 23-year-old Kentuckian, told MTV News. He knew there was strong disdain for Bevin, although “as a state we are usually apathetic once it comes to elections.” Voter turnout for this election was 42 percent in Kentucky, up a considerable amount from 30.7 percent in 2015.


Bevin excelled in unpopularity. Immediately after statewide sickouts in response to slashed budgets and pensions, the Governor blamed striking teachers for a child being shot, and proposed they would be to blame if a child was hypothetically poisoned or  sexually assaulted as a result of not being in school. Soon after Kentucky became the initial state to win federal approval in imposing work requirements in the Medicaid program (which Bevin’s own administration mentioned could cause 95,000 Kentuckians to lose Medicaid coverage), he attempted to sue 16 of his own constituents and threatened to pull out of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion if the requirements were struck down. Once he visited a chess club at a school in West Louisville, he remarked it was “not something you necessarily would have thought of as soon as you think of this section of town,” and immediately acquired backlash for the classist and racist comment. Behind odious policy, he also wore a suit printed with Trump’s face, and wandered over to a Democrat booth at the State Fair, for no other ostensible reason than to troll them.


“Motivated by a governor who blustered his way through office, attacked the press, attacked teachers, attacked communities of color, Kentuckians used their voices to send a resounding signal,” Brennen mentioned. “And I’m so delighted of us.”


As of publish time, Bevin hasn't conceded the race. Case in point, he’s requested a recanvass, and claimed that thousands of absentee ballots were counted illegally, despite issuing no further evidence or details. Nevertheless as Kentucky makes its way into the national conversation, young Kentuckians are watching, and more importantly, mobilizing.


Kentucky politics, despite stereotypes, is complex. The state is one of seven that have been operated by a Democrat governor for more than 80 percent of the years between 1992 and 2013 (including Beshear’s father, Steven Beshear). However on Tuesday, most Kentucky races went solidly red, with Republican candidates cinching the Attorney General, Secretary of State, and Auditor positions, among others. To add to the layer cake of political complexity, as of August 2019, registered Democratic voters outnumbered registered Republican voters in Kentucky (though experts have mentioned that doesn’t necessarily predict election results). Several have noted that, as the blue wave didn’t continue down-ballot, voting Bevin out likely had more to do with collective dislike of his openly combative ways than it did a statewide alternative to go blue.


“I can’t lie, I was shocked that Andy won, I did cry plenty while in the night,” 18-year-old Will Powers told MTV News. “It was a show of what organizing and taking every race seriously can do, along with a rejection of the policies of Bevin that undermine public education, equality, and civility.”


For young Kentuckians, the moment feels significant, and a turning point for both their state’s voter engagement and for the policies they might have the ability to rally their neighbors around in coming years.


“In Kentucky, nearly 1/4 of formerly incarcerated individuals have lost their right to vote. I vote on their behalf,” Brennen mentioned. “In Kentucky only 20 percent of 8th graders will graduate from college. I vote on their behalf. In Kentucky, we have one of the highest homeless youth populations in the nation and then some statistics estimate that nearly half of these young folks are LGBTQ+. I vote on their behalf.” He added that young Kentuckians are “deeply engaged” in politics, noted that they hold rallies and lobby the state legislature, and gave credit to the Kentucky YMCA for holding youth-in-government conferences where young people write expenditures and debate their colleagues.


At 17 years old, Amelia Loeffler wasn’t old enough to vote on Tuesday — although that didn’t stop her from getting involved. She estimates she knocked on around one thousand doors in get-out-the-vote efforts as an intern on the Beshear campaign. “It’s reassuring to be able to see that hard work on the ground level can impact an election,” she told MTV News. “Since the margin between Bevin and Beshear was so close, I think it shows how much each conversation with a potential voter can matter.”


The election also felt personalized to 18-year-old Madison Ortega, who also volunteered for the campaign: It was the opening election she was old enough to vote in, and  key issues on the ballot hit close to house. “I was also closely following healthcare while in the race,” she explained. “My family member and several others in Eastern Kentucky are forced to rely on Medicaid for sufficient healthcare.” She cites Beshear’s plan to rescind the state’s Medicare work requirements as a primary reason why she volunteered, and how she was excited to vote for him.


Young Kentuckians also visualize the election of a Democrat governor as a possibility to defy stereotypes. Even with Kentucky’s precedent for electing Democrats into the role, there’s power in shaking up the status quo: Predictions were still calling the election in Bevin’s favor, and Trump remains popular across the state. However given that we are both one year out from the 2020 presidential election, and deep in the middle of impeachment conversations, electing a Democrat felt groundbreaking, even for first-time voters who witnessed the impact of their vote in real time — and challenged an outsider’s notion of exactly how red the state is.


“I want the people to know that there really are pieces of the world in Kentucky's backyard,” Elmedina Brkic told MTV News, referencing the migrant communities that reside in cities like Louisville, Lexington, and Bowling Green. The 24-year-old was place on Earth in Mostar, a little town in Bosnia and Herzegovina, nevertheless was raised and currently lives in Louisville. “Because of increasing wealth and revenue inequity, diverse neighborhoods of immigrants and refugees have been largely did not think about. I want the people to know that young Kentuckians are aware of the world.”


Brkic sees public education as a gateway to improving Kentucky’s top class of life, and Bevin’s repeated attacks on teachers, which also included calling them “selfish,” “ignorant,” and worse were unacceptable to her. She wasn’t surprised Beshear won, nevertheless was surprised by how close the race was.


Even as election results rolled in on Twitter, out-of-state commenters feigned shock that Kentuckians could read, let alone vote — and such stereotypes are more and more frustrating to young Kentuckians who visualize a different, more nuanced future for their state. While the state is often dented nationally for being backward and out-of-touch, there really are more political shifts within its  legislation than meet the eye: Notably, as soon as Bevin vetoed legislation that raised taxes to expand public education spending, a Republican-controlled legislature overrode that decision.


“When Residents of the United States make assumptions about Kentuckians based on our state’s at-times regressive policies, it only ends up hurting the Kentuckians working against those same regressive policies,” Ortega said.


Taylor Whitsell, 19, agreed. “I wish people understood that Kentucky isn't a monolith,” he mentioned, adding that both politicians and members of the media often willfully excludes people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, immigrants, and other groups from conversations about “rural Kentucky,” despite the fact that they continue to fight for progressive values in the state. “National politicians should not paint with a broad brush any time it comes to characterizing Kentucky, and should as a substitute seek to understand the needs and desires of diverse, local communities across our state.”


Still, Powers says he’s in a “weird spot” on how this election could impact future ones in Kentucky. Because Kentucky Democrats only beat “the least popular governor in the country” by 5,000 votes, while losing other statewide offices, he believes it’s still also soon to tell people Kentucky isn’t a competitive state.


“Don’t write us off,” he urged, adding that he is currently focused on organizing to support whomever runs against Senator Mitch McConnell in 2020. Even so, he acknowledges the stakes ahead: “This is still Kentucky and federal elections are much different than statewide office elections,” he added.


There’s careful optimism, although more importantly, there’s energy: Young Kentuckians are seeing the state be taken seriously nationally, even if that momentum is tethered to a governor notoriously loathed across the aisle. “It’s true there really are some young Kentuckians who support President Trump and the candidates he endorses,” Loeffler mentioned. “But Kentucky also has a strong contingent of young people who are mobilizing to elect Democrats.” And those young people aren’t giving up the fight simply as the needle has only moved so far.