no state had a swifter decrease in uninsurance between 2012 and 2017 than kentucky. 15% of kentuckians lacked insurance before obamacare went into effect. they got that down to 5% or 6%. and the biggest benefit was in the southeast corner of the state, appalachia coal country. overwhelmingly white. these were areas where rand paul in 2016 got about 80% of the vote. but these are also areas where between 15% and 20% of the people would lose coverage if medicaid was repealed. and that s what governor bevin attacked. that s what president trump has been attacking nationwide. 1.7 million fewer americans insured than two years ago. your interpretation seems clearer than some of the republicans in congress. if i can read to you some of the senate republicans and what they took away from election day losses. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell from kentucky, i don t think that anything happened there tuesday changes 2020.
john? alisyn? it s always interesting. foreign actors know the intelligence value of social media here. all right, evan, thank you. trying to exploit it as well. if you want to know what your candidate thinks, start with their ads which are already numerous, expensive and, above all else, telling. john avlon here with our reality check. follow the money. america is headed for the biggest, ugliest and most expensive election ever. less than 90 days out from the iowa caucuses, we ve already seen more than $100 million spent on political ads on the way to an estimated $6 billion by the end of the political cycle. with 2019 state elections just 48 hours in the rear-view mirror, let s look at what works. what doesn t. what s got folks talking. kentucky s governors race can be seen as a national bellwether with the last four predicting which party would go on to win the presidency. this year the democrat narrowly came out ahead, despite republican governor matt bevin
tying himself to donald trump. president trump is taking america to new heights. but it hasn t been easy. people are afraid of change. but i m not. neither is the president. now ugly outside ads are a feature of u.s. politics, too. and this one may be a sign of coming attractions. it falsely claimed bevin s opponent wanted transgender girls to compete against girls in schools. a blatant scare tactic. but expect more of it. democrat beshear didn t shy away from trump either. he ran this ad featuring a couple of trump guys from kentucky who are going to vote democrat this time around. for his part, donald trump has been dominating the political ad space with big dollar buys like this tv pitch during game seven of the world series aimed at swing voters. but at least one claim didn t even make it across the plate. cutting illegal immigration in half. not even close. as our daniel dale pointed out, this is misleading math at best. trump can t say he cut illegal
speech writer for president george w. bush. great to see you this morning. as i understand from your latest piece, you see what happened in wednesday as ominous for republicans in 2020. and it s more than just the people who say they didn t vote for matt bevin becaus he was a jerk. look at i think one of the most ominous races were the ones where nothing seemed to happen. like what happened in mississippi. one of the most pro-trump states in the union if not the very most. in 2015 the governor s race republicans got 66% of the vote in mississippi. this time they got 53%. that s still a win. but it s an indication of a decline in republican intensity. that s pretty ominous for the president. and back to kentucky for a second because you saw the red flags primarily in the coal country counties in southeastern kentucky. what was their message? i wrote about this for the atlantic in 2017. if you look at that southeast corner of the state, what you saw was the effect of obamacare.