democrats. she said andy beshear had tied himself too much to the president and said he was a bully, he s not talking about issues. and when you re looking at across the state here the northern kentucky area, those suburbs around cincinnati where you saw 10 point swings and not only 10-point swings but also voter turn out about 150% from what they were back in those 2015 numbers, rachel. those turn out numbers are going to be a huge part of the story. also those dynamics in terms of the national things at play or not at play. great reporting, political reporter at andy beshear headquarters. ycht to reiterate we have just had a collin this race. nbc news is declaring the apparent winner of the kentucky governor s race is the democrat in the race, andy beshear, upsetting matt bevan, the incumbent republican governor of kentucky.
he s also picked aggressive fights, sometimes dirty fightwifights with the public schoolteachers and also with the law enforcement community. when you pick fights with those kind of folks who tend to be heroes with most regular americans you end up as matt bevan is being pretty wildly unpopular as an incumbent sitting governor. he s one of the most unpopular governors in the entire country. so there have been sort of low-key rumblings for several weeks that governor matt bevan of kentucky might be in trouble as he tries to hold onto the governor s mansion. last night president trump held a rally in kentucky to try to give matt bevan a boost. president trump of course won in deep red kentucky by 30 points. this was the map of his electoral victory, right, just a beat red swath in kentucky from november 2016. president trump himself last night basically warned matt bevan that he shouldn t blow the
majority leader mitch mcconnell who s facing probably one of it stronger challenges he s ever faced in his senate career next year. obviously every race is specific. matt bevans is a specific incumbent. and the winds in the country may be blowing differently than they are tonight. but do you think it s fair for people to start extrapolating from these results tonight to think about what mitch mcconnell may be up against. i d be cautious. if you re mitch mcconnell you re not happy with what you re seeing tonight. if you re mitch mcconnell and you look at the poll numbers and think also of the standing bevan h had, you might be nervous too. the thing mcconnell has going for him, i think you have to keep in mind number one it will be a presidential election year. trump won this by 30 points last time. the other thing is you go down ballot in kentucky tonight, the
asking you within 1% is there going to be a recount? kentucky law on this is there s no automatic trigger for a recount. any losing candidate can request a recount. they have to go to court for it, they have to go to a judge for it. a judge would then decide if there was going to be a recount. in terms of how these things ultimately get shook out, is there anything we should know in terms of fighting over the actual mechanics of voting? election board politicization, these sorts of fights potentially have an impact if this does become a knock-down-drag-out, particularly if it becomes a court battle. there s nothing that s jumped out today, and if bevan were to fall short, let s say if he were to fall short and decide to challenge this, it s unclear what the grounds would be he would cite. i haven t seen anything today that would obviously jump out. obviously lawyers are paid to come out, but i haven t seen
result is looking a bit more different, more favorable to republicans. so i think what you ll hear from mcconnell s side is still a trump state. you ll have trump on the ballot next year, and there were specific problems with bevin that made him one of the least popular governor offense the country. sometimes voters distinguish those. so you still would look at mcconnell and you d say running in kentucky he s probably more favored than underdog. but, yeah, you see a result like that. it s a statewide race. make you a little nervous. i know we ve got a lot more to cover over the course of the night as we keep watching results come in. we re going to get in a quick break right now just because i actually want to go back to kentucky after the break. we are covering this breaking news, developing political news just fascinating. nbc news has declared the apparent winner is democrat andy