Democrats and progressives roll to victory with key wins in Kentucky, Ohio, and Virginia

Red state Repub­li­cans were singing the blues Tues­day night as Democ­rats and pro­gres­sives won two mar­quee races in an odd-year elec­tion seen as indica­tive of nation­al trends going into the 2024 pres­i­den­tial election.

Demo­c­ra­t­ic Ken­tucky Gov­er­nor Andy Beshear won a sec­ond term in a state that ex-Pres­i­dent Trump car­ried by a twen­ty-six-point mar­gin in 2020.

In Ohio, twice car­ried by Trump, vot­ers enshrined abor­tion rights in the state con­sti­tu­tion, in an elec­tion that saw enor­mous turnout for an odd-year vote.

Beshear won over Attor­ney Gen­er­al Daniel Cameron, a pro­tégé of senior Blue­grass Sen. Mitch McConnell. The Demo­c­ra­t­ic incum­bent rarely men­tioned Pres­i­dent Biden dur­ing the cam­paign, but ran on such Biden Admin­is­tra­tion achieve­ments as the Infra­struc­ture pack­age. A sym­bol of suc­cess is rebuild­ing a vital bridge that con­nects Cincin­nati with its Ken­tucky suburbs.

The abor­tion bat­tle in Ohio saw the state’s Repub­li­can rulers pulling out all the stops to secure a “No” vote. They put a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment on the bal­lot in August to require a six­ty per­cent affir­ma­tive vote to amend the state constitution.

It was reject­ed. They used bal­lot lan­guage bor­rowed from the right-to-life move­ment, imply­ing that the mea­sure legal­izes late term abortion.

The mea­sure makes a dif­fer­ence in the lives of Ohio women.

The Repub­li­can-dom­i­nat­ed state leg­is­la­ture passed a mea­sure ban­ning the pro­ce­dure after six weeks. Its imple­men­ta­tion was stayed by a state court.

Propo­si­tion One, the enshrin­ing amend­ment which passed, restores a stan­dard of fetal via­bil­i­ty of twen­ty-two to twen­ty-four weeks.

Abor­tion is per­mit­ted lat­er in a preg­nan­cy, on advice of a physi­cian “to pro­tect a patient’s life or health.” The mea­sure also enshrines the right to con­tra­cep­tion and fer­til­i­ty treat­ments. Oppo­nents raised a smoke­screen of issues, such as teenagers get­ting sex-change surgery with­out approval of parents.

Pro-repro­duc­tive rights forces have now pre­vailed in sev­en out of sev­en statewide votes on abor­tion rights held since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Hobbs rul­ing which over­turned Roe v. Wade and rescind­ed the nation­wide right to abortion.

Vic­to­ries have not only come in Demo­c­ra­t­ic-lean­ing states, Michi­gan and Cal­i­for­nia, but in deep red states of Kansas, Ken­tucky and now Ohio.

The pro-lib­er­ty cause is expect­ed to be on the bal­lot next year in states of Ari­zona, Flori­da and Mis­souri. The abor­tion care issue has spurred turnout, espe­cial­ly among Gen. Z and mil­len­ni­al voters.

Abor­tion was also a major issue in Virginia’s leg­isla­tive elec­tions, where the state’s col­leges saw line­ups of stu­dent vot­ers. Democ­rats were ahead in the ear­ly count, and even­tu­al­ly got the wins they were look­ing for. Not only will they retain con­trol of the state Sen­ate, they’ve also regained con­trol of the House of Delegates.

That means Gov­er­nor Glenn Youngk­in’s plans to enact a fif­teen-week abor­tion ban and gut envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion laws are kaput.

Repub­li­cans had tout­ed Youngkin’s abil­i­ty to “neu­tral­ize” the abor­tion issue, and spo­ken of him as a poten­tial late entrant into the 2024 pres­i­den­tial race.

Democ­rats retained a U.S. House seat in Rhode Island, giv­ing the D’s a 213th seat in the 435-mem­ber House. A Demo­c­rat, City Coun­cil mem­ber Cherelle Jack­son, became the first woman elect­ed may­or of Philadelphia.

Anoth­er Demo­c­rat, twen­ty-sev­en year-old Army Ranger vet­er­an Bran­don Sak­bun, unseat­ed a Repub­li­can may­or in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Beshear, in Ken­tucky, offered a kind of reprise of last year’s sur­pris­ing Demo­c­ra­t­ic show­ing in the 2022 midterm elections.

He sup­port­ed abor­tion rights. He took a strong stand dur­ing the COVID-19 out­break and has led the state toward recov­ery from the pan­dem­ic. He han­dled major cli­mate cat­a­stro­phes of flood­ing and tor­na­do damage.

Beshear made a point, too, of court­ing rur­al con­stituen­cies which have desert­ed the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty in recent years, rather on a mod­el seen in this state with Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez.

Cameron was car­ry­ing rur­al coun­ties, but with a per­cent­age five to eight points below the Repub­li­can gov­er­nor unseat­ed by Beshear in 2019.

Beshear won that race by a paper-thin mar­gin of 5,000 votes.

Pres­i­dent Biden’s job approval rat­ings have hov­ered in the low for­ties, a poll rat­ing which has led to news­pa­per head­lines about wor­ried Democ­rats and FNC sto­ries from Rupert Mur­doch’s pro­pa­gan­da chan­nel on par­ty divi­sions. But the Democ­rats have done well when the vot­ers have had the chance to speak. A trio of big-tick­et achieve­ments – the Amer­i­can Res­cue Plan, Infra­struc­ture and the Infla­tion Reduc­tion Act – have brought tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits, from rebuild of the Ohio Riv­er bridge to giv­ing What­com Coun­ty a new fer­ry to serve Lum­mi Island.

The Repub­li­cans’ lone sig­nif­i­cant vic­to­ry, as of mid-evening on Tues­day, was flip­ping the mayor’s office in Man­ches­ter, New Hampshire.