From Forward Kentucky: The Daily Take: The Daily Take – Bevin is back??
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Daily Take is for Forward Kentucky partner-level subscribers only. But publisher Bruce Maples kindly gave us permission to post today's Take, which we believe will be of interest to our readers. Bevin was one of the most--if not the most--anti-union Kentucky governor ever. Click here to subscribe to FK, which is having a "Ready for 2023 Sale."
By BRUCE MAPLES
Good morning! It’s a gloomy morning here at Casa Maples – dark, rainy, dreary. A good day to stay inside.
And if the tweet I saw earlier comes to pass, there may be some gloomy Repubs who would just as soon stay inside and away from the polls this coming May.
Auditor Mike Harmon (and 2023 GOP gov candidate) says he's 90-95% sure that former governor Matt Bevin will enter the 2023 gov race.
“Multiple times I’ve heard people say he’s polling... It’s my belief he’s going to (run)."https://t.co/tEoosMLrXI— Austin Horn (@_AustinHorn) December 13, 2022
You can probably imagine the responses to this possibility. They ranged from “why can’t he just go away” to “yes, please run, so Beshear can beat you again.”
I pretty much agree with both sentiments. Why did Bevin lose to Beshear? Because ... Bevin. He was his own worst enemy, as I pointed out multiple times during his term. If he wins the nomination, I suspect it makes Andy Beshear’s re-election much easier.
“But how can he possibly win?” you may be asking. “Isn’t he toxic in his own party?”
Well, yes and no. If he is polling, the results must show a certain percentage of Repubs who would vote for him. Remember, this is a party that ran Donald Trump for president – twice.
And the situation is eerily similar to the Republican presidential field in 2016. Remember how we all laughed at Trump actually running? And then how, one by one, he took out his opposition through bluster and name-calling?
Imagine Bevin in a debate with any of the current crop of candidates. He would eat some of them alive, and seriously damage the others. (In my opinion.) If he has learned to actually control his temper and his mouth, he could actually gain voters in that situation.
But here’s the bigger reason Matt Bevin has a chance: Kentucky doesn’t have a run-off law. If Bevin only gets, say, 25% of the vote in the primary, but that is more than anyone else gets, he is the nominee. And with a field as large as the GOP field for next May, that is a distinct possibility.
Which has GOP leadership worried. (“Panicked” might be more accurate.) Earlier in the fall, they were talking about passing a law requiring a candidate to get at least 40% in a primary to win. Otherwise, the top two vote-getters would go to a runoff.
But since the session starts January 3rd and the filing deadline is (currently) January 6th, there really isn’t time to pass such a bill.
Of course, what Kentucky really needs — and what the GOP desperately needs in 2023 — is ranked-choice voting. Essentially, this allows voters to indicate their top two choices (or more) in order. Then, if no candidate gets a majority, not just a plurality, then you add in the ballots where they were the second choice, and so on. Eventually, you get to the candidate who is the consensus across the board.
Until we have either a run-off rule or ranked choice voting, though, it’s possible to the candidates to split the vote, and the one with just a plurality to win. Considering that we currently have seven Repubs running actual campaigns, and Bevin would make eight, it would be possible for any of them, including Bevin, to win with 13% of the vote.
It’s going to be a wild five months on the GOP side, I suspect. Meanwhile, all of us should invest in popcorn futures.