Polling released by a conservative political organization shows Kentucky Democratic Governor Andy Beshear still leading his Republican challenger, Daniel Cameron, as the general election approaches. (It’s this year rather than the next like so many other elections.)
The polling, done by WPA Intelligence for the Club for Growth PAC, showed Beshear leading by six percent in a round of surveying completed on September 28. Beshear had 48 percent, while Cameron got 42 percent of the support. That leading margin is a slight decrease from Beshear’s lead earlier in September, though it’s still outside the associated margin of error, meaning there’s a reasonable degree of confidence that the Democrat is, in fact, leading. Beshear is a son of a past governor of the state. Cameron, meanwhile, is currently Kentucky’s attorney general, and like so many other Republicans, he’s made so-called culture war issues a central pillar of his campaign.
Other polling, like surveying released by Emerson College, has also shown Beshear in the lead. Though it seems unlikely based on precedent that these numbers will be replicated in the final results, the Emerson numbers showed Beshear with a lead of a whopping 16 percentage points.
Cameron has faced pressure particularly on the abortion front, and in an interview, he suddenly delivered a partial about-face and claimed he’d support adding exceptions to Kentucky’s current abortion restrictions that would allow for terminating a pregnancy in situations involving rape or incest. Cameron’s stance was heavily caveated, since he also said he supports the current restrictions in Kentucky, where Republicans dominate the legislature — and where the legal framework at issue provides no such exceptions, instead only allowing for abortion to prevent death or serious injury to the pregnant individual. “The Cameron campaign’s own statement today says he supports a law banning abortion with no exceptions for survivors of rape and incest,” Alex Floyd, a spokesperson for Beshear’s campaign, said.
