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2A z TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2019z USA TODAY NEWS

As Americans go to the polls Tues-
day, their decisions in state and local
elections will hint at the national politi-
cal spirit.
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin is the best
example of a Trump proxy on the ballot
today.
Besides sharing Trump’s pugilistic
style, Bevin has also tied himself closely
to Trump.
“Matt’s proudly pro-life, against
sanctuary cities for illegal immigrants
and against impeaching our president,”
says one of Bevin’s ads that ends with
him waving from Air Force One with
Trump.
Bevin has traveled multiple times to
the White House, taken a live call from
Trump during a news conference in
Kentucky, and leaned into the impeach-
ment debate the most among the Re-
publicans running for governor this
year.
Trump planned to spend election eve
campaigning for Bevin in Kentucky, a
state the president carried by nearly 30
points.
Democrats say Bevin had no choice
but to run on Trump’s coattails after his
criticism of teachers and the actions
he’s taking on health care and public
employee pensions have made him one
of the nation’s most unpopular gover-
nors.
“I’m still a Donald Trump guy, but I’m
done with Bevin,” Kentuckian Dennis
Boehm says in an ad for the Democrat,
Lt. Gov. Andy Beshears.
The race could show whether there’s
a limit to Trump’s popularity or to his
ability to transfer that popularity, said
Nathan Gonzales, editor and publisher
of the nonpartisan Inside Elections,
which analyzes races.
“I think Kentucky is a test of whether
a connection to the president is enough
to smooth over other faults,” he said.

Mississippi and Louisiana

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, the
only Democratic governor in the Deep
South, won’t find out his fate this week.
After he failed to win a majority of the
votes in the October “jungle primary,”
Edwards faces Republican business-
man Eddie Rispone in a runoff Nov. 16.
In the primary, Edwards performed
better than he had four years ago in the
areas that included the state’s two larg-
est cities as well as the suburbs of New
Orleans. But he did worse in many rural
areas.
That trend of rural America and small
cities getting more Republican while
bigger cities and suburbs become more
Democratic was also apparent in a
North Carolina special election for a
congressional seat in September.
And as voting patterns become more
intensely partisan, Democrats could
find it harder to win votes in states like
Kentucky, Mississippi and Louisiana
where Trump is popular.
A candidate with Edwards’ approval
rating and track record would have been
easily re-elected 20 years ago, said Kyle
Kondik, who analyzes elections at the
University of Virginia’s Center for Poli-
tics.
“But in this era, where party label is
so much more meaningful and politics
are so nationalized, even at the state
level, it gets harder,” he said.
That’s the same situation facing Mis-
sissippi Attorney General Jim Hood, the
only Democrat there holding a state-
wide office, who is running to become
governor. Hood faces Lt. Gov. Tate
Reeves in the race to succeed the GOP
governor, who is term-limited.
“I bait my own hook, carry my own
gun and drive my own truck,” Hood
boasts in an ad highlighting the cultur-
ally conservative persona that used to
allow some Democrats to win Republi-
can states.

State legislatures

The battle is just starting for the
brawl that will explode next year in state
legislative races as the parties try to put
themselves in the best position for re-
drawing state and federal legislative
maps after the 2020 Census.
“We got caught off-guard in 2010. The
Republicans routed us,” said Matt Har-
ringer, spokesman for the Democratic
Legislative Campaign Committee.
“Democrats have learned their lesson.”
The party and their allies are out-
spending Republicans in today’s show-
down for control of the Virginia Legisla-
ture, the only state with legislative races
on the ballot where party control could
flip. (Republicans are hoping to main-
tain their supermajority in Mississippi
and gain a supermajority in Louisiana.

Democrats should hold their superma-

jority in New Jersey’s lower house.)

In Virginia, Democrats are trying to

build on their huge gains in 2017 when

they came tantalizingly close to winning

the Legislature in a state that has be-

come increasingly blue.

“Does that trend in Virginia continue,

or do Democrats stall out a little bit in

what’s going to be a lower-turnout elec-

tion?” asked Kondik of the University of

Virginia’s Center for Politics.

Most of the major Democratic presi-

dential candidates have traveled to Vir-

ginia to keep the momentum going. Re-

publicans, however, sent Vice President

Mike Pence – and not Trump – across

the river for a pre-election push.

“Virginia Republicans have built a

wall at the Potomac to keep Donald

Trump out,” Harringer said.

Trump lost Virginia by 5 percentage

points in 2019, and his approval rating is

underwater there.

Quentin Kidd, a political science pro-

fessor at Christopher Newport Univer-

sity in Newport News, Virginia, com-

pares Trump’s role in the election to an

omnipresent force below the surface of

the debate.

“When there’s sort of a strong, steady

wind, people don’t talk about the wind,

but everything they do when they’re

outside is affected by the wind,” he said.

“The undertone of all of (Democrats’)

campaigns in competitive races has

been about sending this message of dis-

approval. Republicans have wanted to

localize elections as much as possible.”

Gun control

Gun violence has played an outsized

role in the legislative elections in Vir-

ginia, a state that suffered the 2007

mass shooting at Virginia Tech and the

May shooting that left a dozen dead in

Virginia Beach.

The Republican speaker of the

House, Kirk Cox, is being challenged by

a woman whose daughter survived a

2016 shooting. The Democrat challeng-

ing the Republican state senator who

represents Virginia Beach ran an ad fea-

turing a woman who was in the city

building there when the shooter at-

tacked.

“I was lucky, but not everyone was,”

Karen Havekost says in the ad, before

criticizing state Sen. Bill DeSteph for not

doing enough to address gun violence.

The ad was partially paid for by Ev-

erytown for Gun Safety Action Fund,

which has outspent the Virginia-based

National Rifle Association in the elec-

tions.

Austin Chambers, president of the

Republican State Leadership Commit-

tee, said Democrats are taking advan-

tage of the tragedy by politicizing it to

fire up their base in a low-turnout elec-

tion.

“I think, for the most part, Democrats

have overplayed their hands,” he said.

“They’ve tried to make this entire elec-

tion about gun control.”

Health care

Health care, the issue that provided

much of the wind in the sails of Demo-

crats in 2018 , was also a top topic in gu-

bernatorial and legislative races.

Edwards’ expansion of Medicaid in

Louisiana was the signature accom-

plishment of his first term and he’s

hammering his GOP challenger for call-

ing for a “freeze” to check whether those

enrolled actually qualify.

In Mississippi, Hood – the Democrat-

ic candidate – has promised to expand

Medicaid while the Republican would

not.

In Kentucky, Beshear wants to undo

changes Bevin made to Medicaid, which

was expanded under Beshear’s father

when he was governor. Bevin has re-

quired that some adults prove they are

working to get benefits and has threat-

ened to end the expansion if a court

challenge to those requirements is suc-

cessful.

In the Virginia legislative races, the

state’s recent Medicaid expansion is so

popular that even some Republicans

who had opposed it are running on their

support for expansion.

But Republicans are also playing of-

fense on health care. An ad in the Ken-

tucky governor’s race shows Democrat-

ic presidential candidates raising their

hands during one of the presidential de-

bates when asked whether they would

provide insurance to immigrants who

are in the country illegally.

A rehearsal for 2020

Both sides are using this year’s elec-

tions to get ready for 2020. They’re test-

ing messaging, voter registration en-

couragement and techniques to get vot-

ers to the polls.

One big focus of the Republican Na-

tional Committee is expanding its

grassroots organization. It has trained

22,000 people this year, moving toward

its goal of having 60,000 ready to mobi-

lize for next year’s elections.

And a “national week of action” held

in the run-up to today’s election in-

cludes a dry run of their get-out-the-

vote effort.

One of the most active groups on the

Democratic side is the political action

committee Priorities USA. They

launched in September a $4 million

campaign targeting voters in the 2020

presidential battleground states of

Michigan, Florida and Pennsylvania.

The activities help the group figure out

which techniques are most effective

while also getting voters in the habit of

going to the polls so they’re more likely

to show up in 2020.

Today’s elections offer a hint at 2020

Maureen Groppe
USA TODAY

People pay their respects on June 3 at a memorial for the victims of a mass

shooting that killed 12 in Virginia Beach, Va. MEGAN RAYMOND/USA TODAY NETWORK

Gov. John Bel Edwards

speaks at a debate.

ANDRE BROUSSARD/SPECIAL

TO USA TODAY NETWORK

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, left and Lt.

Gov. Tate Reeves shake hands after a gubernatorial

debate on Oct. 10.ROGELIO V. SOLIS/AP