Andy Beshear is super popular
I don’t have a dog in the VP fight and will be fine with whomever she decides to choose. The Democrats are blessed with a very strong bench. But I was on Majority Report this week and Sam Seder told me about this. I was shocked:
After widespread speculation that Kentucky’s Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear was on the list of potential running mates for Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the Democratic National Convention, a new poll found Beshear is the most popular Democratic governor in the country.
The Morning Consult poll shows Beshear has a 67% approval rating, with 28% disapproving, placing him at second place among all governors. He falls behind Vermont Republican Gov. Phil Scott who has an astounding 81% approval rating.
The poll, which was conducted from April to June this year, also showed that Beshear had the highest approval rating among both Republican and Democratic voters of any Democratic governor. He came second place in popularity with independents compared to other Democratic governors, too.
According to the poll, Beshear was more popular in his home state than other contenders for the Democratic vice presidential nomination appeared in theirs. For example, approval ratings for Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper were more than 10 percentage points lower than Beshear’s.
Beshear is also the second most popular Democratic governor with young voters, ages 18 to 34. Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland beat him with 66% popularity. Moore was just behind Beshear as one of the most popular governors in the country.
Beshear has previously shown up as a governor with a high approval rating in Morning Consult surveys, which has a 1.3 out of three stars pollster rating according to political analytics site FiveThirtyEight.
Think about that. He’s from Red Kentucky. Mitch McConnell’s home state. He’s not even in a swing state and he’s super popular. That must mean something. And he’s pretty progressive too although he has ways of speaking about progressive issues that appeals to more conservative voters.
We’ll find out soon enough who she’s going to pick but if she picks him I think it might be a good fit. He’s someone who can certainly challenge JD Vance’s dubious claims to Appalachian identity.