(LEX 18) — With a little more than a week to go until Election Day, Governor Matt Bevin and Democratic challenger Andy Beshear are locked in a tight race for governor, and President Donald Trump has the potential to be the difference maker.
The latest poll, released by Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy of Jacksonville, Florida, shows Governor Bevin and Attorney General Beshear in a dead heat, tied at 46%.
This comes as Bevin’s campaign prepares to welcome President Trump to Lexington, where he’ll hold a rally in support of the governor the night before the election.
The governor has long proven to be one of the president’s fiercest defenders and staunchest allies, often mirroring him in tone and rhetoric.
“One-hundred percent of those running on the other side are pro-death, pro-abortion, happy to take blood money,” Bevin said at a recent anti-abortion event.
But there may be no clearer example of the president’s outsized influence in the race than Bevin’s efforts to put the impeachment inquiry at center stage.
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., launched a formal impeachment inquiry last month over allegations that President Trump sought help from Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a political rival.
Bevin held a press conference earlier this month to criticize Democrats for the impeachment inquiry, and accused Beshear of being evasive on the issue.
“[Andy Beshear] wants to fight against this president, wants to undermine this president, but refuses to answer to you whether he thinks this president should be impeached,” Bevin said.
Beshear has yet to answer definitively whether he thinks the president should be impeached. In a statement responding to the governor’s press conference, Beshear’s campaign adopted a wait-and-see approach: “He believes that if Congress moves forward, any proceedings should be nonpartisan and focus on facts and evidence.”
