Republicans are pouring money into a last-minute effort in Tuesday’s Kentucky gubernatorial race, aiming to rescue Matt Bevin’s struggling campaign and keep the GOP from again being shut out of the conservative state’s governorship.

Bevin, who polls show is trailing by a small margin, appears on the verge of joining the list of tea party-aligned candidates whom establishment operatives will blame for years to come for losing a winnable race. Like other Republicans damaged by the party’s Obama-era civil war, Bevin took untenable positions in the primary that Democrats have turned against him in the general. And the Republican businessman’s strategy and decisions throughout the campaign have baffled longtime political observers.


Democrat Jack Conway, the state’s attorney general, is fighting against another Obama-era political trend: the Democratic wipeout at the state level, especially in the South. The president’s party has 11 fewer governorships than in 2008 and could lose one of its two governors in the South if Conway falters in the race to replace term-limited Gov. Steve Beshear.

The two trends will collide Tuesday in a low-turnout election following an ugly campaign in which the candidates have repeatedly accused each other of lying about their records. Conway supporters are cautiously optimistic, while Bevin’s backers think a late injection of advertising dollars — from both the self-funding Bevin and national Republicans — could deliver them the governor’s mansion for just the second time since 1967.

Kentucky’s most powerful Republican, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, spent Monday morning with Bevin and the entire GOP statewide ticket, hoping to generate some late enthusiasm for a party that, despite a near-sweep at the federal level in recent elections, controls only small segments of the political apparatus in Frankfort.

“Democrats here feel like they’ve got it. They’re confident,” said Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist who ran a super PAC backing McConnell in 2014. “Republicans feel like they’ve made a late charge, bolstered by the [Republican Governors Association’s] increased spending, that has arrested Conway’s momentum. They think pollsters might be missing the anger of rural conservatives who are most likely to vote, which is what happened in the media polling here in 2014.”

The late blitz, including $2.5 million in spending on digital, mail and television in the final two weeks from the RGA — which pulled out of the race for nearly four weeks during September and October — has helped close the spending gap in the race. Democrats, including Conway’s campaign and the DGA- and union-backed super PAC Kentucky Family Values, have spent nearly $9 million on television advertising.

Republicans, including the RGA-backed Put Kentucky First and Bevin’s operation, have spent just over $5 million. But it was only in the final days of the race that the GOP surpassed the Democrats in spending. Bevin is using that cash to air a closing 60-second ad laying out his plans for the state.

Bevin’s narrow victory in the May primary over Agriculture Commissioner James Comer and businessman Hal Heiner rippled through the state GOP establishment, which had written off Bevin after his primary loss to McConnell in 2014. Bevin positioned himself effectively in the primary — while Heiner and Comer traded barbs over domestic-abuse allegations leveled against Comer by a college ex-girlfriend. Bevin parodied the spat with a television ad portraying the other two candidates as children involved in a food fight. He eventually topped Comer by only 83 votes.

Bevin and McConnell have tiptoed around each other since — with McConnell delivering a less than full-throated endorsement, and Bevin pledging allegiance to the grandfather of the Kentucky Republican Party with a humorous video. But there were also awkward moments, including last month, when Bevin showed up an hour late for a McConnell-hosted D.C. fundraiser.

One operative with long ties to the state stressed that other Republicans were willing to help Bevin, but Bevin’s understaffed campaign failed at times to take advantage of the aid.

“It’s not about winning people over,” said the operative, granted anonymity to speak candidly about his party’s candidate for governor. “Maybe Jamie Comer’s campaign manager was mad, but there’s a pretty short grieving process for Kentucky Republicans who want to take back the governor’s mansion.”

McConnell and Bevin teamed up for a statewide fly-around on Monday — three days after Bevin held a unity rally with his two primary rivals. Both McConnell and Sen. Rand Paul recorded get-out-the-vote robocalls for Bevin’s campaign, along with more than 100 other officeholders, former elected officials and party chairs who did so. A source close to Bevin’s campaign said it’s targeting more than 120 different voter universes and will make 1.5 million calls on Monday.

“Matt is a true conservative who will get our state back on track,” McConnell says in his robocall. “Matt’s opponent is Jack Conway, who will continue to support the liberal agenda of Barack Obama.”

Paul’s call seems aimed at libertarian voters.

“Our liberties are under assault from the Obama administration like never before,” Paul says. “Make no mistake: Jack Conway will bring four more years of Obama’s failed liberal policies.”

The contentious primary has damaged Bevin in other ways, too. Throughout the race, Democrats have criticized him as a flip-flopper unworthy of Kentuckians’ trust. In some of those cases, Bevin has been attempting to back down from stances he took while establishing himself as the most conservative choice in the primary.

Bevin, for instance, once voiced skepticism of early-childhood education. But he later backtracked and said suggestions that he didn’t support early-childhood education were “absolute bunk.” Bevin opened his campaign by pledging to reverse Medicaid expansion in the state, a stance from which he has since repeatedly tried to step away.

“The divisive Republican primary helped to provide an opening for a strong Democratic candidate to define the issues of the campaign,” Democratic Governors Association spokesman Jared Leopold said. “Jack Conway has run a strong campaign that clearly defined the distinctions between the candidates — from releasing tax returns to investing in early-childhood education. On Tuesday, Kentuckians will have a clear choice between a strong leader in Jack Conway and a dishonest double-talker in Matt Bevin.”

Conway’s campaign said it’s ready for Election Day, boasting of its “heavy field presence.” Volunteers knocked on more than 170,000 doors this past weekend, the culmination of 10 “days of action” intended to prepare the field operation for Election Day, the campaign said.





Conway’s advertising has been relentlessly negative in the closing months, with his campaign releasing six 15-second ads in a single day in September, all portraying Bevin as a hypocrite or a liar. Conway’s early money advantage allowed him to air more positive spots earlier in the campaign, often boasting about how he sued Obama over environmental regulations.

But the very fact that he had to take on his party’s president so aggressively shows the fundamental problem Conway faces. The Bevin campaign’s plan has always been to rely on the state’s natural conservative lean on issues like abortion, taxes and gay marriage to carry the candidate.

“This is our opportunity to close the door on career Frankfort politicians and elect a new crop of conservative leaders for Kentucky,” said Jason Miller, Bevin’s media consultant. “On the liberal Democratic side, they’re trying to throw every appliance they can onto the train tracks because they don’t have a candidate who shares Kentucky’s values.”