(CNN) Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin isn't a near-certain loser in Tuesday's election because of Donald Trump. But the President, despite his best efforts, couldn't save the GOP incumbent, either.

That Bevin is 5,000 votes short of state Attorney General Andy Beshear (D) with virtually all the votes counted in Kentucky -- Beshear has claimed victory -- is, primarily Bevin's fault. He spent his first term picking all sorts of dumb fights -- with public school teachers, with his own party -- that left him as one of the most unpopular governors in the country. Bevin's problems were compounded by Beshear's profile as the state's top cop with a golden last name (his father, Steve, spent eight years in the governor's mansion amassing a largely moderate record).

But to write off this race -- and its result -- as having nothing at all to do with Trump, and the broader rhetorical and stylistic approach to politics that we can call "Trumpism," is also a mistake.

After all, the President was in Kentucky the day before Tuesday's election. And he said this to Bevin: "If you lose, they're going to say Trump suffered the greatest defeat in the history of the world. This was the greatest. You can't let that happen to me!"

Then there is the fact that Bevin, beginning this summer, sought to turn the race into a national referendum on Trump and the broader fight over impeachment playing out in the nation's capital. He would regularly pledge at campaign rallies that he stood strong with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence while Beshear did not and would not. (Beshear tried to make the race about local issues, largely avoiding associations to his national party.)

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