There are a ton of elections Tuesday. Here are 10 to watch.
It’s time for the biggest elections before 2024.
And the results of next week’s races will reverberate far beyond their local boundaries.
From a statewide race in the largest hyper-competitive battleground, to the latest effort to tap into popular abortion-rights support in red states, to new tests of the Black voter enthusiasm that President Joe Biden and Democrats will need, Election Day 2023 will be full of lessons for 2024.
Here’s my cheat sheet on the 10 races that both election nerds and casual observers should be following to see where voters stand a year before the presidential election.
(Incumbents are named in all-caps. Previous election results via state and county election boards, The Almanac of American Politics and The Virginia Public Access Project)
Kentucky governor
ANDY BESHEAR (D) vs. Daniel Cameron (R)
What we’ll learn: Whether a popular governor can defy his state’s partisan lean
Previous election (2019): Andy Beshear (D) 49%, Matt Bevin (R) 49%
2020 presidential election: Donald Trump (R) 62%, Joe Biden (D) 36%
Beshear has high approval ratings after four years as governor, especially for a Democrat. But Cameron, the state attorney general, is racing to yoke him to Biden, who lost nearly two-thirds of the vote in Kentucky in 2020 — and has only gotten less popular since.
If Beshear can win a second term, it will be thanks to a large swath of Trump voters. But if Cameron achieves a victory, it will be a sign that national politics — and enmity for Biden — is a serious danger for Democrats next year.