2019 governors races feature endangered species: Conservative Dems

Democrats running in three red states next year are seeking distance from the national party to notch wins in Trump country.

By DANIEL STRAUSS 12/22/2018 06:45 AM EST

Democrats are turning to a slate of candidates who look nothing like their party in a bid to win three tough Southern governors races in 2019.

President Donald Trump carried Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi with ease in 2016. But Democratic candidates with long personal records or deep family ties in state politics — and policy positions that bear little resemblance to their party’s leading presidential contenders — could produce unusually competitive races in all three states.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat elected in 2015, is avowedly anti-abortion, a disappearing position in today’s Democratic Party. Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood has called himself a “poster child” for gun rights. And like them, Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear — the son of popular former Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear — is portraying himself as a common-sense technocrat disinterested in partisan politics.

Democrats are banking on the trio’s unique profiles to spur voters in the deep-red states to abandon national party allegiances — even as the presidential primaries and Trump’s reelection campaign push partisans into their corners ahead of 2020. The races will be a key test of whether Democrats in conservative states can create enough daylight with the national party to win races in some of the most Trump-friendly territories nationwide.

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https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/22/democrats-bank-on-one-of-a-kind-candidates-in-2019-governors-races-1001814