A deeper look at the 2023 Kentucky Governor election
Preface
On November 7th, 2023, incumbent Governor Andy Beshear (D) defeated challenger Daniel Cameron (R) to maintain the Kentucky governorship. Below are a few visualizations I created analyzing the results of the election, along with a few personal insights.
Win/Loss Margin Change for Beshear 2019-2023
Beshear Vote Share Compared to Population Change
Beshear Win/Loss Margin Compared to Population Change
Beshear Win/Loss Margin Compared to Total Population
Notes
Election result data was acquired from the New York Times election results for both 2019 and 2023.
Population data was acquired from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The first map showing marginal change by county was created using Tableau. The remaining charts were created using Power BI.
Calculations for margin change were performed using Microsoft Excel.
Key Takeaways:
Beshear saw a significant increase in southeast Kentucky. This area was greatly affected by flooding during Governor Beshear’s first term and it appears that resident’s approve of his response to the disaster.
Key Takeaways:
Beshear performed better in faster growing counties. This is a positive long term trend for Beshear and the Kentucky Democratic Party.
The removal of the top 3 counties by Beshear vote share still yielded a positive trend line.
Key Takeaways:
While Beshear performed better in faster growing counties, his marginal increase actually declined as population change increased. This could be a troubling trend for the Democratic party long term.
Key Takeaways:
The change in win/loss margin for Beshear was very flat when comparing counties by population. He had a small overall increase across the board compared to the 2019 election.
Jefferson County and Fayette County are omitted due to their large populations making the remainder of the chart unreadable. However, they are in line with the overall trend.