The Kentucky Horse Race

Time to head out to the polls, Kentucky.  We've got a governor to elect, as well as multiple state offices, and your choices for chief executive in Frankfort boil down to AG Jack Conway, and Matt Bevin, who has an interesting relationship with reality.

Republican Matt Bevin and Democrat Jack Conway continued their sprint to the finish line in Tuesday’s gubernatorial election as they campaigned in different parts of the state Saturday in an effort to get voters to the polls in a race that appears so close it will be decided by turnout.

Campaigning in Northern Kentucky, Bevin told groups of 30 to 50 people in Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties that his latest poll shows that he has grabbed a slim point advantage despite most public polls showing Conway with a 5 percentage point lead. 

"The momentum has shifted. The gap has been closed," Bevin told his core backers at the Boone County Republican Party headquarters. "We're actually up a point as of yesterday." 

Bevin, who declined to release details of his tracking polls, traveled the region with 4th District Congressman Thomas Massie in an effort to rally Republican troops. 

Conway, showing similar confidence as he campaigned east of Lexington, told crowds that their vote is a choice between the “mainstream and the extreme” and he, too, predicted a win on Tuesday. 

Told of Bevin’s claim that he had taken the lead, Conway said his internal polls show him up by more than five points and then added, “It wouldn’t be the first time (Bevin) didn’t tell the truth.”

Bevin has lied the entire campaign about wanting to get rid of Medicaid expansion.  It's right here in his "Bevin Blueprint" for Kentucky. right there at the top of page 10.

I mean, I don't know what else you can say about it.  He flat out says it "should be repealed".  There's nothing in there about any transition, any help for the 450,000 added to Medicaid under the expansion and the thousands more getting insurance through Kynect, he just closes Kynect and puts Kentucky on the federal health insurance exchange.  That's his plan.

Nearly half a million people would lose their health insurance, point blank.  It's in Bevin's own position paper, guys.  It's his stated policy, right there, verbatim.

Oh, and the rest of the Bevin Blueprint is a disaster: ending unions in the state, cutting thousands of state employee jobs, ending state pensions, shifting education dollars to private, charter and home schools and ending state education standards, and massive tax cuts for the rich and for businesses and expecting Laffer Curve unicorns to make up the lost revenue, just like in Kansas.

Oh, and he ends with refusing to enforce federal laws and regulations he doesn't agree with. Nullification uber alles!

Time to vote, Kentuckians.  You've got a choice to make: Conway, or this recipe for economic and austerity disaster that will burn the state to the ground.

John Oliver explains today's election, with the help of a pangolin.