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PoliticsBiden administration The Fix The Briefs Polling Democracy in America
Election 2024
PoliticsBiden administration The Fix The Briefs Polling Democracy in America
Election 2024


TOP TAKEAWAYS FROM 2023 ELECTION RESULTS — AND WHAT THEY MEAN FOR 2024

6 min
3248
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Voters fill out their ballots at a polling station in Midlothian, Va., on
Tuesday. (Julia Nikhinson for The Washington Post)
Skip to main content
 1. 1Another good election for Democrats (when they really needed it)
 2. 2Even when abortion rights weren’t literally on the ballot, they won
 3. 3Youngkin down, Beshear up

Analysis by Aaron Blake
Updated November 8, 2023 at 12:27 a.m. EST|Published November 7, 2023 at 11:18
p.m. EST

Tuesday was Election Day 2023, with Kentucky and Mississippi holding
gubernatorial elections, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R) political future on
the line, a new congressman elected and abortion rights looming as many voters
headed to the polls.


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And while surely a partial picture, it’s the most data we have thus far gathered
on actual voters at the polls between the 2022 midterm elections and the 2024
presidential contest in 12 months.



Below, some takeaways from this off-year election.

1


ANOTHER GOOD ELECTION FOR DEMOCRATS (WHEN THEY REALLY NEEDED IT)

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Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) gave his victory speech Nov. 7 after he was
elected to a second term, defeating his Republican opponent Daniel Cameron.
(Video: AP)

Democrats probably won’t stop panicking about the 2024 election — not with
another poll Tuesday night, this one from CNN, showing Donald Trump leading
President Biden.

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But for now, they keep having good elections.

The big ones Tuesday:

 * Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) turned aside a challenge from Trump-backed
   state Attorney General Daniel Cameron (R) relatively easily in a red state.
 * Ohio became the latest red-leaning state to vote in favor of abortion rights
   on the ballot — and by a large margin. It passed Issue 1, enshrining the
   right to abortion into the state constitution. The pro-abortion-rights
   position has now won on all seven state ballot measures since Roe v. Wade was
   overturned in mid-2022. Turnout was also strong in Ohio, suggesting this
   issue continues to animate voters.
 * Democrats not only avoided a potential GOP takeover of the Senate in
   much-watched Virginia, but they actually flipped the state House, taking full
   control of the legislature.

It’s the latest of many post-2016 elections in which Democrats can come away
feeling good. They clearly won in 2018 and 2020 and, in 2022 after Roe fell, had
one of the best midterms for a president’s party in modern history. They have
also continued to significantly over-perform their 2020 presidential margins in
special elections and other races throughout 2023.

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(Worth noting: Democrats did lose a governorship in Louisiana last month. But
that’s a very red state, and Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards was term-limited.
Republicans also held Mississippi’s governorship, by about five points..)

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As for how much solace this night provides a year before the 2024 election?
There’s a real question about whether Republicans just don’t turn out when Trump
isn’t on the ballot. Beshear was an incumbent. Virginia leans blue. And even if
Democrats as a whole are well-poised, that doesn’t necessarily mean Biden, with
his various liabilities, will be able to take advantage.

But you’d rather have good elections than bad ones. And Tuesday should at least
give Democrats a modicum of badly needed hope.

2


EVEN WHEN ABORTION RIGHTS WEREN’T LITERALLY ON THE BALLOT, THEY WON

Return to menu
Abortion rights advocacy group leaders delivered a victory speech after Ohioans
voted Nov. 7 to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. (Video: AP)

Ohio wasn’t the only place where the signs on abortion rights continued to be
strong for Democrats.

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Youngkin and Virginia Republicans campaigned hard on what they reasoned was a
more-palatable 15-week abortion ban (as opposed to a total or 6-week ban), after
antiabortion GOP hard-liners struggled mightily in 2022. It didn’t work.

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Among those hard-liners was Cameron, who at one point endorsed a state law
banning abortion with no exceptions. (Cameron later said he would support
exceptions.) The race featured a late, powerful Beshear ad with a childhood rape
survivor criticizing Cameron.

Think of that: a red-state Democrat running on abortion rights and winning. Only
in a post-Roe world.

Democrats also won a Pennsylvania state Supreme Court race in which they sought
to emphasize abortion rights. While the race wasn’t determinative for control of
the court, it echoed Democrats running and winning on the issue in a vital state
Supreme Court race in another swing state earlier this year: Wisconsin.

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The Ohio result is worth emphasizing for a couple other reasons. Republicans had
sought a workaround to defeat the measure in August: raising the threshold for
passing ballot measures to 60 percent. So voters effectively rejected the GOP’s
position by large margins twice.

The Ohio measure also appeared to be flirting with the high 50s — suggesting
Ohio could vote more in favor of such a measure than neighboring and swingier
Michigan (56.7 percent).

We’ll see if this continues to look as if it’s Democrats’ silver bullet. At the
very least, Republicans should probably thoroughly revise the way they have been
pushing an issue that’s still vexing them. And Democrats will surely now put
this on as many ballots as possible (see: Arizona, South Dakota, Missouri and
Florida), making it as much of an issue as they can.

3


YOUNGKIN DOWN, BESHEAR UP

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The big question heading into Tuesday night was what the results might say about
Youngkin’s potential heft on the national stage. The night ended with more
reason to believe that Beshear might one day wind up there.

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A governor has only so much control over state legislative races, and Virginia
(again) is a blue state. But Youngkin invested heavily in trying to get a state
legislature that could help him push along his agenda and seemed to lean into
the election’s 2024 implications.

“I think they’re the most important elections in America, because these issues
that are so important to Virginians are also the ones that are going to be so
important to Americans next year,” he said over the weekend.



The fact that Republicans not only failed to win the state Senate but also lost
the state House should help extinguish whatever illusions people might still
have about Youngkin riding in as a late Trump alternative in the 2024 race.

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But as one hopeful fades, another rises. Beshear has now won two races in a
state that favored Trump by 26 points in 2020. The first could have been
dismissed as a fluke, given that in 2019 he faced an unpopular Republican
incumbent in a tough environment for the GOP. But he significantly expanded his
margin of victory this time. He’s also just 45 years old.

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He’s not the only governor to win multiple times in an unfavorable state for his
party. Such governors tend to have little hope nationally because of how much
they have to moderate and even criticize their party. But in Beshear, Democrats
could actually have someone potentially acceptable to their base. He’s largely
in line with his national party on key social issues.

At the very least, you’d have to consider him a very attractive possible running
mate — whenever Democrats might be looking to assemble a new ticket.


ELECTION 2023

Here are our top takeaways from 2023 election results — and what they mean for
2024.

Virginia elections: Virginia Democrats are projected to win majorities in both
the House of Delegates and state Senate, in a major blow to Gov. Glenn
Youngkin’s conservative agenda. Get Virginia elections results.

Ohio Issue 1: Ohioans passed Issue 1, voting to enshrine abortion rights in the
state constitution. Get Ohio Issue 1 election results.

Ohio Issue 2: Voters also passed Issue 2, a ballot measure to allow recreational
marijuana. See Ohio Issue 2 election results.

Governor’s races: Democrat Andy Beshear defeated his Republican opponent Daniel
Cameron to win reelection as Kentucky’s governor. Get live election results on
the Kentucky governor’s race and Mississippi governor’s race.



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3248 Comments
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