Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear is among the few Democrats likely under consideration to be the party’s vice-presidential candidate in November, and the two-term leader said Monday he’d be willing to listen if Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrat’s likely nominee, calls him.
Beshear appeared Monday on MSNBC’s and said he supported Harris as the party’s candidate in wake of President Joe Biden’s decision less than 24 hours earlier to end his campaign. The governor said he took it as a compliment to the state’s successes that he’s being mentioned for the No. 2 spot.
“I love my job, I love serving the people of Kentucky,” he said on the MSNBC morning show. “The only way I would consider something other than this current job is if I believe I could further help my people and to help this country.”
A good part of Beshear’s appeal lies in him being a popular Democratic governor in a solidly Republican state. In April, Morning Consult’s quarterly gubernatorial approval polls showed Beshear as the country’s most popular Democratic governor.
As he ran successfully for re-election last year, Beshear campaigned as more of a moderate, often saying he wanted to move the state forward and not to the left or right. He wasn’t afraid, though, of taking stances on controversial issues in a mostly conservative state. That included campaigning on abortion access for victims of rape and incest, pushing for the legalization of medical marijuana and rejecting measures to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth. Republican supermajorities in the General Assembly were able to override the governor’s veto of the latter measure.
If Monday’s appearance on MSNBC served as an audition for the vice presidential role, Beshear took advantage of the opportunity to go on the attack against Ohio U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, who was nominated last week by the GOP. Beshear called out Vance, who often talks about his Kentucky roots and wrote about them in his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy. Vance was born in Ohio but spent several summers of his youth in Eastern Kentucky.
Beshear said the interview presented a chance for him to support Harris and defend his people, who he claimed Vance called “lazy.” In his book, Vance scoffed at claims that working-class white people put in more hours than college-educated whites.
“I want the American people to know what a Kentuckian is and what they look like because let me just tell you that J.D. Vance ain’t from here,” Beshear said. “The nerve that he has to call the people of Eastern Kentucky lazy. These are the hard-working coal miners that powered the Industrial Revolution. That created the strongest middle class the world has ever seen. That powered us through two world wars. We should be thanking them, not calling them lazy.”
