in the country, but we saw the state by states come out to the states that will be battle grounds, he s doing much better than the national polls suggested overall. so when we look at the states, what may have worked for beshear, what worked in virginia? keep it local. talk health care. get off trump, get off impeachment. how do you reconcile in the national picture for president an impeachment that seems to be so consuming of the energy in dc for the democrats with what s been working state by state? i think we succeed by pointing out that democrats can walk and chew gum. we have passed laws to stabilize health care, raise minimum wage, reduce gun violence, make sure you re judged in the workplace by the content of your character, restore our democracy and so many other things.
that s going to be closely watched as are statewide races in virginia as special attention is being paid to the state senate there. it s narrowly in republican control. that could change overnight. races in mississippi as well, we ll get returns throughout the evening and cnn will bring it to you aulg you all as it happens. now i ll turn it over to chris cuomo for prime time. this is a very significant story unfolding in the state of kentucky. why? it probably wasn t supposed to be happening. i say probably because there s always context in poll ex. but if kentucky goes from red to blue and we understand why it happened, it will be an excellent window into the state of play in the 2020 election. is the president relevant here? is impeachment relevant here? big questions, big results, probably on our watch, so let s
money on impeachment. the country is divided on it at best and it s not even a real split because the party numbers are so different. it s all the democrats, like 70 something and like a third to 25% of republicans think even the inquiry is worth it. this guy doesn t mention impeachment. he is nothing like any of the people on the stage for the democratic nominees. so is this a warning or is this a good signal? well, first of all, you re right. he didn t talk about impeachment, the republicans did and their whole campaign down the stretch was to try and attach him to the impeachment in washingt washington. if he wins tonight, that will have failed as a strategy. that s interesting. that s a better point than mine so let s flesh that out. i just want to linger on that last point you made. he didn t talk about impeachment butch you think there may be an equal opposite at play there, that they talked it up a lot and maybe people didn t want to hear it in that context either.
to him in the state of kentucky. he s going to carry the state of kentucky, but if you extrapolate to other places around the country, this could be a concern for him. david, is there a lesson not just in what beshear talked about but what he didn t, given this list of what was in this five-minute sell of his, medicaid, schools, not unusual. i ll get away from this divisiveness we see in washington, does not talk impeachment, does not mention the president. what s the lesson in that? if you re a 2020 democrat running for president, you re trying to court your democratic base and the nomination but you re probably paying attention where sometimes the conversation is dominated by trump or impeachment or the news of day headlines. beshear made it very clear from the get-go in this case, he saw his only path was to localize this. talk about health care, education, jobs and really not try to talk about donald trump. it was bevin trying to use trump
if beshear wins, he will have won by localizing it and the nationalizing on the race would including using impeachment to - try and mobilize their voters. but, look, generally, as david fbs s was saying, there is a big debate as to whether you just pump up your base and win that way or whether you need to appeal moe a appeal more broadly as they did in appealing in suburban areas. this is going to play out over the next couple of months. let s take a break. as we get some more was in, we ll have to understand it. we also have to put it in the context of stay-te-by-state pol. kentucky shouldn t be in play but there may be lessons to it. we have a former dnc chair who