Matt Bevin

Matt Bevin (2016)

Matthew Griswold "Matt" Bevin (* 9. January 1967 in Denver , Colorado ) is an American politician of the Republican Party . Bevin was sworn in as governor of the US state of Kentucky on December 8, 2015 . He ran for re-election in November 2019, but was defeated by his Democratic rival Andy Beshear , who replaced him on December 10, 2019.

In the party primary for the US Senate , Bevin , who was part of the Tea Party movement , was inferior to incumbent Mitch McConnell in 2014 .

Family and education

The second oldest of six children in a working-class family grew up on a farm in Coös County , New Hampshire, USA . His father made a living in a wooden mill . The family managed to send Bevin to the private Gould Academy in Bethel , Maine . With the help of a Reserve Officer Training Corps scholarship , Bevin attended Washington and Lee University in Lexington , Virginia , graduating in 1989.

Matt Bevin has been married since 1996. Bevin has nine children with his wife Glenna, a nurse; She adopted four of them from Ethiopia .

Professional career

After graduating from university, Bevin served four years as a soldier in the United States Army , where he achieved the rank of captain . Bevin began his professional career as a financial advisor for SEI Investments Company, first in Boston and later in Philadelphia . He was then named Vice President of Putnam Investments . In 1999 he moved to Kentucky where he started a company in 2003. In 2011 he became president of Bevin Brothers Manufacturing Company in East Hampton , Connecticut and is now a multimillionaire.

Political career

Bevin's political career began as a contributor to the conservative think tank Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions , based in Bowling Green , Kentucky. He donated large sums to fund election campaigns for Republican candidates like Rand Paul and Mitt Romney and the Republicans in the state. In 2004 he was one of the supporters of Michael Peroutkas , the Constitution Party's candidate for the US presidency .

Senate candidacy

In 2014, Bevin ran for the US Senate , but was defeated in the party primary in May of that year to the mandate holder, later election winner and today's majority leader in the US Senate, Mitch McConnell . Bevin, who had been supported by sections of the right-wing party base and in particular the Tea Party in an "anti-establishment" mood against the veteran incumbent McConnell, had put several million US dollars of his own fortune into the election campaign and only through the declaration of support by Rand Pauls lost the chance of a nomination for McConnell, the libertarian party friend who was elected a US Senator in 2010 by means of the Tea Party, against the incumbent who was considered a tough campaigner.

governor

In 2015 he announced that he was running for governor of Kentucky. Although his Democratic rival Jack Conway was well ahead in many polls and the previous incumbent Steve Beshear was also a Democrat, Bevin received 52.5 percent of the vote compared to 44 percent for Conway - the worst result of a Democratic candidate for governor in the state since the civil war.

The Republican stylized himself as an outsider and anti-establishment candidate who was independent of the established political establishment because of personal wealth, and thus leaned on the similarly argued Donald Trump , who was then leading in the Republican primary for the US presidency in 2016. Bevin originally aimed his election campaign on economic policy, but switched to socio-political issues. He relied on controversial positions on health care reform and equality for homosexual partnerships in order to increase his shares in the little-noticed election with low participation (so-called "off-year election") by mobilizing the right and evangelical base. Only 30 percent of eligible voters took part. Neither he nor his democratic rival candidate were considered by political observers to be particularly convincing candidates; the federal party had temporarily even withdrawn its financial support from Bevin. Chris Cilliza ruled in the Washington Post that the Republican victory was due solely to President Obama's continued unpopularity in Kentucky; the strategy of the Republicans from the 2014 mid-term elections to reinterpret regional elections for voting on the policies of the Obama administration had also been successful here.

Bevin's tenure as governor was accompanied by disputes over his confrontational style, despite the good economic development. Many of his statements were controversial; he confessed, for example, that he had not had his children vaccinated against chickenpox and that he was skeptical about mandatory vaccinations . In the second quarter of 2019, he was the most unpopular governor in the United States with an approval rating of 32 percent in a Morning Consult survey . In the previous Attorney General of Kentucky Andy Beshear , the son of his predecessor, Bevin received a strong competitor on the democratic side; he himself won the Republican primary with just 52 percent of the vote. For his main election campaign for the gubernatorial election in November 2019 , Bevin wanted to be close to President Trump.

Political positions

Bevin represents conservative values. He supports the system of education vouchers , advocates low taxes and intends to introduce right-to-work law in Kentucky , a law that is supposed to curtail trade unions in their rights. He announced the expansion of the state health care system established by former Governor Steve Beshear under the Affordable Care Act passed by the Obama administration, which reduced the number of uninsured people in the state by 400,000, from 20 percent to 9 percent of the population to undo. Political observers believe that the associated political disputes will lead to renewed discussion of Obama's health care reform after the Supreme Court ruled that it was legal, thereby calming political discussions on the issue. On the controversial question of how to deal with town clerk Kim Davis , who was briefly imprisoned for a short time and stylized as a political martyr in right-wing conservative circles because of her refusal to recognize homosexual couples' weddings despite official instructions, Bevin clearly stood behind her in September. He visited her together with the conservative US presidential candidates Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz in prison, publicly assured her of his full solidarity and spoke out against the equality of homosexual partnerships with marriage.

Web links

• Personal Website (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Peter Hamby: How Mitch McConnell Crushed the Tea Party. In: CNN.com , 2014 (English).
2. ↑ 2015 Kentucky Governor: Bevin vs. Conway. In: Huffington Post Pollster , accessed November 4, 2015. See also Kyle Kondik: Governors 2015: For Republicans, a Kentucky-Fried, Cajun-Seasoned Mess. In: Sabato's Crystal Ball , University of Virginia Center for Politics, October 29, 2015.
3. ↑ Kentucky - Summary Vote Results. In: Associated Press , November 4, 2015.
4. ^ Eric Ostermeier, Kentucky Democrats Turn in Worst Showing in Gubernatorial Race Since the Civil War. In: Smart Politics , November 4, 2015 (English).
5. ↑ James Hohmann: Matt Bevin Tries On Outsider Message in Kentucky Governor's Race. In: The Washington Post , November 2, 2015.
6. ↑ ^{a b} James Hohmann, Michael Smith, Elise Viebeck: GOP Using Kim Davis saga, Gay Marriage Backlash to Galvanize Evangelicals in low-turnout Kentucky Governor's Race. In: The Washington Post , November 2, 2015.
7. ^ Rae Hodge: Meet the Republican Mitch McConnell Called a "Pathological Liar": How Gov.-elect Matt Bevin Decimated Kentucky Democrats. In: Salon.com , November 4, 2015 (English).
8. ↑ Chris Cilliza: Matt Bevin Is the Next Governor of Kentucky. He Has President Obama to Thank. In: The Washington Post , November 3, 2015.
9. ↑ Meghan Keneally: Kentucky governor's comments about vaccines adding to misinformation, experts warn. In: ABC News , March 22, 2019.
10. ↑ Tom Loftus: Gov. Matt Bevin ekes out a hard-fought win in the Kentucky Republican primary. In: Louisville Courier Journal , May 21, 2019; Daniel Desrochers: Bevin limps to victory in Republican primary for Kentucky governor. In: Lexington Herald Leader , May 21, 2019.
11. ↑ Lesley Clark: Gov. Matt Bevin dismisses his low poll numbers, welcomes Trump's help. In: McClatchy DC , February 22, 2019; Steven Shepard: Governor follows Trump script in reelection brawl. In: Politico , August 4, 2019.
12. ↑ Bevin Says He Would Eliminate Kentucky's Medicaid Expansion. ( Memento of the original from November 7, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Lex18.com , February 23, 2015 ( AP report, English). 
13. ↑ Sara Goddard: Could an Upset in Kentucky Herald a Rollback for Obamacare? In: WonkWire.com , November 4, 2015 (English).