Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) predicted Monday that his home state would have a new governor after the recanvass starting this week, signaling to other Republicans to back off the extreme measures being considered to flip the unwelcome election result.
According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, McConnell cited his own experience with the recanvass when he first ran for Senate and won by a slim margin. The recanvass did not change the result.
“I’m sorry Matt came up short, but he had a good four years and all indications are, barring some dramatic reversal on the recanvass, we’ll have a different governor in three weeks,” he said of Gov. Matt Bevin (R).
After Democrat Andy Beshear bested the incumbent in an upset, Bevin refused to concede and cited non-specific “irregularities” in the vote. Soon after, state Senate Majority Leader Robert Stivers (R) floated using an antiquated state constitutional provision to contest the election.
Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes told TPM that that provision hadn’t been invoked in more than a century, and that she was aware of no irregularities in the election that would prompt its usage.
Last week, Bevin officially requested a recanvassing, a fairly routine procedure that entails checking the math on the counties’ vote totals. It is not yet clear if Bevin will concede when the recanvass almost inevitably shows him to still be the loser.
