What to watch for in the 2023 elections

Voters across the country head to the polls for state and local elections on Tuesday — and there are particularly competitive races in four states that will give signals about what voters are thinking and where the national political environment stands ahead of 2024.

Here’s what we’re watching in the key elections in Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio and Virginia.

Kentucky governor: A popular Democrat versus red-state trends

Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear is running for a second term in Kentucky, where he faces Republican state Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who won a bruising GOP primary in May. 

Beshear won his first race in 2019 by less than half a percentage point, defeating then-GOP Gov. Matt Bevin by just over 5,000 votes. Since then, though, he has enjoyed positive approval ratings — in a state where Republicans regularly win by double digits — on the back of his performance handling natural disasters and the state economy.