Democrats can win back disaffected voters by addressing their everyday concerns to counter the anticipated fallout from President Donald Trump's budget-and-policy package , Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said Wednesday as he began a tour of South Carolina.
Offering blunt advice to fellow Democrats in the traditionally early primary state, Beshear said the national party should take its message directly to places where voters shifted to the Republican Party in 2024, when the GOP won the White House and Congress. The potential 2028 presidential candidate said that message should concentrate on core issues such as jobs, health care, education, transportation and public safety, and how Democrats can make Americans' lives better.
Beshear introduced himself to South Carolina voters as someone with an established record of winning in a deeply Republican state. He is the son of a two-term Kentucky governor, and is now in his second and final term after serving as the state attorney general.
"If you don't know me, I'm the guy who's won three straight races in deep-red Kentucky," Beshear said at an organized labor conference in Greenville. "I'm the guy that's beaten Mitch McConnell's handpicked candidates. I'm the guy that's beaten Donald Trump's handpicked candidates." McConnell is a veteran Kentucky lawmaker who was the longtime Republican leader in the Senate.
Beshear said Trump's tax and spending cut bill, which passed without any Democratic support, was an attack on rural America and on "Southerners like us," but also gives his party a political opening heading into election in 2026 and beyond.