One silver lining to be found amid the chaos wrought by Democrat officials in positions of power — from the White House to governors' mansions around the country — is how enacting leftist policies expose the damaging consequences of the Democrat agenda.
In Kentucky, new voter registration numbers this week showed just how powerful the case for Republican leadership has been as voters see and feel the effects of policies inflicted by Democrat President Joe Biden and the Democrat Governor Andy Beshear.
As of April 21, Republicans officially claimed a historic lead in voter registration with 1,587,478 voters to Democrats' 1,534,606, a significant victory for the Republican Party of Kentucky as it looks toward this November's election in which Beshear is seeking another term as governor after narrowly winning what was the closest gubernatorial election in Kentucky's history.
On Beshear's watch, since he took office in 2019, Democrats have lost 147,119 registered voters (-8.75 percent) in Kentucky while Republicans gained 118,373 registered voters (+8.06 percent).
As a refresher, Beshear won in 2019 by barely more than 5,000 votes or 0.4 percent against Matt Bevin, the nation's least popular governor at the time according to Morning Consult. In his 2015 campaign for attorney general, Beshear squeaked out a victory by roughly 2,000 votes.
That math means Kentucky Republicans are eager for this November's elections in which Beshear will face voters as he asks them for a second term as governor.
Here are more of the numbers showing the shift toward Republicans among Kentucky voters since Democrats took control of the Kentucky governor's mansion (2019) and the White House (2021):
Fresh voter reg numbers in #kygov. Top line: since Beshear became governor in ‘19, @kygop has added 118k people while @KyDems have lost - LOST - 147k. Huge raw swing has GOP feeling good. Beshear only won by 5k. pic.twitter.com/tdf3AMkhCY
— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) April 25, 2023
Rightfully, Republicans in Kentucky are celebrating their gains and looking to continue growing the number of registered GOP voters as residents of the Commonwealth continue to see the damage caused by Democrat policies.
"We are well positioned to defeat Governor Andy Beshear this November," Republican Party of Kentucky Spokesman Sean Southard told Townhall. "Beshear barely made it into office in 2015 and 2019," Southard reminded of the incumbent's previous slim margins of victory in statewide elections.
"We are going into this election with a Republican voter registration advantage for the first time in Kentucky's history," Southard celebrated. "Kentuckians know that Andy Beshear and the Democrat Party do not represent their values," he explained. "Andy Beshear is captured by the far-left's ideological crusade in our schools, has presided over the largest loss of student learning in a generation, and has never met a Biden spending bill he didn't support."
As a result of the GOP's gains among the Commonwealth's voters, Southard said the state party looks forward to "electing a strong Republican governor who will represent Kentucky's values" this November.
Would it be better to avoid Democrat policies from being implemented in the first place? Of course. But, as has been seen earlier this year in Florida and now this week in Kentucky, the implementation of those policies at the state and/or federal level makes a strong case for voters to abandon Democrats and join the Republican Party.