Politics isn’t what drew Kyle Williams to this Floyd County town last week to see Gov. Matt Bevin.
Williams, who lives in a nearby community, didn’t come to hear why he should pick Bevin over Attorney General Andy Beshear in the Nov. 5 race for governor.
Instead, he came to find out if a local prison — shut down for years — is finally going to reopen.
“I came up here to check, (to) listen to what’s going on and hopefully hear some good news …” said Williams, 37, as he and more than 80 others waited outside the city’s fire department to see Bevin, who took some time to snap photos and shake hands with folks.
As the tight race for governor draws near, Bevin has been a regular fixture in Eastern Kentucky, where his main opponent in this year’s Republican primary racked up a lot of votes.
With the benefit of incumbency, Bevin has bounced around during the campaign season, making announcements about grant funding or transportation projects for various communities.
In Floyd County, Bevin brought the news Williams hoped to hear: Otter Creek Correctional Center — a private prison that has sat dormant since 2012 after inmates were pulled from the facility in the wake of horrific reports that guards sexually abused women incarcerated there — will be resurrected under new management and a fresh name, the Southeast State Correctional Complex.
“This is a good day,” Bevin told the crowd. “Doesn’t matter whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat. Doesn’t matter who you’re going to vote for … it really doesn’t. This is a good day for this community.”
Support for Bevin among Eastern Kentucky voters seemed shaky after the GOP primary in May, when state Rep. Robert Goforth won a large share of the votes in that region (even though Bevin won the race).
And the governor has made quite a few trips east during the final stretch before Election Day, making official state announcements as well as campaign stops and posting online about his travels along the way.
Over the past couple of weeks alone, Bevin:
- Spoke at the Harlan County Bicentennial Festival
- Held a community forum at Opal’s Restaurant in Jackson County
- Served as the grand marshal of Fleming County’s tractor parade
- Visited Letcher County to announce discretionary funding the state has awarded for local roadwork
- Joined U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers to announce grant funding for a workforce training center in Barbourville
- Visited two of Kentucky’s easternmost counties, Floyd and Pike, to announce the reopening of the prison in Wheelwright and a transportation project in Pikeville
- Spent a day in Montgomery County, where he announced a grant that will go toward building a new medical facility and visited with voters at an outdoor festival
Bevin hasn’t spent all his time in Eastern Kentucky, though. He hung out in Lexington on Oct. 15, where he spoke to the local chamber of commerce and sparred with Beshear at a debate.
The next day, it appears Bevin flew to Washington, D.C., for a campaign event.
Beshear seized on that. “Right now, Matt Bevin is flying your state jet to a D.C. fundraiser,” he told Kentucky voters in a post on social media.
Bevin had another fundraiser closer to home on Oct. 18 in Somerset, according to the Republican Party of Kentucky’s website.
He also welcomed pastors to the Governor’s Mansion in Frankfort on Monday for a “spiritual” event and visited Gallatin County on Tuesday to help break ground on a new airport.
Beshear has hammered Bevin on his frequent use of state-owned airplanes, particularly for out-of-state flights to D.C. and other places.
But Bevin has unabashedly highlighted his connections to national power players, including President Donald Trump.
Trump even plans to hold a rally in Lexington the night before the election in a show of support that could give Bevin a boost with voters. And he might need it, considering a recent poll shows he and Beshear are neck and neck.
Both Democrats and Republicans have called Bevin a bully. But Bevin has focused on making the case to voters that he has gotten things done during his first term, from spurring job creation to cracking down on abortion.
That emphasis on the impact his administration has had on Kentucky communities was on display during his visits to Wheelwright and Pikeville, although he said very little about the upcoming election.
Bevin told the applauding crowd in Wheelwright that the local prison will be run by the state, which expects to hire people to fill up to 200 new jobs there. A couple of hours later, Bevin told reporters 63 people already had submitted applications.
He also said opening this prison will benefit the state, which is struggling with overcrowded prisons and jails.
“This isn’t patronage. This isn’t feeling sorry for people,” Bevin told people in Wheelwright. “This is you providing for us at this state something that we desperately need that this community has to offer, and we’re grateful to you for it.”
Later that day, in Pike County, he announced the state is funding the construction of a tunnel beneath a busy road to make it safer for employees at the Pikeville Medical Center to walk into work.
He indicated this project is something people in Pikeville deserve, not a favor he’s doing them.
“It always bugged me when politicians would step up and act like they’re writing the check themselves,” Bevin told an atrium filled with people who work at the medical center. “This is your money. It’s your money coming back to you.”
“No matter who the governor is three weeks from now, three years from now or 30 years from now … you should expect people to step up and to do what is right in communities regardless of how you’re registered, regardless of who the elected officials are, what party they’re in,” he continued.
When Bevin first ran for public office, his opponent — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — branded him an “East Coast con man.”
In Wheelwright and Pikeville, Bevin emphasized the similarities between his upbringing in rural New Hampshire and Eastern Kentuckians’ experiences.
He grew up in “a community not at all unlike this,” he told people in Wheelwright. In Shelburne, New Hampshire, his hometown, paper mills were the big business instead of coal mines.
As those mills disappeared (like many mining jobs), people sought other opportunities, and bringing in a new prison made a “powerful difference.”
“I know the impact this will have,” he said of reopening the prison in Wheelwright. “I’ve seen it, and I’m grateful to be a small part of bringing this here.”
Not everyone who came to see the governor that Friday morning was a fan.
Krinda Bailey of Martin, Kentucky, and Zac Gibbs, an administrative organizer with the Service Employees International Union, showed up with pro-Beshear signs.
Bailey saw Bevin’s visit as a last-minute vote grab.
“I feel like Bevin is only here stunting for votes,” she said. “This is a local win. It’s not a Bevin win.”
Driving through town, though, pro-Bevin signs were planted in some folks’ front yards. And people like Elvis Eleiwurk say they’ve got the governor’s back on Election Day.
“I like him. I always did,” said Eleiwurk, a 61-year-old who has lived in Wheelwright his whole life. “I’m a Republican all the way.”
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Written by Morgan Watkins. Cross-posted from the
Courier-Journal via the Kentucky Press News Service.