GOP wins Kentucky governor’s race in top state election

LEXINGTON, Ky (AP) – Kentucky voters have elected just the second Republican in four decades to hold the governor’s office.
Republican businessman Matt Bevin waged a campaign to scale back the state’s Medicaid expansion that was made possible under the federal health care overhaul. Some 400,000 lower-income people who gained health coverage under the expansion could be affected.
Bevin ran as an outsider, emphasizing his Christian faith along with his support for Kim Davis, the Rowan County clerk jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
His Democratic opponent, two-term Attorney General Jack Conway, embraced Obama’s health care reforms, saying hundreds of thousands of residents could lose access to taxpayer-funded insurance if Bevin won.
The only other gubernatorial campaign was in Mississippi, where Republican Gov. Phil Bryant easily won re-election.
In Virginia, a swing state, Democrats failed in an expensive bid to take control of the state Senate and empower Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe in negotiations with Republicans who control the state House.
In Ohio, voters rejected an initiative that sought to legalize the recreational and medicinal use of marijuana.
Elsewhere, Houston voters defeated a closely watched ordinance that would have established nondiscrimination protections for gay and transgender people in the city.

Copyright 2015 The Associated Press.