Update on Kentucky-GOV GOP Primary: James Comer takes the high road.

(Via @willstauff) Good for James Comer: “As you know, I have asked for a recanvass of all 120 counties to make sure that the totals are correct among the 220,000 Republican votes cast. If the results are accurate, I will congratulate and gladly endorse Matt Bevin.” As I noted yesterday, there’s a difference between a recanvass and a full recount; and it’s perfectly reasonable for anybody behind by only 83 votes to ask to make sure that the sums all add up.  So what James Comer is doing here is to let people know that he is not planning to ride a dispute over the Kentucky Republican gubernatorial primary results all the way to the bitter end: instead, if the recanvass doesn’t show him ahead after all then Comer will be bowing out, gracefully*.

Which is the honorable thing to do. I’ll also note that I agree with this argument that it probably didn’t hurt Matt Bevin any either to have stayed strictly out of that epic personal brawl between Comer and Hal Heiner that marred the mid-primary season.  To quote S.M. Stirling: “it’s surprising how often mercy has practical utility.”

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*Come, I will conceal nothing from you: I guessed wrong on this one. I expected a bitter rear-guard action. Would that I was always wrong in such a pleasant fashion.

Matt Bevin vs. James Comer: Kentucky-GOV GOP primary race still up in the air.

This is a little bit of a sticky wicket: “Matt Bevin may have won Kentucky’s Republican primary for governor on Tuesday night. Out of more than 214,000 votes cast, the Tea Party conservative was leading James Comer by 83 votes. Yet with a margin that thin, there might be no way to know with any certainty just who GOP voters in the Bluegrass State actually nominated to lead them for the next four years.” The problem is two-fold:

  • It is, in point of fact, neither impossible nor implausible that a perfect, flawless recount of every ballot will show that Matt Bevin was over-counted by 84 votes*.
  • But at the same time, Bevin supporters will frankly go nuts if a recount flips the results to James Comer.

Continue reading Matt Bevin vs. James Comer: Kentucky-GOV GOP primary race still up in the air.