Andrew Graham Beshear ( ; born November 29, 1977) is an American politician and attorney serving since 2019 as the 63rd governor of Kentucky. A member of the Democratic Party, he served from 2016 to 2019 as the 50th attorney general of Kentucky. He is the son of former Kentucky governor Steve Beshear, who served from 2007 to 2015.
As attorney general, Beshear filed multiple lawsuits against Republican governor Matt Bevin over issues such as pension reform. He ran in the 2019 gubernatorial election, defeating Bevin by approximately 0.4%. Beshear was reelected to a second term in 2023, defeating Republican nominee Daniel Cameron by a 5% margin. , Beshear and Lieutenant Governor Jacqueline Coleman are the only Democrats in Kentucky holding statewide office.
Beshear has expressed interest in running in the 2028 United States presidential election.
Early life and education Andrew Graham Beshear was born on November 29, 1977, in Lexington, Kentucky, the son of Mary Jane Beshear (née Klingner) and Steven Lynn Beshear. He was raised in Lexington and graduated from Henry Clay High School.Andy Beshear (October 8, 2019). "[I'm] especially proud to be a Henry Clay High School graduate!" , Twitter. His father, an attorney and politician, was the governor of Kentucky from 2007 to 2015.
Beshear is descended from a western Kentucky family. His paternal great-grandfather founded Beshear Funeral Home in Dawson Springs, Kentucky, and the business remains family-run. His great-grandfather and grandfather were also both pastors.
Beshear has said "all his first jobs were around horses". This included mucking horse stalls, giving horseback riding lessons, and working at a summer camp.
After high school, Beshear earned a National Merit Scholarship to Vanderbilt University, where he studied political science and anthropology, earning a bachelor of arts magna cum laude in 2000. He was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity, and during his senior year served as president of Interhall, Vanderbilt's student government association. He then attended the University of Virginia School of Law, as a Dean's Scholar, graduating with a Juris Doctor in 2003.
Legal career Beshear began his legal career in the private sector as an associate at White & Case in New York, the same law firm where his father started his law career. Beshear worked at the firm's Washington D.C. office for two years after graduating from UVA Law. In 2005, he was hired by the law firm Stites & Harbison, where his father was a partner. Based in Louisville, he represented the developers of the Bluegrass Pipeline, which would have transported natural gas liquid through Kentucky. The project was controversial; critics voiced environmental concerns and objections to the use of eminent domain for the pipeline. His father's office maintained that there was no conflict of interest with the son's representation. Beshear also represented the Indian company UFlex, which sought $20 million in tax breaks from his father's administration, drawing criticism from ethics watchdogs over a potential conflict of interest. In 2013, while he was working at Stites & Harbison, Lawyer Monthly named Beshear its "Consumer Lawyer of the Year – USA". He was also named a "Rising Star" by Super Lawyers.
In addition to his legal work, he was active in political circles, supporting Democratic candidates and campaigns, including working on those of his father, Steve Beshear, who served as governor of Kentucky from 2007 to 2015.
Kentucky Attorney General (2016–2019)
2015 election
In November 2013, Beshear announced his candidacy in the 2015 election for Attorney General of Kentucky, to succeed Democrat Jack Conway, who could not run for reelection, due to term limits. Beshear secured the Democratic nomination without opposition.
Beshear defeated Republican Whitney Westerfield with 50.1% of the vote to Westerfield's 49.9%. a margin of 2,194 votes.
Health care and the Affordable Care Act The Affordable Care Act was an issue in the 2015 campaign. The race occurred during ongoing legal and political battles over Kentucky's implementation of the law under Governor Steve Beshear. Beshear supported the expansion of Kentucky health care, while Westerfield said he would "fight against the Affordable Care Act and the federal government".
Tenure Beshear's stated priorities as Attorney General were to "prevent child abuse, combat the spread of heroin and get treatment for those suffering, and protect our seniors from scams and abuse."
Beshear declined to run for a second term as attorney general so he could run for governor against Bevin. He resigned as attorney general on December 10, 2019, and was inaugurated as governor the same day. By executive order, Beshear appointed Attorney General-elect Daniel Cameron to serve the remainder of his term. Cameron was Kentucky's first African-American attorney general and unsuccessfully ran for governor against Beshear in 2023.
Child abuse prevention As attorney general, Beshear created the Office of Child Abuse and Human Trafficking Prevention and Prosecution and said he had arrested record numbers of child predators.
Opioid litigation A major priority during Beshear's tenure was addressing Kentucky's opioid epidemic. He joined multi-state investigations and lawsuits targeting opioid manufacturers and distributors, alleging their role in fueling addiction and overdose deaths.
Beginning in January 2018, Beshear filed nine lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies for their alleged involvement in fueling Kentucky's opioid epidemic.
Consumer protection Beshear emphasized consumer protection as a central responsibility of the attorney general's office. His office pursued actions against scams, fraud, and predatory business practices, particularly those affecting seniors. His office also worked to stop price gouging during emergencies and strengthened enforcement of state consumer protection laws.
Eliminating Sexual Assault Forensic Evidence (SAFE) kit backlog Beshear made the elimination of Kentucky's Sexual Assault Forensic Evidence (SAFE) kit backlog a priority as attorney general, saying "let there be no doubt—this issue is not about the backlog of kits. It is about justice for victims of rape."
Before Beshear became attorney general, a 2015 audit found more than 4,000 Sexual Assault Forensic Evidence (SAFE) kits were sitting untested in local law enforcement evidence rooms across Kentucky. This backlog represented years of rape survivors waiting for DNA evidence to be processed, often due to lack of funding and standardized testing protocols at the Kentucky State Police crime lab.
During the 2016 Kentucky legislative session, Beshear secured $4.5 million from a settlement with Johnson & Johnson to fund the testing of backlogged kits. He also advocated for and helped implement the SAFE Act of 2016, which mandates that every new SAFE kit be tested within set time frames and that police be trained to conduct victim-centered sexual assault investigations. The law was designed to avoid a recurrence of such backlogs.
Beshear also established a Cold Case Unit within the Attorney General's office. This specialized team of investigators and prosecutors, including a Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) coordinator and victim advocate, followed up on "DNA hits" generated by the newly tested kits, identifying serial offenders and solving cold cases.
The initiative resulted in several indictments for decades-old crimes, including serial rape.
Open records litigation In 2017, Beshear found the University of Kentucky and Western Kentucky University had illegally withheld faculty and staff sexual misconduct records from their student newspapers. Beshear ruled the schools must allow immediate access to the records, with the exception of names and personal identifiers of complainants and witnesses. Both universities sued to block the release, citing student privacy. The Kentucky Court of Appeals agreed with Beshear and the student newspapers, ruling records were wrongly withheld and the Open Records Act had been violated.
Legal disputes with Bevin Administration Beshear sued Governor Matt Bevin several times over what he argued was Bevin's abuse of executive powers during Beshear's tenure as attorney general and while he was campaigning against Bevin for governor. Beshear won some cases and lost others. In April 2016, he sued Bevin over his mid-cycle budget cuts to the state university system. The Kentucky Supreme Court issued a 5–2 ruling agreeing with Beshear that Bevin lacked the authority to make mid-cycle budget cuts without the Kentucky General Assembly's approval. Also in 2016, the Kentucky Supreme Court unanimously sided with Bevin when Beshear sued him on the grounds that Bevin lacked the authority to overhaul the University of Louisville's board of trustees. In 2017, the Kentucky Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit Beshear brought against Bevin, holding that Bevin had the power to temporarily reshape boards while the legislature is out of session; Bevin called Beshear's lawsuit a "shameful waste of taxpayer resources".
Pension and constitutional litigation In April 2018, Beshear sued Bevin for signing Senate Bill 151, a controversial plan to reform all public servants, including teachers and pensions. The Kentucky Supreme Court found the bill unconstitutional. Bevin said Beshear "never sues on behalf of the people of Kentucky. He does it on behalf of his own political career".
Gubernatorial campaigns
2019
On July 9, 2018, Beshear declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for governor of Kentucky in the 2019 election. He chose Jacqueline Coleman, a nonprofit organization president, assistant principal, and former state house candidate, as his running mate. Beshear said he would make public education a priority. In May 2019, he won the Democratic nomination with 37.9% of the vote in a three-way contest.
Beshear faced incumbent Governor Matt Bevin, the nation's least popular governor, in the November 5 general election. Beshear campaigned on his proposed healthcare and education policies and pledged to enact consumer protections based on the Affordable Care Act and increase public education funding. He defeated Bevin with 49.20% of the vote to Bevin's 48.83%. It was the closest Kentucky gubernatorial election ever by percentage, and the closest race of the 2019 gubernatorial election cycle.
Days later, Bevin had not yet conceded the race, claiming large-scale voting irregularities. Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes's office nevertheless declared Beshear the winner. On November 14, Bevin conceded the election after a recanvass was performed at his request that resulted in just a single change, an additional vote for a write-in candidate.
Beshear defeated Bevin largely by winning the state's two most populous counties, Jefferson and Fayette (respectively home to Louisville and Lexington), by an overwhelming margin, taking over 65% of the vote in each. He also narrowly carried the historically heavily Republican suburban counties of Campbell and Kenton in Northern Kentucky, as well as several historically Democratic rural counties in Eastern Kentucky that had swung heavily Republican in recent elections.
2023
On October 1, 2021, Beshear declared his candidacy for reelection as governor in the 2023 election. He defeated perennial candidates Peppy Martin and Geoff Young in the Democratic primary election, receiving over 90% of the vote.
On November 7, 2023, Beshear defeated Republican nominee Daniel Cameron 53% to 47% in the 2023 Kentucky gubernatorial election, winning reelection to a second term. Beshear became the third two-consecutive-term governor in Kentucky history.