Matt Bevin

On November 5, 2019, Bevin lost his re-election campaign to Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear in a close race. After requesting a recanvass—an additional check of vote totals at the county level—Bevin conceded the election on November 14, 2019. During his last days in office, Bevin pardoned hundreds of criminals including extremely violent convicts, a child rapist and the homicidal brother of a contributor to his campaign. A confessed triple murderer had two death sentences set aside leaving him eligible for parole in just nineteen months. On December 23, 2019, it was reported that the FBI had questioned state representative Chris Harris about Bevin's pardons and on January 2, 2020, Attorney General Daniel Cameron asked the FBI to investigate the pardons.

In March 2019, Bevin said in an interview that he deliberately exposed all nine of his children to chickenpox so they would "catch the disease and become immune."

Bevin narrowly lost his re-election campaign to Beshear. Bevin refused to concede, citing what he called "irregularities" and referring to a "process"; court approval would be needed for a full recount, and Kentucky's election recount law does not appear to apply for gubernatorial elections. Bevin claimed without evidence "thousands of absentee ballots that were illegally counted", people were "incorrectly turned away" at the polls, "a number of [voting] machines that didn’t work properly", and ballots were stored in open boxes. Fellow Republican lawmakers in Kentucky expressed skepticism of Bevin's claims, and asked him to substantiate the claims or concede.

On November 6, Bevin asked for a recanvass, which involves a review of votes rather than a recount; the recanvass took place on its scheduled date of November 14. According to the Kentucky state constitution, a governor must be sworn in on the December 10 following the election. Kentucky's outgoing Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes declared Beshear the winner. On November 6, Beshear hired J. Michael Brown to lead his transition team. Should a candidate contest the election results, the state legislature would determine the winner after hearing a report from a randomly selected 11-member committee from the House (8) and Senate (3). This process, which is enforced through the Goebel Election Law, has only been used once, during the 1899 Kentucky gubernatorial election. However, Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers and other Republican members of the Kentucky state legislature expressed skepticism of Bevin's voter fraud claim and urged Bevin on November 7 to concede if the recanvass does not go in his favor. On November 11, 2019, Republican U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell announced that "all indications are" Beshear will be the next Governor of Kentucky. On November 14, 2019, Governor Bevin conceded the Gubernatorial race.

Bevin issued many controversial pardons during his tenure. These included his sister and wife's friend who tried to hire a hitman to kill her ex-husband and his new wife. In his final month of office, Bevin pardoned or commuted the sentences of 428 people, including 336 mostly white drug offenders, but some convicted of crimes such as murder, manslaughter, and rape. Those pardoned included a man whose brother threw a fundraising party to relieve the debt left over from Bevin's defeat and also a man convicted of raping a nine-year-old girl and who had served only one year of a twenty-three year sentence. Regarding the victim and her sister, Bevin said that "both their hymens were intact," so, "there was zero evidence," a rape of the child had occurred. These pardons were met with outrage from some families of the victims, and were scrutinized by some state legislators. On December 13, 2019, President of the Kentucky Senate Robert Stivers–speaking for the Republican majority–condemned the pardons, called on the U.S. Attorneys Office to investigate them for potential violations of the Hobbs Act, and asked Attorney General-elect Daniel Cameron to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Bevin's actions.

On January 29, 2019, Bevin stated that school closings for January 30 were a "sign America was soft". He received criticism, including from NBC weather forecaster Al Roker, who referred to Bevin as a "nitwit governor" the next day. Bevin defended his comments and attacked the Lexington Herald-Leader and Courier Journal, and WKYT as "clowns", referring to a comment by Barack Obama in 2009 about Washington D.C. coming to a halt after a dusting of snow when Chicago would not have canceled school.

On March 11, 2019, Bevin signed a bill into law removing the permit requirement to carry a concealed firearm in the state, becoming the 16th state to enact such legislation after South Dakota and Oklahoma had done it earlier in the year. On March 16, 2019, Bevin signed into law a bill banning abortions after the heartbeat is detected, though a federal judge blocked the bill a few hours later. On March 26, 2019, Bevin signed a bill that required public universities to protect free speech rights by banning them from disinviting speakers. On April 25, 2019, Bevin blamed teacher strikes for the death of a seven-year old. During the 2019 Kentucky Derby, Bevin was booed while making a speech during the trophy presentation, following the disqualification of the original race winner, Maximum Security.

On July 12, 2019, Bevin announced his support for a proposed bill to ban sanctuary cities in Kentucky.

On June 1, 2018, McConnell urged Bevin to run for reelection, and on January 25, 2019, Bevin announced that he would run for a second term, choosing State Senator Ralph Alvarado as his running mate over current Lieutenant Governor Jenean Hampton. Bevin was renominated by the Republican Party of Kentucky in a primary election on May 21, 2019 as its candidate for governor in 2019, while Kentucky's outgoing Attorney General Andy Beshear won the Democratic nomination.

In July 2018, after a federal judge rejected his plan to overhaul the program, Bevin cut Medicaid dental and vision coverage for up to 460,000 Kentuckians. The cuts were only supposed to affect able-bodied adults, but shortly after the cuts were implemented, the state Medicaid computer system showed that some children, disabled adults and pregnant women had lost coverage. Dentists said that they had to turn children away, including some with significant dental decay.

In February 2018, following the Parkland school shooting and the Marshall County High School shooting in Kentucky, Bevin declared that it was time to discuss what "should not be allowed in the United States as it relates to the things being put in the hands of our young people". "These are quote-unquote video games ... It's the same as pornography. They have desensitized people to the value of human life, to the dignity of women, to the dignity of human decency." On November 13, 2018, Bevin said that a cultural popularity of death, as evidenced by zombie television shows, is to blame for mass shootings, and that gun regulation is not the solution.

In March 2018, Bevin sparked some controversy among local teachers' associations when he criticized their protesting of a pension reform bill as "selfish and shortsighted". In April 2018, he "guaranteed" that the teachers' labor stoppage had resulted in unsupervised children being sexually assaulted, physically harmed, or exposed to poison and drugs. The president of the Jefferson County Teachers Association responded that by Bevin's logic, schools should never have any breaks or vacations. The Republican-controlled Kentucky House condemned Bevin's comments and overrode his veto of a law that increased classroom spending. Days after his controversial comments in April, Bevin said he did not intend to hurt people and apologized for those who have been hurt by the things that were said.

The two chambers announced that their negotiations had reached an impasse just days before the constitutionally mandated end of the session on April 15, but Bevin insisted he would not call a special legislative session for them to continue negotiations. Just before 3:00 a.m. on April 14, negotiators announced they had reached a compromise that would cut public universities' budgets by 4.5 percent over the biennium instead of the 9 percent requested by Bevin and implement a performance-based funding model in 2017. The money would be reallocated to contribute over $1 billion toward the state pension system's liabilities, which exceeded $30 billion. Republicans agreed to fund a Democratic proposal for a scholarship program providing free community college tuition for qualified students, relented on their demands to stop state funding for Planned Parenthood, and spared the state's prevailing wage guidelines. Bevin signed the budget, but used his line-item veto to strip funding for the scholarship program in the first year of the biennium, saying the guidelines were poorly written and should be revised before implementing the program in 2017. Because of the constitutional prohibition against the legislative session extending past April 15, the General Assembly was unable to override the veto.

In an unusual Saturday session in January 2017, the Kentucky General Assembly passed seven fast-tracked bills on key Republican legislative priorities. These bills included two that restricted abortion (one of which was a 20-week abortion ban), and three that reduced the power of labor unions, including a bill making Kentucky the 27th right-to-work state. Bevin signed all seven bills into law on January 9. On January 9, 2017, Bevin signed the two abortion bills.

On March 16, 2017, Bevin signed SB 17 into law, intended to "protect religious expression in public schools" by barring school districts from regulating student organizations in ways such as requiring them to accept LGBT people as members. Other bills Bevin signed into law included a "Blue Lives Matter" bill making it a hate crime to attack a police officer, placing Planned Parenthood at the least priority for funding, and removing restrictions on local governments authorizing charter schools. On March 27, 2017, Bevin vetoed a bill that would have allowed a judge to order mentally disabled people to undergo outpatient treatment if they could not recognize their condition and if they had a history of hospitalization, due to his concerns over its effects of individual liberty. The Kentucky legislature overrode his veto on the bill and three others.

In April 2017, Bevin signed HB 128 into law, which ordered the Kentucky Board of Education to develop rules for Bible literacy classes. Bevin signed another bill authorizing Bible classes in June 2017.

In July 2017, Bevin had the Kentucky Capitol building cleaned, choosing to use private funds as payment. During his 2018 Kentucky State of the Commonwealth Address, Bevin said it was the first time the building had been cleaned, echoing a belief expressed in July by an administration cabinet spokesperson.

Bevin declared both 2016 and 2017 the Year of the Bible in Kentucky.

Bevin's tenure as governor was contentious. As of May 2016, he had one of the lowest approval ratings among United States governors. His disapproval rating was 51% in late 2018. In January 2019, Morning Consult described Bevin as the "least popular governor up for re-election in 2019" and ranked him number six among the least popular governors in the nation. According to an April 2019 poll, Bevin was the least popular Governor in the United States, with a 52% disapproval rating versus a 33% approval rating. In July 2019, the National Journal placed Bevin second in its list of governor seats most likely to switch parties, and reported "his unpopularity coupled with party infighting make(s) him vulnerable in the deep-red state." In November 2019, Bevin was defeated by Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear.

In January 2016, Bevin's administration sent a cease and desist letter to Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky ordering it to stop performing abortions at its clinic in Louisville because it did not have the required license. The clinic claimed it had been given permission to perform the procedures by Beshear's inspector general just prior to Bevin taking office, but nonetheless halted the procedures on January 28. Bevin filed suit against Planned Parenthood in February, claiming it had illegally performed 23 abortions without a license; the suit said Planned Parenthood's licensure application was deficient because it did not include agreements with a hospital and ambulance service to transport and care for patients in case of complications, as required by state law, and that Beshear's inspector general was wrong in instructing the organization to begin performing abortions before the license was approved. Planned Parenthood countered that, before the license could be finalized, the abortion facility would have to be subjected to an unannounced inspection, requiring that abortions were already being performed there. In March, the University of Louisville Hospital announced that it had backed out of a transfer agreement with Planned Parenthood, saying it had been pressured to do so and felt that its state funding was in jeopardy by continuing in the agreement. A spokesman for Bevin denied that the pressure had come from anyone in the administration.

On January 26, 2016, Bevin delivered a budget address to the General Assembly detailing his two-year budget proposal. The proposal cut the allocation for most state agencies by 9 percent over the upcoming biennium, with most of the savings being redirected into the state pension system, which was among the worst funded in the nation. Public elementary and secondary education were spared from the cuts, as were social workers, public defenders, corrections officers, and Kentucky State Police employees, all of whom received raises under Bevin's proposal. Public colleges and universities were not exempt from the cuts, and Bevin called for a gradual move to performance-based funding for higher education, with all higher education funding tied to performance by 2020.

By executive order, Bevin required all state agencies to reduce spending in their current budgets by 4.5 percent. House Speaker Greg Stumbo argued that Bevin did not have the authority to order such reductions without legislative approval, but Senate President Robert Stivers defended Bevin's action, saying it amounted to simply not spending money that was previously allocated. Bevin later compromised with the state's public college and university presidents to reduce the cuts to 2 percent, but Attorney General Andy Beshear sued to stop the cuts entirely. In May 2016, a Franklin Circuit Court judge ruled Bevin did have the authority to make the cuts. In September 2016, the Kentucky Supreme Court issued a 5–2 decision reversing the Franklin Circuit Court's ruling and agreeing with Beshear that Bevin lacked the authority to make mid-year budget cuts without the approval of the General Assembly.

On March 7, 2016, Bevin released a video on social media claiming that House Democrats were not following through on their obligations to help craft the state budget. Legislators responded with a photo and statements that while Bevin was producing his film designed to chastise them, House leaders were in fact in committee meetings working out details of a budget proposal while Speaker Stumbo suggested the Governor was either unfamiliar with the legislative process, or intended to deceive people. On March 12, House Democrats released their own budget, which sustained most of the cuts to executive agencies in Bevin's budget, but exempted public universities from any cuts. The Republican-controlled Senate countered with a proposal that hewed closely to Bevin's original budget.

At the September 2016 Family Research Council Action Values Voter Summit (VVS) in Washington, DC, where Republican presidential and vice presidential candidates Donald Trump and Mike Pence also spoke, Bevin "both lamented and called for revolution and bloodshed to 'redeem' what [would] be lost" if Hillary Clinton were to be victorious in the 2016 presidential election, according to one source. He used and echoed language about "the tree of liberty" being refreshed by the blood of patriots and addressed his own family in the same regard – "I have nine children ... it might be their blood [that] is needed." Bevin urged the audience to emulate Winston Churchill rather than Neville Chamberlain, saying, "It's a slippery slope.... First, we're killing [unborn] children [with abortions], then it's 'Don't ask, don't tell,' now it's this gender-bending kind of 'don't be a bigot,' 'don't be unreasonable,' 'don't be unenlightened...'" Another account reported that he "referenced the rise of the Nazis preceding the Holocaust twice, invoking German pastor Martin Niemöller's oft-cited quote that ends, 'then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.'" Still another account of the VVS appearance said he had spoken without notes or teleprompter. Later, Bevin asserted that his violent metaphors referred to military sacrifice.

In the 2016 election, the Republican Party took a supermajority in the Kentucky House of Representatives; the party had not controlled the chamber since 1921. State House Speaker Greg Stumbo, viewed as one of Bevin's main political antagonists, was one of several House Democrats defeated in the election; Bevin remarked, "'good riddance'...he will not be missed one bit. Kentucky will be better for his absence." The 2016 election victories allowed Bevin to pursue his conservative agenda in the ensuing session, as the House Democrats had blocked conservative legislation prior to this.

After announcing he would seek the governorship in 2015, Bevin emerged from a four-way Republican primary, besting his nearest competitor by 83 votes. He then defeated the state's attorney general, Democratic nominee Jack Conway, in the general election. Bevin's gubernatorial tenure was notable for the passage of "right-to-work" legislation, laws limiting abortion access, and a law allowing carrying concealed handguns without permits. He also attempted to reverse Kentucky's Medicaid expansion and to reduce teacher pensions.

On January 27, 2015, the last day for candidates to file, Bevin announced he would seek the Republican nomination for governor. During his announcement, he introduced his running mate, Jenean Hampton, a Tea Party activist who lost her bid to unseat State Representative Jody Richards the previous year. Bevin joined a field that included Commissioner of Agriculture James Comer, former Louisville Councilman Hal Heiner, and former Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Will T. Scott. The National Journal predicted that Bevin would draw support away from Comer, the early front-runner, who had been appealing to Tea Party groups and already secured Congressman Massie's endorsement. The crowded primary was also projected to damage the Republican nominee's chances in the general election, since Attorney General Jack Conway was the only major Democratic candidate, allowing him to conserve resources for the general election. McConnell allies also predicted that Bevin's refusal to endorse McConnell would hurt him with primary voters.

The first opinion poll conducted after the allegations against Comer showed Bevin leading the race with 27% support to Heiner's 26%, Comer's 25%, and Scott's 8%, with 14% still undecided. Lowell Reese, of Kentucky Roll Call, reported on September 28, 2015, that the Comer campaign had leaked to the Herald-Leader emails showing that the husband of Crosbie had been in contact with the blogger. By doing so, the campaign was able to deny the allegations of abuse that had circulated for months in Frankfort, the state capital, and put Heiner's campaign on the defensive.

In the election's aftermath, McConnell issued a one-sentence endorsement of Bevin. Bevin deleted all posts from his Twitter feed prior to February 2015, including several critical of McConnell. At a statewide Lincoln Day dinner, Bevin showed a humorous montage of him supporting McConnell, including staged scenes of him waking up in a McConnell T-shirt, applying McConnnell bumper stickers to his vehicle, and getting a "Team Mitch" tattoo. McConnell was not in attendance, but a spokesperson read a letter again endorsing Bevin. Senator Paul was in attendance and pledged to do "anything humanly possible" to elect Bevin; State Senate President Robert Stivers and State House Minority Leader Jeff Hoover, a Comer ally, both endorsed Bevin as well. Neither Comer, Heiner, nor Scott attended the dinner.

During the candidates first public appearance together on June 19, 2015, Conway promised to increase funding for early childhood education and expand its availability for those in poverty. He then referenced Bevin's statements in a May Republican debate citing studies suggesting educational gains effected by the federal Head Start Program are lost by the third grade. Bevin said the state could not afford additional funding for early childhood education; he advocated outcomes-based education funding, but added, "The comment that I'm not a proponent of early childhood education is absolutely bunk, it's baloney."

After Rowan County clerk Kim Davis defied Judge David Bunning's order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, Bevin commended her "willingness to stand for her First Amendment rights". Davis was confined to the Carter County jail for six days on contempt of court charges for refusing to comply with Bunning's order. On September 8, 2015, Bevin met with Davis in the jail and later attended a rally organized by Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee celebrating her subsequent release. Following a September debate at Bellarmine University, Bevin said, "My intention has always been to execute this race on financial issues, on economic issues. In the last several weeks, 85 percent of what people talk about are these social issues. ... I think the issue has redefined this race whether any of us candidates want that to be the case or not." Associated Press reporter Adam Beam wrote that the Davis case "ignited the passions of religious conservatives in an already conservative state", and University of Kentucky political science professor Stephen Voss opined that a campaign focused on cultural and social issues would be "bad for Conway".

After the Center for Medical Progress released series of videos purporting to show Planned Parenthood representatives illegally negotiating the sale of body parts from aborted fetuses, Bevin pledged that, "As governor, I will direct my secretary of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services not to distribute federal taxpayer dollars from that department to Planned Parenthood clinics. Federal taxpayer dollars appropriated to Planned Parenthood flow through the governor's administration. As governor, I will prevent those dollars from being distributed, and order them returned to the federal government." Investigations into the Planned Parenthood controversy debunked that Planned Parenthood employees were illegally selling fetal tissue. In the 2015–16 fiscal year, Kentucky's two Planned Parenthood affiliates—neither of which performs abortions—received $331,300 in federal funding.

Bevin was sworn into a four-year term as Kentucky Governor on December 8, 2015. Observers from both parties praised Bevin's selection of experienced, relatively moderate individuals for his cabinet, including his former rival, Hal Heiner, as Secretary of the Education and Workforce Cabinet and former University of Kentucky football standout Derrick Ramsey as his Secretary of Labor. The appointments of two Democratic state representatives – John Tilley as Secretary of the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet and Tanya Pullin to a state judgeship – reduced the party's majority in the House and set up special elections that gave Republicans a chance to win their seats from Democrats. Bevin set the dates of the special elections to fill the seats of Tilley and Pullin, as well as those formerly held by newly elected Auditor Mike Harmon and newly elected Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles, for March 8, 2016. Democratic representatives Denver Butler and Jim Gooch also switched their party affiliation to Republican in December, reducing the Democratic majority to 50–46 for the beginning of the first General Assembly of Bevin's governorship, and giving Republicans a chance to evenly split the chamber's 100 seats by sweeping the special elections. Republicans held only Harmon's seat, giving Democrats a 53–47 advantage in the House for the remainder of the session.

In a series of December 2015 executive orders, Bevin removed the names of county clerks from state marriage licenses, as well as reversed orders by Beshear that restored voting rights for non-violent felons who had completed their sentences and raised the minimum wage for some state workers to $10.10 per hour.

In December 2015, Bevin announced that the state would not renew an advertising contract for kynect. In January 2016, he notified federal authorities that he plans to dismantle kynect by the end of 2016 and charged Mark Birdwhistell, formerly Secretary of Health under Governor Fletcher, with designing a system to replace kynect. Although the Beshear administration suggested the shutdown would cost the state $23 million, Bevin, citing a Deloitte study, promised it would be in the "small single digits [of millions]".

In January 2014, the conservative Madison Project political action committee announced it would open field offices in Louisville, Florence, Owensboro, Glasgow and Bowling Green from which to launch get-out-the-vote efforts on Bevin's behalf. The group also sponsored billboard advertising criticizing McConnell in the heavily Republican counties of Clay, Laurel, Madison, Pulaski and Whitley. Bevin was endorsed by FreedomWorks and conservative talk radio hosts Mark Levin and Glenn Beck.

In February 2014, Politico reported that in October 2008, Bevin had signed a report for his investment fund that praised the federal Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. During the campaign, Bevin criticized McConnell for voting in favor of those actions as a senator. When Beck asked Bevin about the issue during an interview, Bevin said the content of the report had been written by the fund's chief investment officer, and that he had only signed it because he was legally required to do so as president of the fund. Later, Bevin added that he had not physically signed the letter, but that his signature was added to the document digitally. Lawyers interviewed by the Lexington Herald-Leader said it would have been legal for Bevin to change the content of the letter, but not the accompanying facts and financial data. The Herald-Leader further noted that Bevin had not signed some previous investor letters. His campaign offered no explanation for the inconsistency.

Both Bevin and McConnell were critical of a February 2014 ruling by U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II that held that an amendment to the Kentucky Constitution banning same-sex marriage violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Bevin pointed out that Heyburn once worked for McConnell, who supported his nomination to the bench by President George H. W. Bush. Later in the month, Bevin told The Janet Mefford Show, "If it's all right to have same-sex marriages, why not define a marriage – because at the end of the day, a lot of this ends up being taxes and who can visit who in the hospital and there's other repercussions and things that come with it – so a person may want to define themselves as being married to one of their children so that they can then in fact pass on certain things to that child financially and otherwise." Critics charged that Bevin was suggesting that the legalization of same-sex marriage could lead to the acceptance of incestuous relationships; a Bevin spokesperson responded, "[Bevin] sees no comparison between gay marriage and incest. He was discussing the implications of the legal rights related to this issue such as hospital visitations and benefits. To imply otherwise is ridiculous."

On April 2, 2014, the News Journal reported that Bevin spoke at a pro-cockfighting rally in Corbin, Kentucky. Asked about his attendance, Bevin said he understood that the rally was a states' rights event: "I was the first person to speak and then I left." Organizers of the event, which was closed to the media, said there was "never any ambiguity" regarding its purpose, and WAVE in Louisville published an undercover video from the event showing that Bevin was the third speaker; the speaker who immediately preceded Bevin said the rally was held "for the sole purpose of legalizing gamecock fighting at the state level." Bevin told a WAVE reporter, "I honestly wasn't even paying attention. I was thinking about what I was going to say. I don't even remember him saying that." The WAVE video also showed an attendee asking Bevin if he would support the legalization of cockfighting in Kentucky, to which he replied, "I support the people of Kentucky exercising their right, because it is our right to decide what it is that we want to do, and not the federal government's. Criminalizing behavior, if it's part of the heritage of this state, is in my opinion a bad idea. A bad idea. I will not support it." Bevin was referencing the Agricultural Act of 2014, commonly called the "farm bill", which contained a provision that criminalized spectators at cockfighting events.

Scott Lasley, a political science professor at Western Kentucky University and chairman of the Warren County Republican Party, criticized Bevin's appearance at the rally, saying, "Either they were totally unvetted and unprepared for it, which says a lot about the campaign and its ability to compete at this level, or...they think that message is going to be receptive. Otherwise you don't go there." On April 25, 2014, Bevin apologized for attending the event, saying "I am genuinely sorry that my attendance at an event which, other than my comments, appears to have primarily involved a discussion of cockfighting, has created concern on the part of many Kentucky voters. I understand that concern. I am not and have never been a supporter of cockfighting or any other forms of animal cruelty." The Daily Beast said the issue could be the "nail in the coffin" for Bevin's campaign, while The Washington Post wrote, "On its own, the cockfighting story isn't enough to sink Bevin's campaign. But viewed in the context of the string of other distractions he's had to deal with, it reinforces the reality that his campaign is in serious need of repairs down the stretch."

In June 2014, WKMS reported that Bevin had remained politically active in the aftermath of his defeat by McConnell, and an email to his followers calling on Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear, a Democrat, to denounce new carbon regulations issued by the EPA fueled speculation that Bevin would seek the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 2015. The station also cited an anonymous source that said Bevin would campaign for Rand Paul's Senate seat in 2016 if Paul's expected presidential bid kept him from running for re-election. An August 2014 survey by Public Policy Polling showed that 25% of Republicans wanted Bevin to be the party's gubernatorial nominee, ahead of declared candidates James Comer (20%) and Hal Heiner (18%).

Bevin said he "strongly disagreed" with the Supreme Court's decision in Obergefell v. Hodges legalizing same-sex marriage, continuing "When the definition of marriage was put on the ballot 10 years ago, 74 percent of Kentuckians made it clear that they supported traditional marriage. Since that time, however, activist judges have chosen to ignore the will of the people, and to ignore the Constitutional principle of state's rights." He then attacked Conway, who refused to appeal the 2014 federal court opinion that Kentucky's defense of marriage amendment violated the federal constitution: "Jack Conway's failure to do his job and defend our laws in Kentucky disqualifies him from being elected to the office of Governor." Conway responded that he "used the discretion given to me by statute to inform Gov. Beshear and the citizens of the Commonwealth that I would not waste the scarce resources of this office pursuing a costly appeal that would not be successful." Bevin contended that Conway's decision cost Kentucky taxpayers $2.3 million, citing the cost of private attorneys that Beshear hired to defend the amendment in Conway's place.

In 2013, Bevin announced he would challenge Kentucky's senior U.S. Senator, then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, in the 2014 Republican primary. Although Bevin gained the support of various groups aligned with the Tea Party Movement, McConnell attacked him repeatedly for inconsistencies in his public statements and policy positions and defeated him by almost 25 percentage points.

On July 24, 2013, Bevin announced that he would challenge McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader and a five-term incumbent, in the 2014 Republican primary because he did not believe that McConnell was conservative enough. Despite a Wenzel Strategies poll immediately following Bevin's announcement that showed him polling only 19.9% to McConnell's 58.9%, the National Journal listed McConnell number nine on its list of ten lawmakers who could lose a primary election in 2014.

By mid-October 2013, McConnell's campaign indicated it would look beyond Bevin and focus its advertising against Alison Lundergan Grimes, the frontrunner in the race for the Democratic senatorial nomination, calling her "my real opponent". In the aftermath of McConnell negotiating a deal to end the 16-day government shutdown in 2013, the Senate Conservatives Fund endorsed Bevin. McConnell's campaign then launched another ad, based on a story published by BuzzFeed, claiming Bevin had failed to disclose a federal tax lien when applying for the state grant to rebuild his family business, which could be a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine under Connecticut law. Bevin said that he had been paying the lien in $5,000 installments prior to the fire that destroyed the business, a condition he said was allowed by the grant application, but after the fire, the Internal Revenue Service suspended the payments. Bevin was never charged. Lexington Herald-Leader columnist Sam Youngman speculated that McConnell's pivot back to Bevin was a proxy war against Tea Party fundraising groups, hoping that a decisive win over their chosen candidate in the primary would hamper the groups' fundraising in future elections.

Bevin complained that McConnell refused to speak at any Lincoln Day events around the state if Bevin was also invited to speak at the event. McConnell also steadfastly refused to participate in any formal debates with Bevin, although his campaign manager, Jesse Benton, debated Bevin at a Constitution Day event at the University of Kentucky in September 2013.

On election day, Bevin garnered 125,759 votes – 35.4% of the vote – to McConnell's 213,666 votes (60.2%); the remaining votes were scattered among three lower-profile candidates. In his concession speech, Bevin opined "there is zero chance that the solutions for what ails us is going to come from the Democratic Party", but did not endorse McConnell. He appeared onstage with McConnell on a few occasions during the general election campaign but steadfastly refused to explicitly endorse him. During his remarks at an October 29 Restore America rally, Bevin said "I say with all due respect to a lot of folks who might say otherwise, sometimes we might need to get over it and move on. We have new races to run and new decisions to make. There is too much at stake." Asked if the comment amounted to an endorsement of McConnell, Bevin told reporters, "You've got ears." McConnell defeated Grimes in the general election, and Bevin eventually told reporters that he voted for McConnell.

On November 3, Bevin garnered 511,771 votes (53%) to Conway's 426,944 (44%) and Curtis' 35,629 (3%). Bevin was only the third Republican elected governor of Kentucky since World War II, and running mate Jenean Hampton became the first African-American elected to any statewide office in Kentucky. Conway had counted on strong support from the state's urban areas, but managed smaller-than-expected margins in Jefferson, Fayette, and Franklin counties – home to Louisville, Lexington, and Frankfort, respectively – while turnout on Bevin's behalf was strong in more traditionally Republican rural areas. Ultimately, Conway carried only 14 of Kentucky's 120 counties, and observers wrote that the loss likely ended his political career. Republicans also won the races for treasurer, auditor, and agricultural commissioner. Analyst Ronnie Ellis speculated that the Republicans' victories set the stage for the party to take control of the state House of Representatives in the November 2016 elections. With an eight-seat majority, the Kentucky House was the last legislative body in the South controlled by Democrats.

After a series of terror attacks in Paris – for which the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed responsibility – Bevin announced that, following his inauguration, he would join 25 other U.S. governors in refusing any Syrian refugees seeking to relocate to their respective states "until we can better determine the full extent of any risks to our citizens." In response, Lexington Herald-Leader political cartoonist Joel Pett published a cartoon depicting Bevin hiding under his desk, his floor strewn with newspapers featuring stories about the Paris attacks, with an aide telling him, "Sir, they're not terrorists.... they're your own adopted kids!", a reference to Bevin's four children adopted from Ethiopia. Bevin responded via Twitter: "The tone of racial intolerance being struck by the @HeraldLeader has no place in Kentucky and won't be tolerated by our administration."

Two weeks after filing suit against Planned Parenthood, Bevin sued EMW Women's Clinic in Lexington, claiming that it was an unlicensed abortion facility. The clinic had been operating without a license under an exemption granted to private physicians' offices, but an inspection of the clinic – the first conducted since 2006 – revealed that the facility performed abortions exclusively. Inspectors also reported "several unsafe and unsanitary conditions" including the presence of expired medications. EMW ceased performing abortions March 9, pending the outcome of the lawsuit. On March 18, Fayette County Circuit Judge Ernesto Scorsone declined to issue a cease and desist order to EMW, finding that the first trimester abortions performed there "do not require sedation or the services of an anesthesiologist", suggesting that the clinic was a physician's office. Scorsone also said the clinic served the public interest by providing abortion services for the eastern half of the state. The administration appealed Scorsone's decision, and on June 15, a three-judge panel from the Kentucky Court of Appeals ruled Scorsone's decision in error and issued a temporary injunction against EMW, prohibiting them from performing abortions until and unless the case was eventually resolved in its favor. The Kentucky Supreme Court sustained the injunction in August.

A lightning strike sparked a fire that destroyed the factory on May 27, 2012. Although he carried little more than liability insurance on the business and his losses were compounded by looters who stole 4,500 bells, Bevin vowed to rebuild, telling the Hartford Courant, "I'm a Bevin, and Bevins make bells." In late June 2012, Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy announced that Bevin Brothers would receive $100,000 in grants from the state's Small Business Express program to assist in the rebuilding effort. Flanked by Senator Richard Blumenthal, Bevin announced in July 2012 that he would sell souvenirs including T-shirts, and bells and bricks salvaged from the gutted factory, to raise additional funds for rebuilding. Working from a temporary location, the company resumed limited production in September 2012.

In 2011, Bevin took all of his children out of school for a year for a 26,000-mile (42,000 km) tour of the United States, visiting sites of educational or historical interest, including the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated and the Topeka, Kansas, schoolhouse at the center of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. After their application to adopt a daughter from Kentucky's foster care system was denied because they already had five children, the Bevins adopted four children – between the ages of 2 and 10 – from Ethiopia in June 2012. By 2015, Bevin said all of his children were homeschooled. To avoid disruptions in the children's schooling, the Bevins opted not to move into the Kentucky Governor's Mansion immediately after Bevin's election as governor in November 2015, instead waiting until after the school year ended in August 2016. The eleven-member Bevin family is the largest to inhabit the mansion since it was constructed in 1914. The family also retains their pre-election home in Louisville.

Bevin said that in 2011, Mitch McConnell recruited him to challenge incumbent Democrat John Yarmuth to represent Kentucky's 3rd congressional district in 2012. McConnell's chief of staff said Bevin requested the meeting and McConnell never asked Bevin to enter the race. Ultimately, Bevin and his advisors decided that legislative redistricting had made Yarmuth's district unwinnable for a Republican, and Bevin chose not to run.

In 2008, Bevin took over management of the struggling Bevin Brothers Manufacturing Company of East Hampton, Connecticut. Founded in 1832 by Bevin's great-great-great grandfather and remaining in the family continuously since, Bevin Bros. is the last American company that exclusively manufactures bells. By 2011, the company owed $116,000 in delinquent taxes and was named the number one delinquent tax firm in East Hampton. Collectively, the Bevins decided that Matt was the only family member with the business acumen and financial wherewithal to keep the company solvent. There are indications that Bevin became the company's president in 2008, although he claims it was in 2011. By 2012, the company's delinquent taxes had been paid.

McConnell launched ads accusing Bevin of taking taxpayer bailouts, citing his acceptance of state grants to rebuild Bevin Brothers. Bevin responded with ads accusing McConnell of voting for higher taxes, government bailouts, increases in the debt ceiling, and confirmation of liberal judicial nominees. McConnell's next ad featured Bevin telling an audience "I have no tax delinquency problem, nor have I ever," then claimed his businesses had failed to pay taxes eight times and Bevin was late on a tax payment on his $1.2 million vacation home in Greenwood, Maine, in 2007. PolitiFact.com rated the ad "Mostly False", saying that Bevin Brothers incurred the delinquent taxes in 2008 and the second quarter of 2009, when the extent of Bevin's involvement with the company was "unclear". Regarding the vacation home, PolitiFact noted that Bevin's escrow company changed in 2007, and the new company failed to pay the property taxes on the home from escrow on time. Town records show that the taxes were paid by February 2009, and Bevin had paid them on-time every year before and after 2007. McConnell's third ad in as many weeks targeted Bevin for falsely claiming on his LinkedIn page that he attended a seminar affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The three-year program, which Bevin attended from 2006 to 2008, was actually sponsored by the MIT Enterprise Forum, which is technically unaffiliated with MIT. The discrepancy was first reported by The Hill in March 2013, and was clarified on his LinkedIn page at that time.

Conway continued McConnell's line of attack on Bevin's finances, specifically the issue of delinquent taxes. While McConnell's charges involved delinquent taxes against Bevin Brothers Manufacturing, Theo Keith of Louisville's WAVE reported in June that Bevin had been late at least 10 times paying property taxes on his vacation homes in Maine and Louisiana between 2002 and 2009. He further reported in July that Bevin's company, Integrity Holdings, also had multiple past delinquency issues. In total, Keith estimated that Bevin had paid about $1,800 in penalties for late tax payments. Bevin became irritated with Keith's reporting and refused to answer questions from him at subsequent press conferences; he did not buy ads on WAVE, despite running ads on Louisville's other three network broadcast stations. The Associated Press' Adam Beam eventually reported that Bevin had paid his taxes late on 30 different occasions. In an October interview with Beam, Bevin said, "Sometimes you do pay it late and you pay interest on having paid it late. But you pay the taxes. ... You do this all the time in business." He added that his critics "could have done just as breathless a story of all the times I paid my taxes early and gotten a discount on it." He also reiterated that, as of the time of the interview, he had paid all of his taxes: "Do I actually owe taxes to anyone, anywhere? The answer is no."

While stationed at Fort Polk, Bevin went on a blind date with his future wife, Glenna. At the time, Glenna was a divorced single mother of a 5-year-old daughter who was born during her first marriage to an abusive husband. The two married in 1996 and had five additional children. After Glenna's remarriage, her daughter, Brittiney, took her adoptive father's last name. In 2003, 17-year-old Brittiney was killed in a car accident near the family's home. In memory of their daughter, the Bevins created Brittiney's Wish, a non-profit organization that funds domestic and international mission trips for high school students, and started an endowment that allowed Louisville's Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to open its Bevin Center for Missions Mobilization in 2012.

After leaving active duty in 1993, Bevin worked as a financial consultant for SEI Investments Company in Pennsylvania and Boston, then served as a vice president with Putnam Investments. In 1999, he was offered a stake in National Asset Management and moved to Kentucky to take the job. After the firm was sold in 2003, Bevin recruited a group of managers from National City Corp. to found Integrity Asset Management. The company was handling more than $1 billion in investments when Bevin sold it to Munder Capital Management of Michigan in 2011.

Less than three weeks before the primary, Comer's former girlfriend told The Courier-Journal in a letter that Comer had abused her physically and mentally in 1991 and that he had accompanied her to an abortion clinic. Other newspapers, including the Lexington Herald-Leader, which cited the Courier-Journal, then reported the allegations. The Lexington Herald-Leader had reported earlier that the Lexington-area blogger who had been publishing stories about the allegations for months had been in contact with the husband of Heiner's running mate, K. C. Crosbie.

After taking eight weeks off to complete a 3,800-mile (6,100 km) bicycle ride from Oregon to Florida, Bevin enlisted in the United States Army and was commissioned as a second lieutenant. In 1990, he completed a six-week Junior Officer Maintenance Course at Fort Knox in Kentucky. He later commented that the area reminded him of where he grew up, and that if he had a chance to raise a family there, he would like to do so. He was assigned to the 25th Field Artillery Regiment of the Army's 5th Mechanized Infantry Division at Fort Polk in Louisiana. During his assignment, he also trained at Fort Sill in Oklahoma, completing 40 credit hours of Central Michigan University coursework offered on base. He rose to the rank of captain – earning the Army Achievement Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Army Service Ribbon, Parachutist Badge, and Army Commendation Medal with one Oak Leaf Cluster – before joining the Army Reserve in 1993. He left the Individual Ready Reserve in 2003.

Born in Denver, Colorado, and raised in Shelburne, New Hampshire, Bevin earned a bachelor's degree at Washington and Lee University in 1989, then served four years of active duty in the U.S. Army, attaining the rank of captain. He became wealthy in the investment business and moved to Louisville, Kentucky, in 1999. He was president of Bevin Brothers Manufacturing Company, one of the last remaining American bell foundries.

Initially attending a small Christian school, in tenth grade Bevin enrolled as a student at Gould Academy, a private high school across the state line in Bethel, Maine. He paid his tuition through a combination of financial aid and wages from an on-campus dishwashing job and various summer jobs. After graduation, he attended Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, on a partial ROTC scholarship. During his matriculation, he studied Abroad in Japan and became fluent in Japanese. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in East Asian Studies in 1989.

Matthew Griswold Bevin (/ˈ b ɛ v ɪ n / ; born January 9, 1967) is an American businessman and politician who served as the 62nd Governor of Kentucky, from 2015 to 2019. He was the third Republican elected Kentucky governor since World War II, after Ernie Fletcher (2003–2007) and Louie Nunn (1967–1971).

Born January 9, 1967, in Denver, Colorado, Matt Bevin was the second of six children born to Avery and Louise Bevin. He grew up in the rural town of Shelburne, New Hampshire, in a small farmhouse heated by wood-fired stoves. His father worked at a wood mill, and his mother worked part-time in a hospital admissions department. The family raised livestock and grew much of their own food. At age 6, Bevin made money by packaging and selling seeds to his neighbors. He credits his involvement in 4-H, where he served as president of the local and county chapters and as a member of the state teen council, with developing his public speaking and leadership skills. He was also involved with the county's Dairy Club.