A good night for the Democrats, all around:

Dogged by political scandal in his first term, Gov. Ernie Fletcher of Kentucky, a Republican, lost his bid for re-election yesterday to Steve Beshear….

In Kentucky, Mr. Fletcher, the state’s first Republican governor in more than 30 years, failed in his efforts to raise concerns among voters about Mr. Beshear’s hopes to amend the state’s Constitution to allow casino gambling.

That makes Democrats three for three on hoped for victories/realized victories tonight, having had electoral and policy wins in Kentucky, Virginia, and Utah.

–Garance Franke-Ruta

Garance Franke-Ruta is a former senior editor at the Prospect. Her work has also appeared in The Washington Post, The Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and The Wall Street Journal, among other publications. She was a 2006 recipient of a fellowship at the Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard University.