Washington, US President Donald Trump held a rally in Kentucky aimed at boosting the re-election of Republican Governor Matt Bevin on the eve of the state’s gubernatorial election.
Addressing thousands of supporters at Rupp Arena in Lexington, the second largest city of Kentucky, Trump on Monday urged local voters to support Bevin’s re-election, reports Xinhua news agency.
“He’s tough on illegal immigration, he’s pro-life and 100 per cent the Second Amendment,” Trump said of Bevin. “By the way, you’re going to lose your Second Amendment if you vote in the Democrats.”
Bevin, first elected as governor of Kentucky in 2015, faces the Attorney General Andy Beshear, a Democrat and son of the state’s formerGovernor Steve Beshear, in this year’s election scheduled on Tuesday.
The incumbent governor has spent months touting his close ties to the Trump administration, while casting Beshear as a liberal who would stand in the way of the president’s agenda.
Beshear, joined by his father, campaigned in Western Kentucky on Monday, encouraging people to get out and vote for him, according to his tweets.
The attorney general, who has tried to make the race about local issues, tweeted on Monday night that local voters “are fired up to send Matt Bevin home and build a Kentucky” that works for all families.
A poll conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy last month found Bevin and Beshear tied, with each winning 46 percent of support from local voters.
Trump won Kentucky, a deep-red state, by some 30 percentage points in the 2016 presidential election.
A group of protesters gathered in a park near Rupp Arena on Monday afternoon, waving anti-Trump and anti-Bevin signs.