I’m acutely aware that Bevin was massively unpopular. So?

Fellow Kentuckian. If I may offer a counter point, Beshear beat a white male republican incumbent in 2019 to obtain his office in the first place. So, while I agree that him winning probably isn’t the landslide victory democrats are making it out to be, I do think your view is a bit more cynical than reality.

Two reasons I’m not convinced of this idea that it’s some template for democrats

1. your point about republicans winning everything else
2. Kentucky isn’t as “deep red” at the local level as media would have you believe. We’ve flipped from democratic to republican governors basically every election since 1995 (possibly earlier, but I stopped looking)

This is like saying that cancer isn’t the only way you can die so we should stop trying to cure cancer