Steve Beshear announced his run for governor of Kentucky on Feb. 3, 1987, at Blue Grass Airport in Lexington. Beshear was lieutenant governor when he made the announcement. He came in third in a five-candidate Democratic primary and stepped away from politics for nearly a decade to practice law. In 1996, he challenged Mitch McConnell for Kentucky’s U.S. Senate seat but lost. In 2007, he beat Ernie Fletcher in the race for governor, and he was elected to a second term in 2011. Because of term limits, he is not eligible to run again for governor.