LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Democrats in Kentucky and Virginia moved aggressively on Wednesday to lay claim to political power and push robust policy agendas on health care, education and other issues even as Republicans began a new fight over election results in Kentucky’s governor’s race.
Gov. Matt Bevin of Kentucky, the Republican seeking re-election, formally asked state officials to undertake a check and recanvass of the voting machines and absentee ballots in the race, citing “irregularities” without providing details. The Democratic candidate, Andy Beshear, has claimed victory with a lead of about 5,100 votes, or about 0.4 percent of ballots cast.
Davis Paine, Mr. Bevin’s campaign manager, said in a statement, “The people of Kentucky deserve a fair and honest election.”
Before the recanvass request was made, Mr. Beshear said he would push ahead with a transition to power and soon start naming members to his cabinet and filling other roles in his administration. At a news conference, he stuck to a conciliatory message of bridging political divides in Kentucky by focusing on issues where there was common ground.
“Last night, the election ended,” Mr. Beshear told reporters, standing with members of a local teachers union in the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville. He noted a looming deadline to submit a state budget in January. “The politics part of this is over,” he added. “It’s time for governance.”
Democratic leaders in both Kentucky and Virginia were clearly emboldened by the fact that, for the second year in a row, their party had significant political success in suburban areas; Democrats made gains in the Philadelphia suburbs as well.
With the 2020 presidential campaign looming, Democrats and Republicans are vying for suburban votes in key battlegrounds, but the evidence from the 2018 midterms and Tuesday’s elections suggests that Democrats are benefiting from President Trump’s unpopularity in these areas.
Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia, a Democrat who saw his party take full control of the state legislature on Tuesday night, told his cabinet in an open meeting that “we have a unique opportunity in the next two years,” saying “the landscape has changed” and that he planned to push for a major new package of gun control policies, criminal justice reform, early childhood education, the decriminalization of marijuana and greater access to health services.
He particularly zeroed in on gun legislation, a divisive issue in once-red Virginia but a political priority for many Democratic lawmakers and voters, as well as outside gun control groups that spent millions of dollars on advocacy work and on Senate and House races in Virginia this year.
“I really think a large part of the results that we saw yesterday were Virginians saying they’ve had enough,” Mr. Northam said about gun violence and the lack of action on gun control in the state capitol. He noted that he called a special session of the General Assembly in July to consider eight gun measures, following a mass shooting in Virginia Beach that took 12 lives, but Republicans called it a stunt and quickly voted to adjourn.
“We had less than 90 minutes of dialogue, with no results,” Mr. Northam said.
In Kentucky, Mr. Beshear said on Wednesday that he had not spoken with Mr. Bevin, but that he had left messages for and spoken with other Republicans in the state, including those who won down-ticket races for statewide office.
Mr. Beshear declined to extrapolate any lessons for the broader Democratic Party based on his success in Kentucky. Indeed, he strained to avoid tying himself to national political issues and focused narrowly on the statewide issues that had been at the heart of Mr. Bevin’s unpopularity as governor, like public education, pensions for public employees and health care.
“I’m not worried about what national pundits or what national Democrats are saying,” Mr. Beshear said. “I’m worried about our families here in Kentucky and doing a good job for them.” He added, “I believe this race is about our families wanting someone that cares about them, that reflects their values and is focused on those issues that they are anxious about at the end of the day.”
Democratic Party leaders emerged from Election Day with the belief that they had built on the gains they made in the 2018 midterms. A year after Democrats claimed 40 House seats and a series of governorships thanks to a surge of support from suburbanites, the results in Virginia in particular make clear that their drift from the G.O.P. won’t be easily reversed.
Even more than any individual result Tuesday, it was this realization of a hardening political realignment among centrists that so alarmed Republicans and delighted Democrats.
Going into Election Day, Republicans in Virginia held slim majorities in both the Senate and the House of Delegates, severely limiting Mr. Northam’s power as governor. In June, he asked lawmakers to consider legislation to enact universal background checks on gun purchases, a ban on assault-style weapons, risk-protection orders commonly known as red-flag laws, limits on new gun purchases to one per month and other proposals. That agenda went nowhere in the Republican-controlled legislature.
After Tuesday’s elections, Virginia state government will be under Democratic control for the first time in a generation. Mr. Northam’s secretary of public safety and homeland security, Brian Moran, said at the cabinet meeting on Wednesday that it was “time for gun legislation,” adding, “it’s going to be a new day.”
Rick Rojas reported from Louisville, and Jonathan Martin from New York.