Pennsylvania Republican Gov. Tom Corbett finds himself down by double digits to his Democratic challenger Tom Wolf with under a month to go in the campaign. Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott and Michigan’s Rick Snyder, also a Republican, find themselves in tight races with their Democratic challengers.
According to the University of Virginia Center for Politics, 2014 is shaping up to be a very bad year for incumbent governors seeking re-election. U.Va. has found that out of 36 gubernatorial contests nationwide, 10 are labeled as “toss-up” or close races and that isn’t including Gov. Corbett’s race in Pennsylvania or Hawaii Democratic Gov. Neil Abercrombie, who lost his state’s primary earlier this year.
In Connecticut, Gov. Dan Malloy, a Democrat, finds himself locked with Republican challenger Tom Foley in a race U.Va. describes as a “toss-up”. Another Democrat in trouble is Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn who has been neck-and-neck with Republican challenger Bruce Rauner throughout the summer. In recent week, however, Quinn has been able to gain a small lead as Illinois’ typically strong Democratic base starts to tune in.
“Ultimately, it would still be at least a mild surprise if 2014 matched the six general election gubernatorial losses incurred by incumbents in 1990, which is a high water mark over the past four decades, but there certainly are a lot of incumbents who are sweating bullets right now,” said Kyle Kondik, Managing Editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
Kondik adds that incumbents are having a tough run this year because of in-state issues like tax increases and service cuts. He said those local issues are having a larger impact on candidates than national trends.
