Gubernatorial elections are high maintenance.
They often don’t follow national political battle lines. Most states hold them during the midterms rather than during presidential elections. Idiosyncratic state-level issues can swing them in weird directions. Term limits in some states create an odd rhythm of when seats are open. And maybe most frustratingly, there are numerous races where normal, pre-existing mental categories for elections (e.g. “quadrennial swing state” “red state with Democratic senator” “well-educated congressional district”) just don’t accurately describe the race.
That’s why I decided to create some of those mental categories for this year’s gubernatorial races. I’ve taken a bird’s eye view and divided the 36 elections into five simple, easy to understand categories. I’ll describe the divisions then do a deep dive (complete with maps) into each category.
The Basic Divisions
The basic divisions are outlined in this graphic.
Each race is a point. They’re colored based on which party currently holds the seat. The vertical position is the incumbent governor’s approval rating in the latest 50-state Morning Consult poll and the horizontal position is the two-party Republican vote (Trump-ier states are further right, liberal states are on the left). And the size of each point is proportional to the state’s overall turnout in the 2016 election.
I’ve divided these races into five groups. In the middle of the graphic, you have the main events—races in swingy, often populous states. In the top left-hand corner, there’s the Red North—a few highly Democratic Northeastern states with incumbent Republican governors. The bottom part of the graph (the unpopular zone) are states where the unpopularity of a sitting governor could change (or already has changed) the state of the race. And the left and right hand regions represent states where the home team is probably too strong for any interesting partisan conflict to materialize.
I’ll start by describing the “Main Events”
The Main Events: The Once and Future Swing States
Not every state is labeled in the first graphic, so I mapped the first category.
In this map, color corresponds to an index of competitiveness derived from the race ratings at Sabato’s Crystal Ball, Cook Political Report, and Inside Elections. To get this index, I simply assigned each rating (e.g. Solid Republican, Likely Democrat, toss-up, etc.) numerical values on a scale from -3 to 3, averaged the handicapper scores for each state and colored in each state based on its index value. Bluer states are more safely Democratic, redder states look better for the Republicans and white states are pure tossups.
The common thread in these states is that they were, are or possibly could be swing states sometime soon.
Republicans are likely hoping that, after Trump’s strong 2016 performance, Ohio and Iowa have transitioned from swing to light red states. The GOP candidates start out as favorites in both states. Kyle Kondik of Sabato’s Crystal Ball (who literally wrote the book on Ohio) has the race leaning toward the Republicans, citing the statewide GOP’s strength and Republican candidate Mike DeWine’s high name ID. In Iowa (a state that voted for Obama in 2012 but leapt toward Trump in 2016), Gov. Kim Reynolds (who took charge after Trump sent Terry Branstad to China) is also favored.
And Democrats would like to lay claim to Colorado and Nevada (though these states are still marginal and claims based on demographic change can be shaky). Nevada’s Hispanic and Asian populations are growing, and in the last few presidential elections the majority of the state’s two-party votes came from large metro areas (i.e., Las Vegas). Democrats have some advantages that they didn’t have in 2014 (e.g. they no longer have to run against popular GOP governor Brian Sandoval), but the state hasn’t become nearly blue enough to guarantee a Democratic win this cycle.
Colorado is a slightly more clear-cut case. It sat slightly to Nevada’s left in the 2016 presidential election, and according to American Community Survey five-year estimates, Colorado’s white population is significantly better educated than Nevada’s (which matters for midterm turnout). It’s not hard to imagine Democrats holding that seat, especially in a year when Democrats generally have the wind at their back.
But some of these states—like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida and New Hampshire—haven’t clearly shifted into either party’s column.
In Florida, polls show a tight race between former Democratic Rep. Gwen Graham (one of the few Democrats to flip a red district in the 2014 Republican wave) and Adam Putnam, the state’s cash-flush agricultural commissioner (note that Putnam and Graham are the favorites in their respective primaries, but it’s not a sure thing). Republicans have won every gubernatorial election since 1994 (Jeb Bush lost to Lawton Chiles that year, inadvertently taking himself out of the running for the 2000 presidential election and giving George W. Bush a clearer path), so Democrats likely want to break that winning streak. But the state tilts slightly to the right and handicappers rate it as a tossup.
Michigan is also a tossup, but the stakes are slightly different. Obama won it by almost 10 points in 2012, but Trump managed to eke out a win in 2016 by bringing white working class voters into the fold. Michigan might serve as a stress test for those voters. If Democrats manage to win back these voters or if they fail to turn out, it could be a bad sign for Republicans (just as Scott Walker’s 2014 win was a bad sign for Democrats in 2016). Moreover, the new governor will likely have veto power in the upcoming redistricting process, which raises the stakes for both parties.
Democrats likely also want to take over Wisconsin. The redistricting stakes are arguably lower here than in Michigan: Republicans hold a similar percentage of the overall seats, but Michigan has more total congressmen. But the symbolic stakes are higher. Republican Gov. Scott Walker has amassed a strongly conservative record while governing this purple state. He figured out how to win rural, white, northern areas before Trump did, so that race (which currently leans towards Walker) will likely attract a lot of attention.
Pennsylvania is the only state in this group where an incumbent Democratic governor is running for re-election, and Democrats have a better shot here than in Wisconsin, Michigan, or Florida. Incumbent governors have a high re-election rate, and national conditions, though they matter less for gubernatorial than congressional elections, do favor Democrats. This is one of the GOP’s better pickup opportunities, but it’s not great. The party’s huge success in 2010 and 2014 ensured that they would primarily be playing defense in this year’s gubernatorial races.
Last and least populous among these current swing states is New Hampshire, where Republican Gov. Chris Sununu is running for re-election. This race leans right but could go either way. New Hampshire voters are more elastic than voters in almost any other state—meaning that they’re actually willing to swing back and forth (unlike voters in a more evenly divided but polarized state like North Carolina). So it’s possible to imagine voters pulling left in a highly pro-Democratic national environment. On the other hand, it’s possible to imagine Sununu’s approval rating increasing and looking a bit more like those of other northeastern Republicans (see the next section for more on that).
The last four states in this cluster—Georgia, Arizona, Maine and Minnesota—are potential future swing states.
Georgia and Arizona both currently look solid for Republicans this cycle. Arizona is still a red state, and if Gov. Doug Ducey gets a boost from incumbency, he could withstand a solidly Democratic midterm. Georgia’s Democratic primary may be more interesting than the general (Stacey Evans and Stacey Abrams want to chart different courses for the party) but it’s worth watching the polls and the results. Even the Republican wins handily, data from this race will be helpful for charting the trajectories of both parties.
Minnesota has been trending right for decades, steadily moving from blue to purple. Maine’s trajectory has been less steady, but in 2016, it jumped quickly to the right. It’s possible to imagine a future in which Republicans keep making gains with white voters and gain strength in states like Maine and Minnesota while losing steam in more diverse western or southwestern states. But we’re not there quite yet, and Sabato’s Crystal Ball has pointed out that Democrats have strong fields in both states. That, plus the generally favorable climate for Democrats, adds up to an advantage for the blue team in both states.
Strangers in a Strange Land: The Red North
Larry Hogan, Phil Scott and Charlie Baker—the governors of Maryland, Vermont, and Massachusetts respectively—are in a weird position. They’re Republicans in extremely blue states.
These governors are a textbook example of how strong politicians who chart their own course can win governorships in unfriendly territory. Baker is, according to Morning Consult, the most popular governor in the nation. He ran as a fiscal conservative but has gained trust with liberal voters by supporting LGBT and abortion rights. The story is similar with Scott—he’s pro-choice and pro-LGBT, he recently signed a recreational marijuana legalization bill and he managed to win in Vermont while Clinton carried the state by 25 points (governors serve two-year terms in Vermont).
Hogan is also a popular incumbent in a deeply blue state. He’s distanced himself from Trump (he voted for his father, a former Maryland congressman, instead of Trump or Clinton) and has also maintained sky-high approval ratings. But his head-to-head polling isn’t good enough to put him in the same category as Baker.
There are Democratic examples of this phenomenon (e.g. Democrats John Bel Edwards and Steve Bullock are the governors or Louisiana and Montana, respectively), but most of them aren’t up this cycle. So these are the best tests of whether popular governors in unfriendly partisan territory can hold their seats.
Somebody Stinks: Red and Blue States with Unpopular Incumbents
Connecticut, Rhode Island, Oklahoma, Kansas, Illinois, New Mexico and Alaska (not pictured because it would stretch the map out too much) all have unpopular governors. These states usually don’t see much political action, but state-level conditions could create real races in at least some of these states.
Four of these seven states could realistically flip.
Democrats might be able to flip Illinois and New Mexico. Both states are blue and neither incumbent is popular. Rauner’s approval rating was only 31 percent in Morning Consult—his approval rating has suffered during recent budget battles with Democrats in the state legislature, and he could be unseated. Gov. Susana Martinez of New Mexico is term-limited, so she’ll play a less prominent role than Rauner did in Illinois. But New Mexico is a blue state where Hispanics make up a near-majority of the overall population, making it a reach for Republicans and a solid pickup opportunity for Democrats.
Outgoing Democratic Gov. Dan Malloy is highly unpopular in Connecticut, and that could help Republicans take the state. As THE WEEKLY STANDARD’s Alice B Lloyd has documented, Connecticut is facing significant economic problems, and it’s (although the handicapper consensus tilts left) possible to imagine a scenario where a Republican in the mold of Baker or Hogan manages to flip the state.
Alaska could also go from not-red to red. The consensus among handicappers is that this race is a tossup that might lean very slightly to the left (I’m counting Independent Alaska Gov. Bill Walker as a Democrat). Kondik has noted that Walker has some issues (e.g., low oil prices leading to economic problems) and the potential entry of Democratic Sen. Mark Begich into a three-way race (or a decision by Walker to affiliate with either party) could scramble the calculus. But the bottom line is that while Alaska is a crazy state (remember that four-way senate contest in 2016 or Lisa Murkowski’s *successful* 2010 write-in campaign?), but it’s overall redness and unpopular incumbent make it a toss-up.
Other states in this category are just a little too red or blue to be counted as competitive right now. Kansas and Oklahoma both have unpopular incumbents. If they had more run-of-the-mill governors, they might be in the “hard right” category (see next section), but it’s possible to imagine the right Democrat running to the right on key issues, making the incumbent governor an issue and creating a real race in the state.
Similarly, Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo hasn’t posted great numbers in Rhode Island (a state that has elected Republican governors in the past), so it’s possible to imagine a Republican upset. But it’s a stretch—the race is really on the border between this category and the “Far Left”
The Hard Right and the Far Left
Then there’s the hard right and the far left—races that are likely going to be more boring.
So far, the consensus is that none of these races will be extremely competitive. Moreover, none of these races feature a mismatch between the governor’s party and the state’s underlying partisanship. California, Hawaii, New York and Oregon are blue and they’re probably going to elect Democratic governors. The swathe of western and southern states shown on the map are highly red, and they seem poised to elect Republican governors in the fall.
These races might not be electorally interesting now, but they could serve as a farm for presidential candidates or cabinet officers. Jerry Brown, the current governor of California, was a presidential contender and (if it weren’t for his age) might have been again and George W. Bush was the governor of Texas before he became president. Moreover, it’s not hard to imagine a future president from either party picking a governor or former governor from a safe state to run a major part of his or her administration (e.g. former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is now at the U.N., former Texas Gov. Rick Perry is the Secretary of Energy, former Washington Gov. Gary Locke was President Obama’s Secretary of Commerce and Ambassador to China).
