Kyle Kondik over at Sabato's Crystal Ball notes that Democrats have a long road to get back to evening up the country to go from 22 to even 25 governor's mansions this year. Even with big pickups in Maryland and Massachusetts from outgoing Republicans Larry Hogan and Charlie Baker, Dems have a lot of heavy lifting to do in order to defend seats in nearly a dozen competitive races...including Oregon.
Republican incumbents are in great shape to hold New Hampshire and Vermont. Elsewhere in New England, Gov. Ned Lamont (D-CT) has posted surprisingly robust approval ratings as he faces a rematch with businessman Bob Stefanowski (R). Next door, Gov. Dan McKee (D-RI) — who took over when his predecessor, Gina Raimondo (D), became Secretary of Commerce — has to get through a primary against, most notably, Rhode Island Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea (D) and former CVS executive Helena Foulkes (D). The primary victor is likely to face newcomer Ashley Kalus (R). If things break right for Republicans down the stretch of the election, Connecticut or Rhode Island might be like New Jersey’s race was last year — surprisingly close and competitive.
As of now, the hottest race in New England comes in Maine, where Gov. Janet Mills (D) is seeking a second term against her predecessor, former Gov. Paul LePage (R). Our understanding is that while this race remains a viable Republican target, it has not moved into true Toss-up territory yet. It definitely remains worth watching, though, as we can imagine LePage — who has been on decent behavior recently, given his typical penchant for stirring controversy — rallying the state’s large cadre of white, working-class voters to victory once again.
A key thing to watch in Pennsylvania is whether the well-heeled Republican Governors Association actually decides to spend there; as it is now, Shapiro has a ton of money to spend while Mastriano hardly has any. The Keystone State is so competitive that we would not expect Shapiro to win by the big margin that some polls show given what we still expect to be a Republican-leaning overall political environment, but it does appear that Shapiro retains the edge. The same is true of Whitmer in Michigan, which is really the only swing state that appears likely to have a statewide ballot issue on abortion this year. That issue dominating the race is just fine for Democrats, who have already highlighted GOP nominee Tudor Dixon’s (R) stringent anti-abortion stance.
As noted above, GOP incumbents DeSantis in Florida and Kemp in Georgia both appear to be ahead in their races. One very clear bright spot for Republicans is that, in our eyes, all of their incumbent governors are favored to win. Kemp is really the only one who appears locked in a legitimately close race. We’ll see if Florida comes online at some point, but the political trendlines for Democrats in that state are bad even as it remains competitive. We might as well mention Texas in this group; Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is seeking a third term against former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D, TX-16). Like Abrams in Georgia, O’Rourke gives Democrats in Texas an energetic and well-funded challenger — but also gives Republicans a useful foil to inspire their own turnout.
We may not have a strong handicap in aforementioned Wisconsin until the weekend before the election — and even then, we might not feel very confident about it. In picking businessman Tim Michels (R) as their nominee, Republicans probably rolled the dice a bit more than if they had picked former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch (R): Michels may have some added appeal as more of an outsider candidate, although he’s also less vetted than Kleefisch, who served a couple of terms as former Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) no. 2. Next door in Minnesota, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) faces former state Sen. Scott Jensen (R), a one-time moderate who moved to the right during the political battles over the pandemic. The environment will be the main determinant of how vulnerable Walz truly is.
Kansas, where Gov. Laura Kelly (D) is seeking a second term, remains the most obvious Republican pickup opportunity, if only because it is by far the reddest state that Democrats are defending. But Kelly, despite running in a clearly Republican-leaning state, is not dead in the water, and there are questions about how strong of a campaign her opponent, state Attorney General Derek Schmidt (R), is running. Kelly’s approval rating remains above water, it appears, and she may be able to thread the needle much like Gov. John Bel Edwards (D-LA) did in 2019. Edwards, like Kelly, initially won office by defeating a weak Republican opponent — Edwards beat scandal-plagued then-Sen. David Vitter (R), while Kelly beat the very right-wing Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) in 2018. Edwards then survived in 2019 against businessman Eddie Rispone (R), who was a better candidate than Vitter but was not exactly top-tier, either. Schmidt is probably comparable in candidate quality to Rispone, and that very well may be sufficient for him to win. But we thought this race might’ve drifted into clear Leans Republican territory by now, and our understanding is that it has not. Pro-abortion rights forces just won a major victory on abortion in Kansas earlier this month as voters strongly rejected a statewide ballot issue that would have given the state’s GOP legislature the power to restrict abortion rights. We do wonder if the Democratic intensity over abortion will remain in this state, or if the August vote put the issue more on the backburner for November (certainly Republicans are hoping for the latter, given the lopsided margin against their side in the vote a couple of weeks ago).
Nevada is another Toss-up defended by a Democratic incumbent, Gov. Steve Sisolak (D). Back in June, Republicans picked Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo (R) as their standard-bearer, and he was probably the best candidate running. Most of the time, one wouldn’t consider a county-level official to be all that prominent, but in Nevada — which is in some ways a city-state — Las Vegas’s Clark County casts about 2/3rds of the statewide vote. With crime an issue, Sisolak and Lombardo are trying to see whether they can blame the other. The Senate and gubernatorial races likely will run fairly closely to one another — in 2018, Sisolak won by 4 points and now-Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) won by 5 — and as we wrote a couple of weeks ago, we think Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) is the most vulnerable Democratic senator this year. If that’s the case, then it stands to reason that Sisolak is awfully vulnerable too.
We mentioned above that we are moving Oregon’s open-seat race from Leans Democratic to Toss-up. This is despite the state’s blue lean and the fact that Republicans have not won a gubernatorial race there since 1982. However, the state is hosting an unusual 3-way race among a trio of women who are all recent members of the state legislature: former state House Speaker Tina Kotek (D), former state House Minority Leader Christine Drazan (R), and former state Sen. Betsy Johnson, an unaffiliated, former Democrat who is more conservative than most of the members of her former party and who has been backed by Nike co-founder Phil Knight. The race sets up an unusual situation where the winner may not need to crack even 40%. Additionally, the 3 candidates all served concurrently in the state legislature, which should provide the campaigns ample opportunities to draw contrasts among the candidates. Outgoing Gov. Kate Brown (D) is deeply unpopular, and there may be some desire for change in the Beaver State. Johnson, the independent, would still be the most surprising winner, and Kotek and Drazan both will be working to try to prevent their voters from flocking to her banner. There’s just enough uncertainty here that we’re looking at the race as a Toss-up now.
We are not quite there yet in another western blue state, but it’s becoming clearer to us that Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM) is locked in what appears to be a very close contest with 2020 Senate nominee and former TV meteorologist Mark Ronchetti (R). Unlike many other Republicans, Ronchetti has tried to show some nuance on the abortion issue, and Lujan Grisham has a number of vulnerabilities, as documented by Axios’s Russell Contreras and Josh Kraushaar, that by themselves aren’t much, but could be harmful to her taken together. We still give Lujan Grisham a small edge, owing to incumbency and the state’s overall lean.
Next door, in Arizona, is another open Toss-up. Republicans have nominated a fringe candidate, former TV newscaster Kari Lake (R), who just won the GOP nomination with a backward-looking campaign over imagined voter fraud in the 2020 election. She faces Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D), who had to belatedly apologize last year over an employment discrimination controversy dating back to her time as the state Senate minority leader (a Black woman was fired from her job as a Senate aide and successfully sued over the matter). We ultimately have some questions about how well Hobbs can capitalize on Lake’s problems, making Arizona a pure Toss-up, still.
In other words, while Dems are going to pick up two states in MD and MA, Republicans can win ME, CT, RI, NV, OR, KS, WI, NM, MN, MI, and PA, 11 states which currently have Democratic governors. I expect all of these races to be very close, and frankly Republicans have a better chance in all 11 of these states than Dems do picking up Georgia, Florida or Texas.
We've concentrated on House and especially Senate races so far this year, but Dems absolutely need to get going on the Governor front, and now.
Vote like your country depends on it, because it does.
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