Cover photo: Current partisan control of the governor’s mansions
Gubernatorial contests in the U.S. are of particular note as they offer the sole remaining hint of competition in all fifty states. We’ve written before in multiple columns how a governor’s race is much different from that of a U.S. Senate, presidential, or other statewide contest. It’s one that is reflective of the state of the state, candidate quality, local issues, and one where the national or state brand of a party could significantly kneecap that party’s ability to win in a state in which they would otherwise have no trouble.
For context, twenty-seven states are governed by Republicans and twenty-three by Democrats. For the most part, the governors are mostly along partisan lines with recent presidential and senatorial elections for context, but there are some notable outliers. Republicans govern solidly-blue Vermont, as well as blue-leaning New Hampshire and Virginia, while Democrats govern the ruby-red states of Kansas and Kentucky. Republicans also leveraged local issues and the COVID-19 Pandemic response to oust an incumbent Democrat in Nevada in 2022.
Since gubernatorial terms are four years in all but two states, Vermont and New Hampshire, their elections are on regular intervals, save for special elections. The midterm years host more competition with thirty-six states’ governors’ terms ending on such years. The presidential years, however, offer much less in terms of raw numbers of expired terms, and this year offers much less than a typically competitive year would.
Only two states have highly competitive gubernatorial elections this year: North Carolina and New Hampshire. Two swing states in almost every sense of the word, their open-seat contests are likely to have large ramifications for policy and direction based on November’s winners.
North Carolina – Josh Stein (D) Vs. Mark Robinson (R)
North Carolina has been a premier battleground since Barack Obama’s (D-IL) historic win in 2008. No Democrat had carried the Tar Heel State in a presidential race since 1976. Since then, however, Democrats have had trouble at winning statewide races in North Carolina. Mitt Romney (R-MA) flipped the state in 2012, while Republicans flipped a Senate seat in 2014. A changing state, it’s worth noting that North Carolina is markedly more Republican leaning than its counterparts simply due to elasticity, a topic we recently discussed in our Civics 101 column. Briefly, North Carolina is seen as an “inelastic” state, one without much middle to court and where annually competitive statewide elections come down to which party can turn more of their voters to the polls.
That’s a dynamic that’s largely in play in North Carolina, but one that might be overshadowed by the core nature of gubernatorial elections. Republicans last won a governor’s race here in 2012, the same year Romney flipped the state red to keep it stubbornly in the red column, despite Democrats’ strongest efforts. In 2016, Governor Pat McCrory (R), then seen as the king of the GOP in North Carolina, became the first sitting governor of the state to lose a re-election bid since 1850, most of it due to about 7,000 votes in a few precincts of Mecklenburg County (Charlotte) that had flipped to Roy Cooper (D) over a largely unpopular toll plan for the city’s section of I-77.
This seemingly-innocuous issue cost McCrory the election among constituents who had voted for him in 2012 and who had backed Donald Trump (R-NY) for president that same year.
Cooper leveraged his moderate profile with a Republican-led legislature to win a narrow second term in 2020, even as Trump carried the state by about half the margin he did four years prior. Now, Cooper is term-limited, and the race is open between Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson (R) and Attorney General Josh Stein (D).
Initially, Robinson had led most of the polls or kept the race within the margin of error. But many red-leaning voters in the state appear to be turned off by Robinson’s staunchly-conservative messaging, especially when they’ve opted for softer, more moderate governors in recent years. Presidential coattails, however strong they may be in a state that seems likely to back Trump again, aren’t likely to insulate any candidate of any party from a rude awakening on Election Day when gubernatorial races are the topic.
At this point, it seems the race has started to unravel for Robinson. Stein has held consistent double-digit leads in the race for weeks, making us think a “Leans Democrat” rating is more appropriate than “Toss Up.” We had considered a “Tilt Democrat” rating, but sat it out in anticipation of polling that gives us a different idea.
While a Republican winning this seat this year isn’t surprising itself, it would be surprising to see Robinson dig himself out of the hole with only one month to go until Election Day.
New Hampshire – Kelly Ayotte (R) Vs. Joyce Craig
The nation’s second marquee gubernatorial race comes from the Granite State. New Hampshire, while blue-leaning at the top of the ticket, is much more complicated down the ballot. In 2016, it was the closest state that Hillary Clinton (D-NY) won that year – a margin of just about 0.4%. That same year, Chris Sununu (R) flipped the open gubernatorial seat vacated by Maggie Hassan (D) in a close contest. On the same night, Hassan would oust one-term Senator Kelly Ayotte (R) in the closest Senate race of the election. Democrats would also flip NH-01 in the House, giving Democrats full control of New Hampshire’s congressional delegation for the first time since 1854.
Sununu would go on to win a close race in 2018, leveraging his moderate brand of Republican politics in a more intrinsically libertarian state. He was resoundingly re-elected in 2020 and 2022 and opted against a historic fifth term this year. New Hampshire, along with Vermont, are the only states whose governors serve two-year terms without term limits.
This race is a pure toss up in every sense of the word, although it seems like Ayotte might have the slightest edge, only due to her predecessor’s popularity and her ability to win statewide. Still, it’s not enough to designate a “Tilt Republican” rating for the race. Ayotte faces former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig. A hard-fought Democratic primary is what played out on the left, while Ayotte’s GOP primary win was a cakewalk. However, Ayotte didn’t get to benefit from a longer campaign trial due to intraparty fighting to her left. New Hampshire holds one of the latest statewide primaries in the country before Election Day, giving both nominees a runway of just under two months to make their pitches to Granite State voters.
The race is also complicated by the fact that Republicans’ razor-thin majority in the state legislature is also in the balance. Just a few districts can tilt control of Concord to the Democrats, a dynamic of split-ticket voting we’re sure will be on display, as New Hampshire has been prone to in recent years, notably 2016.
For this one, we’d say Ayotte is ever so slightly in the driver’s seat, due to her familiarity across the state and her small leads in what few polls have been taken of the race.
But the New Hampshire gubernatorial race is still a toss up in every sense of the word.
Washington – Drew Ferguson (D) Vs. Dave Reichert (R)
In deep-blue Washington, Republicans have the chance of a lifetime to end their longest gubernatorial losing streak in the country.
Republicans haven’t won a gubernatorial race in Washington since 1980, although they have come tantalizingly close more times than they have not. Washington was also a top battleground until 2008, with exceptionally close presidential races here in 2000 and 2004. In fact, the 2004 gubernatorial race went to Christine Gregoire (D) by a margin of just 129 votes out of over 2.5 million cast, making it one of the closest elections in U.S. history.
2012 saw the rise of now-Governor Jay Inslee (D), who is declining to seek a fourth term in a state that does not impose term limits. Inslee won by just three points then, and despite Hillary Clinton taking Washington by just over fifteen points, Inslee was only re-elected by a nine-point margin.
Inslee’s 2020 margin was stronger, but thirteen points is relatively underwhelming for a state as blue as Washington and for a governor who was not disastrously unpopular at the time, and that race featured Loren Culp (R), a candidate seen as too far to the right for the state.
2024 features the first time this seat is open in over a decade. Conventional wisdom rates this as a lock for Democrats, while most major forecasters rate the contest as “Likely Democrat.”
So, why do we rate it as “Leans Democrat?”
Our logic comes from the fact that the seat is open, Attorney General Bob Ferguson (D) should have enough of a large base in Kings County (Seattle) to cushion a five-alarm-fire turnout-wise across the state, and that Republicans scored a top recruit for this year.
Dave Reichert (R) served not only as Kings County Sheriff from 1997 to 2005, but also as a Congressman representing WA-08 from 2005 until 2019. WA-08 is one of the most evenly-divided districts in the country, taking in suburban Seattle, Tacoma, and the exurban areas. Reichert probably would have been able to hold onto this seat in 2018 had he opted to run again, despite it being a good Democratic year.
Reichert comes from the population, cultural, and economic epicenter of Washington and represented the population in some form for over twenty years. To say that Democrats should be scared of this recruit is an understatement.
A big aspect of primary elections in Washington is the top-two system, wherein all candidates for the same office appear on the same ballot, regardless of party, and the top-two vote-receivers advance to the general election, also regardless of party. Republicans don’t usually get boxed out of the contest for the state’s top job, so they avoided that hurdle. But the bigger one comes in analyzing margins within the top-two results. Ferguson captured 44% of the vote out of a massive field of almost thirty candidates. Reichert took 27%.
The big equation with top-two primaries is combined vote totals between all candidates of their respective parties. With combined totals, Democrats took about 55% of the total statewide vote and Republicans’ took about 41%. This isn’t a blowout, but it’s not exactly as close as polls are showing, which is where another grain of salt comes in.
Polls as early as the spring showed Reichert leading primary and general election polls, with polls not showing Reichert ahead didn’t put him far behind. Ferguson has expanded his leads somewhat over the summer, reaching a peak of 50% in a September 6 poll by Elway Research.
Washington, as far as the gubernatorial election is concerned, is in play for this cycle. We believe Ferguson assumes first position at this point based on fundamentals, but the gap can be closed by Reichert, provided he gets the resources he needs. A single-digit margin here wouldn’t be a shock, markedly better than Republicans’ pitiful performance in the 2022 Senate race that was, according to polls, statistically tied for the home stretch.
Perhaps of more interest in Washington is the race for Public Lands Commissioner, a statewide position. Former Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler (R, WA-03) ran as a moderate who earned Trump’s eternal wrath by voting to impeach him in 2021. Trump never forgave the move, successfully helping Herrera Beutler lose her primary in 2022. Joe Kent (R) would go on to lose the red-leaning WA-03 in what’s considered the biggest upset of that cycle.
But Herrera Beutler might get the last laugh. Some surveys suggest she’s in a better position to take this race than Reichert is to take the gubernatorial race. It wouldn’t mean much on the national scale, besides a Republican platform and image that’s electable in a state as blue as Washington, but it would certainly be of note.
Besides, Republican’s don’t control any of the nine statewide offices in Washington. We’re sure they’ll take a win where they can find one to improve that statistic.
The ‘Safe’ Contests
Besides those three states, there’s not much else in terms of competition this year. Our map originally evolved with Indiana, Missouri, and Montana appearing as “Likely Republican,” only due to open-seat races in the former two and a quirky environment in the latter, which is perennially on-brand for Montana.
But we don’t see much engagement here. Democrats were optimistic about Missouri’s gubernatorial seat in 2020 and didn’t come close. Republicans also flipped Montana that same year by a wide margin, ending sixteen years of Democratic governance in Helena.
Interestingly, Republicans’ safest gubernatorial bet is Vermont, otherwise the bluest state in the union top-down. Fiscally conservative and socially liberal four-term Governor Phil Scott (R) is immensely popular in Vermont and regularly ranks as one of the most – if not the most – popular governors in the nation. Scott’s 71% share of the 2022 vote is the largest statewide margin for a Vermont Republican since 1950.
Republicans are also strong favorites to hold North Dakota, Utah, and West Virginia. Governor Spencer Cox (R-UT) had a primary challenge from his right over the summer, but came out on top and is highly likely to secure a second term based on fundamentals.
The only state where Democrats have a safe bet this year: Delaware. Last governed by a Republican in 1993, the First State has regularly elected Democrats to the top post by lopsided margins in each election since then, with 2004 as an exception. The term-limited John Carney (D) is likely to be replaced by New Castle County (Wilmington) Executive Matt Meyer (D).
