Not to be overlooked amidst the very closely divided contest over which party will control the Senate for the next two years are the nation’s many governors races, which is why Daily Kos Elections has prepared this guide to all of the key matchups in 2022.
There’s quite a lot on the docket, since the majority of states—36 of them, including New Hampshire and Vermont, who love gubernatorial elections so much that they have one every two years—hold contests for governor in midterm years. That includes nine of the nation’s 10 most populous states, North Carolina being the only exception.
One reason these races don’t get the same level of attention as the battle for the Senate is that they don’t, in aggregate, have a direct impact on the nation’s governance: One party doesn’t get a power bonus for controlling 25 or more statehouses. However, governors do have the ultimate say at the state level. They have appointment powers and control the regulatory apparatus, and, via veto power, can be an important check in states with Republican legislatures.
That’s important simply from the perspective of passing good policy and having well-governed, smoothly-running states, but it’s also more vital than ever in how governors downstream affect the administration of federal elections. Republican lawmakers and statewide officials have grown increasingly aggressive in making voting more difficult or restrictive, and even in attempts to undo results they don’t like. As long as elections are administered at the state and local levels, governors are the final gatekeepers who will determine whether they remain free and fair.
Not all of the nation’s gubernatorial elections are competitive this year, of course. Many are more or less a foregone conclusion, taking place in dark-red or dark-blue states, and featuring uncontroversial incumbents seeking additional terms. In fact, we’re starting with two races already likely to be flips—and those races both benefit the Democrats, in Maryland and Massachusetts. In both cases, these very blue states had Republican governors who first won office during the GOP wave of 2014 and held on by maintaining very different images from the national party.
With both those governors—Charlie Baker in Massachusetts and Larry Hogan in Maryland—retiring this year (Hogan due to term limits and Baker of his own volition), and with the Republican Party having nominated fairly obscure far-right nominees to replace them, those states are likely to return back to the Democratic column this year. In Maryland, Democratic author Wes Moore, who’s facing Republican state Del. Dan Cox, is likely to become Maryland’s first Black governor. And in Massachusetts, Democratic Attorney General Maura Healey is the probable victor over former Republican state Rep. Geoff Diehl. A Healey win would make her the nation’s first lesbian governor.
But while Democrats already start with two likely flips, by no means are they likely to have a net gain of seats on the year. Several nominees in Democratic-held states are running behind their opponents in most polls, and there are also several more Democratic incumbents in truly neck-and-neck races where there isn’t a clear advantage.
While an overall net loss of, say, one or two gubernatorial seats is, of course, not what Democrats like to see, it would still be a fairly good result in the context of what often happens in midterms where one party controls the White House and Congress. For comparison, the Democrats picked up seven governorships in 2018, while Republicans gained six in 2010. In 2014, though, the GOP netted only two seats, and we could see a similar outcome this year. But if all of the close races wind up falling in one direction, then Republicans could be in store for a much bigger night.
The Most Vulnerable Democratic Seats
We’ll start our guide with a look at the governorships Democrats currently hold that are at the greatest risk of flipping to the GOP.
KANSAS
On paper, you’d expect Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly to be the most vulnerable Democratic governor running for re-election in 2020. She’s the only Democratic incumbent running in a state that Donald Trump won in 2020, and Kelly’s initial victory in 2018 owed a lot to terrible Republican opposition, in the form of far-right former state Secretary of State Kris Kobach (who, not coincidentally, is running to become state attorney general this year). This time, Kelly faces the state’s current attorney general, the somewhat more normal—though still very conservative—Derek Schmidt.
However, what few polls we’ve seen have all given Kelly a narrow edge, with FiveThirtyEight’s polling aggregate showing her up 49-44. (However, we have reservations about these aggregates, which we discuss in our companion Senate preview.) In addition, Kelly’s helped out by a bid from Republican-turned-independent state Sen. Dennis Pyle, who’s running even further to the right of Schmidt. Pyle isn’t likely to pick off more than a few points from Schmitt, but that may actually be enough to help Kelly squeak into another term.
NEVADA
Based purely on the polling, the Democratic incumbent who actually seems to be in the most trouble this year is Steve Sisolak, the one-term governor of Nevada. Most polls have shown him narrowly trailing his Republican opponent, Joe Lombardo, the sheriff of Clark County (home of Las Vegas and where most of the state’s residents), with Wikipedia’s aggregate of aggregates putting Lombardo ahead 47-45. This seems to be less of a case of Sisolak being unpopular and more about, partially, Lombardo’s strengths: He’s locally very well-known and running a rather generic, localized campaign while avoiding the national party’s pitfalls. The other part of the problem is the same one plaguing Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, which is that turnout among Nevada’s largely-Latino Democratic base sometimes falls off significantly in midterms, relative to stronger turnout in presidential years.
OREGON
Maybe the biggest surprise to outside observers among the governors' races where the Democrats are struggling is the open seat in Oregon, which is not only blue at the presidential level but has the second-longest Democratic gubernatorial winning streak in the nation (it last elected a Republican in 1982). The warning signs have been in place for a long time, though, starting with a decision by Democrat-turned-independent state Sen. Betsy Johnson to run a third-party- bid. Unlike most such challenges, Johnson raised a lot of money, had establishment backers, and until recently, often polled in the 20% range.
The majority of Johnson’s support seems to have come from moderate Democrats, which takes a big chunk out of the share of the actual Democratic nominee, former state House Speaker Tina Kotek. In turn, that means that most polls have given a narrow advantage to Republican state Rep. Christine Drazan. That’s compounded by term-limited Gov. Kate Brown’s unpopularity, which seems in part to have rubbed off on Kotek, so this would likely have been a close race even without Johnson’s intervention. One hopeful sign for Kotek, though, is that as Johnson’s vote share has started to dwindle in the most recent polls (as is often the case in the closing weeks for third-party spoilers), that seems to be helping Kotek pull very slightly ahead, with a 42-41 aggregate polling lead over Drazan, with Johnson down to 12%.
WISCONSIN
The other Democratic incumbent facing a tough re-election is Tony Evers in Wisconsin, who defeated Republican Gov. Scott Walker by a paper-thin margin in 2018 against the backdrop of a good Democratic year. Given how close statewide elections in Wisconsin tend to be, it’s no surprise this one is also showing up as a near-tie. Evers’ Republican opponent, businessman Tim Michels has a 49-48 advantage in the polling aggregate, with the local gold-standard pollster, Marquette University, showing a 48-48 tie among likely voters in their final poll of the race.
Democrats’ Second Tier of Defense
Now let’s look at the next group of races where Democrats are playing defense, but where their chances seem somewhat better.
MAINE
One of the gubernatorial races that we know the least about—because the state is rarely polled—is Maine, where first-term Democratic Gov.J anet Mills faces a familiar and unwelcome face, her irascible predecessor, Republican Paul LePage. The few recent polls we’ve seen give Mills a lead in the high single digits, with the polling aggregate putting her up 50-43—a margin that would be very similar to her 51-43 win in 2018. Mills also benefits from the fact that there’s no strong third-party presence on the ballot this year; centrist independents helped LePage to improbably win in both of his previous campaigns in 2010 and 2014.
MICHIGAN
Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is a strong contender in her own right, but she may have also dodged a bullet when the Republican challenger who probably would have been the strongest general election opponent, former Detroit Police Chief James Craig, got bounced from the primary ballot for inadequate signatures. The primary field was thrown into disarray, which led to Republicans nominating conservative commentator Tudor Dixon, who has subsequently run a badly underfunded and somewhat shambolic campaign. Swing states being what they are, though, Dixon has been gaining ground in the polls in the last month as skeptical Republican voters consolidate behind her. The polling aggregate, however, has Whitmer maintaining a mid-single-digit lead, and, more importantly, hovering at the 50% mark, with a 50-45 edge on Dixon.
MINNESOTA
There’s a similar dynamic in Minnesota, where low-key Democratic Gov. Tim Walz drew a hard-right opponent after the Republican convention, where former state Sen. Scott Jensen was nominated over a variety of competitors who might have been better general election matchups. And similarly, as in Michigan, Jensen is hanging around in the polls at the edge of competitiveness, trailing Walz usually by high single digits. Walz has a 49-42 lead in the polling aggregate, though the Republican Governors Association did make a late foray into the race.
NEW MEXICO
While New Mexico is slightly bluer than Michigan or Minnesota, Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham faces a somewhat higher-quality opponent. She faces Republican nominee Mark Ronchetti, who acquitted himself well in 2020’s closer-than-expected Senate race and, as a former TV meteorologist, was well-known before that. Polling, again, gives Lujan Grisham mostly leads in the high single-digits though some pollsters have seen a closer result; the polling aggregate has her up 48-42.
NEW YORK
Some recent close-looking polls have caused a bit of a stir in the Empire State, where Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, who ascended to the top spot last year after Andrew Cuomo resigned in disgrace, is seeking her first full term against Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin. Hochul’s been pounded on the airwaves with a barrage of heavy-handed ads fearmongering about crime, prompting hand-wringing among some Democrats. It’s worth noting, though, most of the polls showing a very close race have come from Republican-affiliated pollsters. Aside from a Quinnipiac survey that gave Hochul a four-point lead, most media polls have found a bigger advantage for her. Even with all those GOP polls, Hochul is still up 51-44 in the polling aggregate.
PENNSYLVANIA
Pennsylvania is actually looking a notch better than the other states in this bucket. This open seat (Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf is termed out) finds Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro opening up a double-digit lead against Republican state Sen. Doug Mastroiano. It’s worth watching because the stakes are very high—Mastroiano has been pretty explicit in his intention to meddle with federal elections in this key swing state—and it’s also notable because it’s taken something of the opposite trajectory of Pennsylvania’s Senate race, where initially John Fetterman was beating Mehmet Oz by wider margins than Shapiro was beating Mastroiano.
However, while Oz has caught up on the Senate side, Mastroiano’s lack of money and, beyond that, his strange experiment with running a low-advertising campaign that focuses instead of social media outreach to true believers, don’t seem to be serving him well at all in the home stretch … unless the mother of all polling errors is incoming. For now, though, the polling aggregate finds Shapiro ahead 52-41.
Democratic Pickup Opportunities
Lastly, we’ll delve into the shorter list of governorships that are currently Republican-held and where the Democrats are playing offense (other than, of course, the already discussed likely pickups in Maryland and Massachusetts).
ARIZONA
The Democrats’ most predictable offensive push is in the swing state of Arizona, where Republican Gov. Doug Ducey is termed out. The Democrats have nominated state Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, while the Republicans went with former TV news anchor Kari Lake. That initially may have seemed promising for Hobbs, given Lake’s willingness to entertain extremism and conspiracy theories, but as we’ve also seen in some of the key Senate contests, there’s really very little extremism penalty anymore once a race gets nationalized. Much more so than even a decade ago, partisans on both sides are irretrievably in their parties’ corners, while the daily outrages in the news seem to be background noise to which the few remaining swing voters remain oblivious. Polling aggregates currently give Lake a 49-47 lead.
OKLAHOMA
If Oregon is one of the most in-jeopardy Democratic states, it seems like a fitting bookend that perhaps the most endangered Republican state is … Oklahoma? This race involves a unique set of circumstances, where Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt faces off against state Superintendent of Education Joy Hofmeister, a former Republican who became a Democrat last year specifically with a challenge to Sitt in mind. The dynamics of the race have largely focsed on education policy and funding for K-12 schools, though Republicans have, of course, tried to invoke the usual national bogeymen and -women.
This unusual scenario and Stitt’s hardline policies have given Hofmeister a significant opening in this dark-red state. A long spate of polls throughout October gave Hofmeister a series of small leads over Stitt, though the last few polls have pushed Stitt back in front, yielding a 47-44 aggregate polling lead. This margin may be deceiving, though: Given that the remaining undecideds are likely to lean heavily Republican, Stitt’s advantage is probably considerably more comfortable (assuming, of course, the polls are correct).
FLORIDA, GEORGIA, AND TEXAS
Unfortunately, these three races can get described together, as they’re rather thematically linked. On the Republican side in each race—Ron DeSantis in Florida, Brian Kemp in Georgia, and Greg Abbott in Texas—are incumbents who’ve really gone out of their way to be as obnoxious as possible to elevate their national profiles (even if Trump also hates Kates). In Georgia and Texas, two once-rising stars from 2018 are trying again: Stacey Abrams and Beto O’Rourke, respectively. (In Florida, Republican Gov.-turned-Democratic Rep. Charlie Crist is pretty much the direct opposite of a rising star, but at least he’s the name you know.) The intended audiences don’t seem to be enjoying the reruns as much as the originals, though; all three trail their Republican opponents by high single digits (or low double digits, in the case of Crist).
One More Special Case
ALASKA
Finally, there’s Alaska, which, as it so often does, gets its own bucket and a big shruggie. What we do know is there is a one-term Republican incumbent, Mike Dunleavy, who seems at least somewhat unpopular. But because it’s Alaska, the election is a ranked-choice adventure, and Dunleavy faces former independent Gov. Bill Walker (whom he knocked out of office in 2018), former Democratic state Rep. Les Gara, and Kenai Mayor Charlie Pierce, another Republican. Only a few pollsters have attempted to unravel this mystery, but Ivan Moore, who pegged the recent House election quite well, finds Dunleavy only narrowly prevailing over Walker in the final round of ranked-choice tabulations.