Jul.01

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Candidate News: Governors

It's been a few weeks since we did this, which means there's a bit of a backlog of news about governors' races that we think is worth mentioning. So, buckle up:

• Alabama: There are now three Democrats officially vying for the right to take on presumptive GOP nominee Tommy Tuberville. And, serving as a useful reminder that the Democratic bench in Alabama is as thin as Donald Trump's skin, all three of them are unknowns, even in Alabama, despite the fact that all three have run for office before.
  
  The latest Democrat to jump in, and the only one of the trio to have actually won an election, is Will Boyd. He is young(ish), Black, and was previously a member of the city council in... Greenville, IL. He's already run for lieutenant governor and for the U.S. Senate in Alabama, losing badly both times. He is joined by Ja'Mel Brown, an online pastor who is also young(ish) and Black, and who has run for citywide office in Montgomery several times, and by Chad "Chig" Martin, who is an older, white fellow with a folksy cowboy persona. He owns a hemp farm, and ran for governor in 2022. Whichever Democrat lands the nomination, we struggle to conceive of what it would take for them to defeat Tuberville. Given how the GOP has "evolved" over the last few years, even Roy Moore-style sexual misdeeds would not do it, we think.
  
  
• Arizona: Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) is likely to run for reelection, though she hasn't made it official yet. She's not overly popular, and Arizona is a purple (or maybe even reddish-purple) state, so whether it's her or it's someone else for the blue team, the Republicans have a chance here with the right candidate. And by "the right candidate," we mean "someone who is Trumpy enough for the MAGA base, but not TOO crazypants for the MAGA-skeptical Republicans and independents."
  
  It is abundantly clear that, of the two leading Republican contenders, Karrin Taylor Robson is a stronger general election candidate than Rep. Andy Biggs, who is most definitely crazypants. And Taylor Robson got a good poll from Republican house Noble Predictive Insights earlier this month; she was the preferred candidate of 24% of GOP primary voters, as opposed to 17% for Biggs. But now, the bad news for Taylor Robson. First, 37% were undecided in the Noble poll (and another 17% backed Charlie Kirk; a bunch of those people will surely migrate to Biggs). Second, this poll is an outlier; in the three other polls conducted since Taylor Robson and Biggs declared, Biggs led Taylor Robson by 23 points, 32 points and 29 points.
  
  Mostly it is a reminder that, particularly at this point in the cycle, you sometimes get some really nutty polls. Choices made by pollsters, in terms of which voters to include, and which candidates to ask about, and whether or not to allow "I don't know" or "Undecided," matter a LOT.
  
  Incidentally, this is the kind of race where Donald Trump's endorsement could be a difference-maker, since the GOP base in Arizona is very MAGA. And the President has endorsed, already. He supports... both candidates, having given his endorsement to Taylor Robson back in December, and Biggs in May. There are at least half-a-dozen races now where he's backed both of the frontrunners; clearly his primary concern is to keep his batting average as high as is possible. And indeed, on his lightly-trafficked social media site, anytime there is an election, Trump posts slick graphics afterwards reminding visitors to the site (all three of them) that he endorsed [WINNING CANDIDATE X]. He somehow never remembers to add a note that he also endorsed their opponent.
  
  
• Arkansas: This is another Southern state where the Republicans have a sure-to-win candidate (in this case, incumbent governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders), and the Democrats have no bench to speak of. That said, last week, state Sen. Fred Love (D) got in; his platform is "Arkansas deserves better." He is young and Black and fairly lefty. He is also term-limited in both houses of the legislature, so there isn't too much downside to joining the race. Oh, and the person running to replace him in the state Senate? His wife, ShaRhonda Love. So, one imagines that the Fred Love gubernatorial campaign will primarily be the ShaRhonda Love state Senate campaign.
  
  The only other Democrat in the race is Gary Huskey, who is completely unknown, perhaps excepting those Arkansans who recall that he is a sociopath who was convicted of killing his dogs. Unfortunately for him, that's the résumé of an aspiring DHS secretary, not an aspiring governor. We think it's safe to say that, barring another challenger entering the race, Love is going to get the Democratic nomination.
  
  
• California: There is new scuttlebutt that Kamala Harris is inclined to mount a gubernatorial bid. Inasmuch as a presidential bid, which would have to commence within months of her inauguration as governor, would be impractical in that circumstance, jumping into the California race would be tantamount to jumping out of the presidential race. And since Harris wants to be president much more than she wants to be governor, she would effectively be conceding that she can't win the 2028 presidential election (or, at least, that she can't get the Democratic nomination).
  
  Republicans, for their part, would very much like to see Harris jump in. The current GOP candidates for the California governorship, pundit Steve Hilton and Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco, both believe they can win if she's the opponent. They are deluding themselves. However, Republicans nationwide would love to make Harris (and a few other non-white Democrats) the face of the Party in 2026, and think that railing against Harris (and, say, Zohran Mamdani) would goose fundraising all across the land. That, they may be right about.
  
  
• Colorado: Sen. Michael Bennet (D) holds a commanding lead over AG Phil Weiser (D); they are the only two Democrats in the race that anyone's ever heard of. The latest poll, from Global Strategy Group, which specializes in Colorado elections, has Bennet with the support of 53% of likely Democratic primary voters, as opposed to 22% for Weiser. If that holds, Weiser's fundraising is going to dry up, and he's going to have to drop out.
  
  
• Georgia: Thus far, the only Republican vying to replace the term-limited Gov. Brian Kemp (R) is state AG Chris Carr, although it is likely that at least one other "name" Republican will jump in, most likely Lt. Gov. Burt Jones. Meanwhile, the Democratic side of the contest is getting crowded. For a while, Rep. Lucy McBath was all alone in the race, and it seemed possible she might not draw a challenger. But then she suspended her campaign so that she could take care of her husband, who is battling cancer. That was about 3 months ago.
  
  In roughly the last month, four Democrats have tossed their hats into the ring. They are state Sen. Jason Esteves, state Rep. Derrick Jackson, former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and pastor Olujimi Brown. There's been only one poll of the Democratic primary so far, and it shows that the favorite, with the support of 52% of Democratic primary voters, is... Stacey Abrams, who is not actually a candidate, at least not yet. (Note that the poll was taken before several of these other candidates were in the race.)
  
  From all of this, we take two conclusions. The first is that, if you had to bet, you'd have to put your money on "McBath isn't getting back into the race." The second—given that every person we name in the previous paragraph is Black (or, in the case of Esteves, Afro-Latino)—is that the eventual Democratic nominee will be Black (especially since the state's most prominent white Democrat, Jason Carter, has already taken a pass). This is good news for the Democrats, as Sen. Jon Ossoff (D) is up next year, and his first election depended substantially on there being a Black candidate at the top of the ballot (in that case, Raphael Warnock) who got Black voters out to the polls. That same dynamic will be in effect, it would appear, in 2026.
  
  
• Illinois: Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) announced over the weekend that he will run for a third term. This could mean one of two things: (1) He is not going to run for president in 2028, or (2) He thinks it is better to run for president as an incumbent, rather than as "former governor J.B. Pritzker." So, which is it? Well, at the press conference where he announced his reelection plans, Pritzker refused to commit to serving a full third term, and he refused to comment at all on his 2028 presidential plans. In other words, it's option #2.
  
  Illinois is a blue state, and Pritzker is popular and can raise unlimited funds for his reelection campaign by just getting out his checkbook (his net worth is around $3.5 billion). And the Republicans don't have too many options. So, even if Pritzker is trying to use Illinois as a springboard to bigger things, and even if most Illinois voters know it (or, at least, suspect it), he's going to be reelected. He won his last two elections by 13 points (2022) and 18 points (2018).
  
  
• Iowa: We regularly get messages from Iowa readers who warn us this one could be a real barnburner. Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) is not terribly popular, which may be why she chose not to run for a third term. Meanwhile, the Republican primary has so far drawn three candidates of roughly equal stature, and they are already taking jabs at one another. Rep. Randy Feenstra probably has the highest profile, by a smidge, but remember that representatives tend to be known in their districts, and not elsewhere. Former state Rep. Brad Sherman is a prominent pastor and an outspoken social conservative. State Rep. Eddie Andrews, who got in early in June, will be the latest Midwesterner to test the theory that Republican + Black = Electoral magic. In addition to this trio, Iowa AG Breanna Bird is more likely to jump in than not. If she does, she'll be the only Republican candidate to have actually won statewide.
  
  On the Democratic side, Iowa Auditor of State Rob Sand is the heavy favorite. Reader E.R. in Des Moines, IA writes in to say: "[Sand] likely has a 50/50 chance to win this election. He's the most popular official in the state and will be facing a Republican nominee coming off a bruising primary that may split the Party." There are three other Democrats running; the only one who might catch on is Julie Stauch, who declared a few weeks ago, and who ran Pete Buttigieg's Iowa campaign in 2020. That's the one that Mayor Pete might have won; we're still waiting for the Iowa Democratic Party to figure it out.
  
  For what it is worth, Cook Political Report has the Iowa governor's race as "Lean R," Sabato's Crystal Ball has it as "Likely R," Inside Elections has it as "Battleground" and Race to the WH has it as "Tossup." So, the future is a little hazy.
  
  
• Kansas: It is not impossible for Democrats to win gubernatorial elections in Kansas, as the current governor (Laura Kelly) is a member of the blue team, and so are three of the six governors immediately preceding her. The problem is that Kansas has gotten redder in the past decade. The other problem is that a major reason that Kelly first won, in 2018, was that she was facing the wildly unpopular Kris Kobach (R).
  
  None of the six Republicans who has entered the GOP primary so far is anywhere near as radioactive as Kobach, and so Kansas Democrats have not exactly been champing at the bit for a chance to replace Kelly, who is term-limited. A couple of weeks ago, one of them finally took the plunge; it's state Sen. Cindy Holscher. Holscher has served in both chambers of the Kansas legislature, and she won her last election by 20 points, so she's a serious player. Her platform is going to be protecting social security, Medicare and Medicaid. In other words "run against the big, beautiful budget, and stay as far away from culture wars issues as is possible."
  
  
• Michigan: Michigan is a purple state and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) is term-limited. So, it's a slugfest on both sides of the primaries, with four Democrats and six Republicans having already declared. At least three people on each side are serious candidates, and not just cannon fodder.
  
  The Democrats just got some (potentially) unhappy news, however: Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is running... as an independent. It's the standard bit—"the two-party system is broken, and I want to fix it from outside"—and Duggan has already gotten some endorsements (mostly from labor) and raised some money. Up until June, he was a Democrat, and a lot of his issues are Democratic issues (e.g., he is pro-choice). So, if he stays in, he is probably going to take some votes from the Democratic nominee.
  
  That said, Duggan has been quoting (and re-tweeting) Elon Musk a fair bit, so maybe it's Republican votes that he grabs. He's also got a lingering corruption scandal that has not been fully resolved. And, of course, there's the general dynamic that more people SAY they are going to vote independent than actually do. Add it all up, and he's a wildcard who probably—but not definitely—works to the detriment of the Democrats.

That's enough for now. We'll do the N-Z states tomorrow, and then move on to news about candidates for federal office after that. Oh, and as always, we welcome comments and tips about state and local races at comments@electoral-vote.com. We can't be 100% on top of developments in every place, all by ourselves. (Z)