Here are my sometimes arbitrary and always meaningless and premature picks for the 2009-2010 governor’s races. I’m seeing 7 Republican pickups, 6 Democratic pickups, and 1 Independent pickup of a Republican seat in RI. That would leave the governor distribution at 27D-22R-1I. I’m expecting substantial economic recovery, but still a fairly anti-incumbent mood.
PARTY SWITCHES
1. WY-OPEN – Simpson (R) over Generic D by 36 – I can’t imagine Freudenthal suing for a third term, but why doesn’t he just say so already? Otherwise, there is officially no hope.
2. KS-OPEN – Brownback (R) over Generic D by 33 – No significant D has stepped up. We will be asking, “What’s the matter with Kansas” more than ever with Brownback in charge.
3. RI-OPEN – Chafee (I) over Lynch (D) by 10 and Trillo (R) by 28 – Chafee’s partyless brand will play well in an anti-incumbent year.
4. HI-OPEN – Abercrombie (D) over Aiona (R) by 14 – Kos poll looks solid for Dems.
5. CA-OPEN – Brown (D) over Whitman (R) by 12 – Whitman will not be able to pick up enough D’s to make it all that competitive against Brown.
6. OK-OPEN – Fallin (R) over Edmondson (D) by 10 – Tough times for D’s in OK. PPP poll looks good for Fallin.
7. TN-OPEN – Wamp (R) over McWherter (D) by 9 – No polling, but D hold seems unlikely here given overall trends in the South. No top-notch D candidate has emerged.
8. VT-OPEN – Racine (D) over Dubie (R) by 9 – Third party candidate likely holds the margin down for Dubie, but D should win.
9. VA-OPEN – McDonnell (R) over Deeds (D) by 8 – Video of Deeds dodging tax question is going around. Pretty ugly stuff.
10. MN-OPEN – Rybak (D) over Haas (R) by 6 – Hope and expect that R.T. gets in. Seems like the strongest candidate in the running.
11. MI-OPEN – Cox (R) over Cherry (D) by 4 – Economically strapped Michigan gives strong Republican candidate a chance in the Statehouse.
12. FL-OPEN – Sink (D) over McCollum (R) by 3 – Sink a good candidate for Florida. Can win some of the panhandle/North Florida votes as well as traditional D areas.
13. CO-Ritter – McInnis (R) over Ritter (D) by 3 – Ritter pretty unpopular. Colorado still conservative enough to elect McInnis statewide.
14. AZ-Brewer* – Goddard (D) over Martin (R) by 2 – Goddard a very strong, well-known D in Arizona. Unpopular Brewer bows out or loses primary to State Treasurer Dean Martin. Hope PPP polls here next week. They were talking about it.
HOLDS
15. NJ-Corzine – Corzine (D) over Christie (R) by 1 – Christie numbers continue to go down, Daggett goes up. Just enough for Corzine win. See Franken v. Coleman.
16. PA-OPEN – Onorato (D) over Corbett (R) by 2 – Dogfight. Hopefully Onorato can find strong runningmate from Philly.
17. MA-Patrick – Patrick (D) over Cahill (I) by 3 and Baker (R) by 18 – R has no chance here. Battle is between Patrick and Cahill. Hopefully, economy will improve enough for Patrick to hold on. Plus Patrick has first rate operation with Plouffe.
18. SC-OPEN – McMaster (R) over Rex (D) by 5 – PPP polled this one 36-36. Rex a strong candidate. Republican lean carries McMaster to victory. SC demographics slowly trending blue.
19. GA-OPEN – Oxendine (R) over Barnes (D) by 5 -Barnes a very strong candidate. Again, Republican lean carries Oxendine.
20. WI-OPEN – Barrett (D) over Walker (R) by 7 – Superhero Barrett wins tough one through personal popularity in Milwaukee, which is also Walker’s base, and slight D lean of the state.
21. ME-OPEN – Mitchell (D) over Otten (R) by 8 – Wide open primaries on both sides. Otten’s money carries him to nomination. Senate President Mitchell is best candidate for D’s.
22. AL-OPEN – Byrne (R) over Davis (D) by 9 – Davis has a respectable showing, but comes up well short. It’s still Alabama.
23. IA-Culver – Culver (D) over Vander Plaats (R) by 10 – Branstad chickens out or loses primary to winger Vander Plaats. That’s the tougher part of the equation for Branstad given IA’s conservative Republican base. Culver holds on easily over the winger.
24. IL-Quinn – Quinn (D) over Brady (R) by 11 – Second tier Republican field here. Should not be much of a problem for Quinn.
25. OH-Strickland – Strickland (D) over Kasich (R) by 12 – Kasich is too conservative for Ohio. Strickland has done about as well as he can in this strapped state.
26. SD-OPEN – Knudson (R) over Heidepriem (D) by 13 – Decent D challenger, but it won’t be a D year and the state leans R.
27. MD-O’Malley – O’Malley (D) over Hogan (R) by 18 – Ehrlich will not run. Maryland has only gotten bluer, although O’Malley is not the most popular guy in the world.
28. NV-Gibbons* – Sandoval (R) over Reid (D) by 18 – What a wasted opportunity with Rory Reid. DGA apparently expecting no primary. For shame. Somebody save us from the double Reid!
29. OR-OPEN – Kitzhaber (D) over Atkinson (R) by 19 – Nobody beats Kitzhaber here. Great news that he is running.
30. NM-OPEN – Denish (D) over Martinez (R) by 20 – Denish polling strong against higher tier candidates – Pearce and Wilson – who aren’t running. Should beat Martinez.
31. AK-Parnell – Parnell (R) over Berkowitz (D) by 21 – Don’t know why so many top Dems trying for this one, but there are only so many places to move up in Alaska. Parnell popularity at 67-8 according to recent Hays poll.
32. CT-Rell – Rell (R) over Bysiewicz (D) by 24 – Decent challenger but Rell still too popular.
33. TX-Perry* – Hutchison (R) over Schieffer (D) by 26 – KBH narrowly beats Perry and crunches Schieffer by more than what Perry would have.
34. UT-Herbert – Herbert (R) over Generic D by 28 – No prominent D has stepped up. Overwhelming R lean of the state prevails.
35. ID-Otter – Otter (R) over Generic D by 31 – No significant D has stepped up. Otter probably not vulnerable if one did.
36. NH-Lynch – Lynch (D) over Generic R by 34 – Lynch cruises again.
37. NY-Paterson* – Cuomo (D) over Lazio (R) by 35 – Lazio humiliated out of politics. What the hell is Paterson doing, by the way?
38. AR-Beebe – Beebe (D) over Generic R by 37 – Beebe very, very popular in reddening state.
39. NE-Heineman – Heineman over Generic D by 41 – Smooth sailing for Heineman.
I don't see Oxendine winning. He's the weakest GOP candidate by far with ethical issues a plenty and extreme right wing views (contrast that with a rather bland Perdue tenure partisanship wise) and I don't think voters are buying it especially with someone as politically savvy and experienced as Barnes running against him. For evidence check out this poll released before a ton of ethical issues concering Oxendine showing Barnes (who wasn't even a candidate at the time) within two points and Barnes winning over Karen Handel by 6.
Kelliher is a Democrat – she’s the current speaker of the House. I do agree that Rybak has the strongest shot to win the nomination and be the first Democratic Governor elected in Minnesota since 1986.
For California, I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that Whitman will win the nomination. Tom Campbell has been polling very well with her despite being outraised. If she can’t put him away now when she has all of the momentum and name recognition, how will she fare when she will be forced to debate and be exposed to live press conferences? She’s treating the GOP primary like a coronation and has refused to be outside of controlled campaign settings, and the Republican electorate is starting to resent her sense of entitlement. If Campbell is in, he may have less money than Brown but his socially moderate stances and background as an academic will certainly peel away a lot of votes to make it a toss-up. Don’t count this one in just yet.
Funny, I haven’t thought about this much, but if Hutchison does win the GOP nod, I could handily see her garnering a solid 65-70% of the vote in the general. With Perry and an imminently-polarized general, I can’t imagine him scoring any more than 55%-ish.
Your reasoning for most of these races is good, and conjectures are reasonable. I thought about doing something similar, but I obviously fail at being so concise.
The one minor quibble I can think of is, as usual, with VT-Gov. We don’t yet know if Racine or Dubie will be the nominees. Dubie is well known for moving glacially on everything (including figuring out whether or not he actually wants to run), while Racine could easily get bumped aside by SoS Deb Markowitz in the primary – and, by my reading, probably will.
If Dubie runs, the race automatically becomes a tossup, at least temporarily. He’s too conservative for most of the state, but he’s also tremendously popular on a personal level, and people might not figure out how conservative he really is thanks to VT’s sucky media coverage of anything remotely political. Racine would probably be the stronger candidate against Dubie, being the only person who’s ever won an election against him (in 1998, when Racine was Lt. Gov). Markowitz would probably be stronger against anyone else the GOP can come up with. Both are excellent candidates by Dem standards, and have gone out of their way to try to avoid getting kneecapped by the Progs. In the end, I still think the Dems will win this one, but the margin might be a lot closer than it should be.
I live in Maryland and am interested enough in politics, well, to be here. I’ve got to admit that I had to Google McDonough to see who he is.
a lot of turnover next year in governor elections. Even with what I feel is a slightly pessimistic outlook in your predictions, we’re still only likely to lose one net seat.
either Michigan or Colorado. Otherwise, high agreement with your scenarios and estimations.
There are also state legislature majorities that will change in the background of the governor races. I think the Michigan state Senate will flip D and the New York state Senate will become real D. D’s winning the Virginia Assembly majority might prove substantially more important to Virginians’ quality of life than whether Deeds wins or not. Same story in Arizona with their state House, and likewise in Missouri.
We’ve seen solid Red control form in Florida, Georgia, and Texas. They’re looking at trifectas in Tennessee and Oklahoma next year. Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas are rather surrounded now and I’m not feeling real optimistic about the conservative D legislature majorities in at least the first three, a number of which are already compromised.
I agree totally with the Rory Reid situation. Where’s Ross Miller, the SoS, when you need him?
Is there any particular reason you think Corbett would lose to Onorato (or Wagner, the other Western PA candidate, for that matter)?
I agree that Strickland will survive, as Kasich will not have much appeal in the areas he needs to either win (SE Ohio) or be competitive (NE OH). However, I think the margin will be closer to 7-10 points. Ted’s 60-37 blowout in ’06 was an overperformance due to the Coingate scandal and Blackwell being a horrible candidate.
Dean Martin in the State Treasurer. The SOS is Ken Bennett (who’s also rumored to be interested). Either way I generally agree with your sentiments on this race. Brewer’s probably DOA in the primary because she’s not conservative enough for the Jack Harper/Pamela Gorman crowd shudders. However, even with all the Repub chicanery with the budget over the past several months it’ll probably be fairly close and Goddard should be at least slightly favored.