We start this year's US Midterm coverage by looking at the Gubernatorial races. Voters will elect Governors in 36 states and three territories (plus the mayorship of Washington, DC). Although the 2020 redistricting is complete* and the opportunity for governors to influence the electoral map is theoretically behind us, given the recent challenges to US democratic institutions it is important to note the power that the governors may have on future elections. Perhaps the most blatant example is evident in the reports that the Wisconsin Republican nominee Tim Michels has promised that "Republicans will never lose another election in Wisconsin after I'm elected governor." This could be achieved through approval of voter-suppressing legislation, stacking the Judiciary with judges likely to overturn any Democratic victory, use of executive power to refuse to certify electoral results or (as Michels has reportedly promised) the abolition of Wisconsin's electoral commission.
Because these races do not always reduce to neat Republican-Democrat contests, the lack of federal influence in territorial races, and the not-unrelated lack of polling, we will focus here on the state races only.
With that in mind, let's look at what seven existing media outlets are already predicting in these races.
*Ignoring legal challenges in Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina and Texas.
What seven existing media outlets are already predicting in these races
| STATE | INCUMBENT | MEDIA PREDICTION |
| Alabama | Republican | Republican |
| Alaska | Republican | Republican |
| Arizona | Republican | Mixed |
| Arkansas | Republican | Republican |
| California | Democrat | Democrat |
| Colorado | Democrat | Democrat |
| Connecticut | Democrat | Democrat |
| Florida | Republican | Republican |
| Georgia | Republican | Republican |
| Hawaii | Democrat | Democrat |
| Idaho | Republican | Republican |
| Illinois | Democrat | Democrat |
| Iowa | Republican | Republican |
| Kansas | Democrat | Mixed |
| Maine | Democrat | Mixed |
| Maryland | Republican | Democrat |
| Massachusetts | Republican | Democrat |
| Michigan | Democrat | Mixed |
| Minnesota | Democrat | Mixed |
| Nebraska | Republican | Republican |
| Nevada | Democrat | Mixed |
| New Hampshire | Republican | Republican |
| New Mexico | Democrat | Mixed |
| New York | Democrat | Mixed |
| Ohio | Republican | Republican |
| Oklahoma | Republican | Mixed |
| Oregon | Democrat | Mixed |
| Pennsylvania | Democrat | Democrat |
| Rhode Island | Democrat | Democrat |
| South Carolina | Republican | Republican |
| South Dakota | Republican | Republican |
| Tennessee | Republican | Republican |
| Texas | Republican | Republican |
| Vermont | Republican | Republican |
| Wisconsin | Democrat | Mixed |
| Wyoming | Republican | Republican |
[Source]
In the interest of leaving time to address both the senate and house races, I'm not inclined to perform any further review of the states in which there is already consensus. So instead, let's turn to the eleven remaining states.
Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New York
Every poll on fivethirtyeight.com for these races, which was not funded by Republicans, shows either a Democrat win or a tossup except one October poll in Michigan (Republican, 48:47) and one in New York (Republican, 45:46). The mathematically-corrected updated polling average on FiveThirtyEight also shows the Democrats ahead at all points since the first polls—significantly so in Minnesota and New York. Additionally, all of the media outlets considered above predicted a Democrat win with varying levels of confidence except, ironically, RealClearPolitics, which marked them as tossups. There is no suggestion that Republicans will win these, so we can mark these as Democrat states.
| Democrat |
New Mexico
New Mexico is in the same basket as the above—consistent raw- and corrected-polling predictions of a (narrow) Democrat win, and broad media agreement of this fact, except that Fox News has joined RCP in calling this state a tossup. So again, we will colour this state blue.
| Democrat |
Kansas
As with the above states, the corrected values for Kansas are consistent in predicting a Dem win, though not even 538 were willing to call this likely. We're a little bolder here, and while the early polling did favour the GOP, this has not been the case since early September. So let's mark this down as Democrat.
| Democrat |
Oklahoma
Okay; OK is somewhat the reverse of the previous states. While the polling is mixed, most recent polls predict a Republican win, and those favouring the Dems tend to be narrower. Although there is a considerable recent narrowing, the corrected values from FiveThirtyEight do not have the Dems ahead at any point and everyone but RealClearPolitics is painting this one red, as should we.
| Republican |
Arizona, Nevada
Arizona and Nevada also seem likely to be Republican, but for the opposite reason; while the corrected polling is mixed, the raw data shows a consistent lean to Republicans (with one very narrow 48:47 exception on November 2 in AZ). Unfortunately, unlike Oklahoma or any of the earlier states discussed, no media outlet seems willing to touch these two will ten-foot poles, so this blog will be sticking its neck out a little further in predicting these for the GOP.
| Republican |
Oregon
Oregon is a weird one. Unusually for a first-past-the-post race, this started as a three-horse race between a Republican, a Democrat and an Independent who was a former Democratic senator. The last of these, Betsy Johnson, has fallen consistently in the polling, giving support to both major parties but most consistently to the Republicans. This suggests that the voters leaving Ms Johnson are more interested in voting against Democrats than aligned with her presumably progressive positions. While the numbers are narrow if this decline continues it would likely favour the GOP. Although FiveThirtyEight has the Dems ahead at present, my gut is telling me this will be a Republican win.
| Republican |
Wisconsin
And that leaves us with Wisconsin, whose Republican candidate I mentioned at the top of this article. This race is the closest among FiveThirtyEight's graphs. There has been some swinging in the polling with Dems consistently polling ahead until a batch of three polls (one GOP-funded, but two apparently independent) in mid-to-late September. The Dems recovered, but in the eight independent polls (and one Republican poll) from mid-October, they've only measured ahead once. All of these were within two percentage points, which would usually be within the margin of error. Still, the consistency across these polls, and the corrected values giving a similar slight GOP lead, means when forced to pick, I'm leaning GOP here.
| Republican |
Conclusion
That leaves us with 21 Republicans and 15 Democrats predicted to win, taking the national totals in the US to 29 Republican and 21 Democratic gubernators.
| STATE | INCUMBENT | PREDICTION |
| Alabama | Republican | Republican |
| Alaska | Republican | Republican |
| Arizona | Republican | Republican |
| Arkansas | Republican | Republican |
| California | Democrat | Democrat |
| Colorado | Democrat | Democrat |
| Connecticut | Democrat | Democrat |
| Florida | Republican | Republican |
| Georgia | Republican | Republican |
| Hawaii | Democrat | Democrat |
| Idaho | Republican | Republican |
| Illinois | Democrat | Democrat |
| Iowa | Republican | Republican |
| Kansas | Democrat | Democrat |
| Maine | Democrat | Democrat |
| Maryland | Republican | Democrat |
| Massachusetts | Republican | Democrat |
| Michigan | Democrat | Democrat |
| Minnesota | Democrat | Democrat |
| Nebraska | Republican | Republican |
| Nevada | Democrat | Republican |
| New Hampshire | Republican | Republican |
| New Mexico | Democrat | Democrat |
| New York | Democrat | Democrat |
| Ohio | Republican | Republican |
| Oklahoma | Republican | Republican |
| Oregon | Democrat | Republican |
| Pennsylvania | Democrat | Democrat |
| Rhode Island | Democrat | Democrat |
| South Carolina | Republican | Republican |
| South Dakota | Republican | Republican |
| Tennessee | Republican | Republican |
| Texas | Republican | Republican |
| Vermont | Republican | Republican |
| Wisconsin | Democrat | Republican |
| Wyoming | Republican | Republican |
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