Within the Margin

After a day off, we’re back for the final quarter of our state-by-state look at the nation’s 36 elections for governor this year. This one will be on the shorter side, owing to the safe status of several of these contests.

I’ve been taking these gubernatorials in alphabetical order, nine per article. For Alabama through Georgia, plus the chart showing the rating for each gubernatorial election, click here. For Hawaii through Michigan, click here. And for Minnesota through Oregon, click here.

Pennsylvania: After Josh Shapiro annihilated far-right state senator Doug Mastriano in 2022 to win the governorship in a landslide, the assumption was that Republicans would utilize their bench of elected officials with less-extreme personas, plus track records of winning statewide, to give Shapiro a bit more of a race this time around. They got their candidate in Treasurer Stacy Garrity…and Shapiro is defeating her by a considerably wider margin than Mastriano, if polling is to be believed. There will be time later to talk about Shapiro’s pivot away from embracing data centers and how it came later than we might have liked: but it still came faster than Garrity’s, and she’s been scrambling to catch up. Shapiro also gets good reviews from voters on responding to emergencies like the I-95 bridge collapse, where he (and President Biden) moved quickly to get the highway reopened in 12 days. His profile is suiting this swing state just fine, and Republicans don’t have a U.S. Senate race here to redirect voters attention to the usual national talking points, either. Likely Dem on September 1st) > Safe Dem (hold)

Rhode Island: Responding effectively to a bridge collapse early in his term helped Pennsylvania’s governor establish his bona fides a competent executive in a large swing state. At the other end of the spectrum, Rhode Island’s Dan McKee saw his tenure defined by a bridge that closed early in his first full term – also 2023 – and has stayed partially closed for years, causing major disruptions. I cannot assess whether he did the right thing for public safety. But the resulting impacts on Providence-area traffic helped sink McKee’s approval ratings in this otherwise safely blue little state. Former CVS executive Helena Foulkes launched a rematch of their very close 2022 primary fight, and this time she won comfortably, 62.5% to 37.5%. That’s usually the end of the story in heavily Democratic Rhode Island, though this general election does offer a little spark of interest insofar as it’s a three-way contest. Republicans nominated Aaron Guckian, a local sewer official in Warwick, but independent Ken Block appears to be the actual threat to Foulkes. Block founded something called the Moderate Party in 2007 and ran as its candidate for governor in 2010 and finished 4th in that general election, with 6.5%; Lincoln Chafee, a Republican-turned-independent candidate, was elected that year. Block tried again in 2014, this time as a Republican, but narrowly lost the primary. Now he’s back as an independent, and is running second in the (scarce) polling available. Unlike some small, safe states, a decent pollster is in the mix here in the form of Emerson. They’ve got him ten points behind Foulkes, with the GOP vote collapsing all the way to 12%. Given the tendency of non-major-party candidates to struggle to exceed or even match their polling, my guess is the race ends up a double-digit win for Foulkes. But I’ll be watching over this final week for signs that a path to an upset is emerging. Safe Dem (hold)

South Carolina: The Senate battle between Darline Graham and Annie Andrews is garnering most of the attention in the Palmetto State. If polling is to be believed, current attorney general Alan Wilson (the Republican nominee) is leading more comfortably against state rep Jermaine Johnson…but not as comfortably as we might expect in a red state that Trump carried by 18 points in 2024. Wilson has certainly had to stay busy this year: the GOP primary to succeed term-limited incumbent Henry McMaster drew a large field of prominent players. Wilson finished second, behind Trump-endorsed lieutenant governor Pamela Evette, and the two advanced to a runoff several weeks weeks later. Trump added Wilson as a co-endorsee, and that seemed to do the trick: Wilson crushed her in the runoff. Johnson lacks financial resources or statewide name rec, and a Dem has not won the governorship here since 1998. Yet Wilson has not put this race away. It’s a theme across the South this year: the GOP finds itself in a lot of danger in quite a few Southern states that really see competitive statewide elections. Maybe polls are wrong across the South and what we’re seeing is merely a mirage, but one dismisses the NYT/Siena operation at their own peril. As such, this race has moved one notch in Johnson’s direction. Safe Rep (on September 1st) > Likely Rep (hold)

South Dakota: An even longer Republican streak for governor can be found in South Dakota, where the last Dem to win was Richard Kneip in 1974. Billie Sutton did come quite close in the last blue wave year of 2018, when he very nearly beat Kristi Noem (the final margin was 51%-47.6%). Sutton brought a more dramatic story to this campaign than this year’s Democratic nominee, former state senator Dan Ahlers. What might make this race competitive is if incumbent Republican Larry Rhoden, who took over as governor when Kristi Noem departed to begin a disastrous and short-lived tenure as Secretary of Homeland Security, could be held to account in some way for the various taxpayer expenditures that funded Noem’s elaborate national politicking efforts during her time as governor (here’s a ProPublica article detailing how Noem’s questionable dealings that enriched her close associates, both as governor and as DHS secretary.) I’m not sure there’s anything that jeopardizes Rhoden, though – and it would take a lot in a state where Trump took 63% just two years ago. Safe Rep (hold)

Tennessee: The Volunteer State elected a moderate Democrat as governor in 2002 and 2006 but has not come close to doing so since. Term-limited incumbent Bill Lee will almost certainly be followed into office by current U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn, a deeply conservative figure but one without a particular weakness in a state that is, well, deeply conservative these days. She won a somewhat competitive primary against Congressman John Rose and state rep Monty Fritts, and now faces off with Memphis city councilor Jerri Green. The Democratic nominee seems to be energetic and might benefit from several more competitive-than-expected Congressional races downballot, but it’s a lot to ask. There are signs of tightening polls but not from any firms we can trust. Safe Rep (hold)

Texas: Austin state representative Gina Hinojosa has combined a liberal background with libertarian themes attacking data centers and Flock cameras, while emphasizing her deep family roots in the Rio Grande Valley. For much of the campaign, she was under-funded and perhaps not visible enough to convince people she could defeat the mighty three-term incumbent, Greg Abbott. But I’ve been convinced for months that Hinojosa has what it takes, and others have been steadily coming board. She has also rightly moved into ActBlue’s top five fundraisers as she begins to garner the resources needed to finish strong in a massive state with 20 media markets, which makes it exceedingly expensive to air ads. The well-funded Abbott has scrambled to convince people that he was taking control of the state’s massive data center buildout and setting new stricter standards for approvals, but his new criteria haven’t slowed things much. And regardless, his staff and appointees were working hard less than a year ago expedite data center access to the state’s already-troubled electric grid. There have been fascinating articles all year from Texas-based publications describing how rural Texas voters are abandoning longstanding GOP loyalties to vote against Abbott on account of data centers, and Hinojosa has done well to give them easy reasons to revert to partisan norms. My head thinks that Abbott’s going to just barely pull this out, but my gut says Hinojosa’s going to be one of several Dems – along with James Talarico in the U.S. Senate race, plus one or two state offices – to win statewide in the Lone Star State this year. Today, my head makes the rating. We’ll see if my heart wins out later in the week. Tilt Rep (hold)

Vermont: One of the nation’s iconic blue states is also the one that for a decade now has had one of the state’s most popular governors…and he’s a Republican. Phil Scott first won the governorship in 2016 and has been re-elected to four more two-year terms since. In 2024, he pivoted to a more confrontational approach to the state legislature (dominated by Democrats and Progressives¹) and campaigned to break the Democratic supermajorities. He succeeded, as Republicans added 19 seats in the state House of Representatives and six in the state Senate. That campaign was focused on the incredibly expensive cost of living in Vermont and the lack of affordable housing. Scott and the newly-moderated legislature got along better and made some headway on his priorities – including a new approach to funding school districts that includes provisions for possible consolidations of smaller districts. It’s likely that the promise of forthcoming relief from school taxes will keep Scott in office, but he seems to have expended political capital in the process and backers of Vermont’s smaller school districts are rallying behind Amanda Janoo. She’s the most serious contender Dems have run for governor here in several cycles, and polling shows her with a chance – which is more than one would have expected after Scott cleared 73% in 2024. Public polling here is scarce, but what has been released was close enough to warrant two moves since I initially put together my ratings at the end of August. Safe Rep (on September 1st) > Lean Rep (hold)

Wisconsin: With Democratic governor Tony Evers opting not to seek a third term, his party embarked on a bizarre and not terribly salubrious primary to succeed him. Along the way, a series of candidates dropped out (and in one case, jumped back in). First, Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation CEO Missy Hughes bailed in late June and endorsed Lieutenant Governor Sara Rodriguez, seen as the moderate choice. In early July, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, too, dropped out and endorsed Rodriguez. And then…Rodriguez withdrew from the race because of major inaccuracies in her campaign finance disclosures. A day later, Crowley got back in – at Evers’ urging. As primary day neared, former LG Mandela Barnes withdrew from the race – ostensibly because socialist state rep Francesca Hong was cruising to victory, but also amid rumors of sexual harassment allegations to come. Polling showed Hong far ahead of Crowley, but while the polling was almost spot-on when it came to her vote share, Crowley was able to consolidate enough of the remaining vote from various departed candidates and narrowly beat her out. Hong was probably not ready for prime time and it’s not clear that the general electorate in Wisconsin – two years after voting for Trump – was looking for a socialist governor anyway. On the GOP side, three-term Congressman Tom Tiffany won the nomination with ease and is arguably as conservative as Hong is progressive. The race with Hong would have been close, but he’s having a tougher time with Crowley, who shows small but consistent leads. Neither of these candidates ranks among their party’s strongest this cycle, but Crowley probably has enough skill to come out ahead: it’s a purple state but a blue year. Lean Dem (hold)

Wyoming: Donald Trump’s best state (71.6%) is the scene of interesting battles between the (very conservative) Wyoming Republican Party and their (even more conservative) Freedom Caucus faction, with the Freedomites gaining quite a bit of ground in 2024’s GOP primaries for state legislature and giving nearly all of it back two years later. Outgoing governor Mark Gordon is term-limited but probably doesn’t mind, after years of battling the Freedom crew. Gordon will be succeeded by state senator Eric Barlow. He defeated the state’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, Megan Degenfelder, by a 45%-30% margin in the primary despite Trump endorsing Degenfelder and bestowing the deeply-clever moniker “MAGA Megan” upon her. The Democratic nominee is Kenneth Casner, who also ran in 2002 (finishing 4th in the primary, behind the state’s last Democratic governor, Dave Freudenthal) and 2018 (finishing 3rd in the primary, or 4th if you count people who left their ballot blank). Casner eschews fundraising or any normal campaign activities. It’s possible, though not particularly likely, that he manages to get 30% of the vote. Safe Rep (hold)

1. The Vermont Progressive Party is a separate party in Vermont. It’s the state’s third-largest party, and currently has one member in the Vermont Senate and three more in the Vermont House of Representatives. ↩︎