Many Mansions: a big year for governors' races

[brooklynite]

From Governing’s
February 2006 issue

Republicans currently hold 28 of the nation’s 50 governorships, but Democrats do not expect that majority to last. Oddly, Republicans agree.

The consensus that 2006 will be a Democratic year at the state level, one shared by Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, the head of the Republican Governors Association, has more to due with the playing field than the national political climate. Republicans are defending 22 of the 36 governorships at stake, including 8 of the 9 with no incumbent running. Unless Republican candidates can knock off a few of the handful of vulnerable Democratic incumbents, most of them in the Midwest, GOP gubernatorial ranks may be thinned considerably. “The best-case scenario for Republicans is to get through election night at 25-25,” says Nathan Gonzales, political editor of the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report.

Of course, nobody can be sure just what the mood of the electorate will be in November, or, for that matter, whether that mood will have much impact on gubernatorial campaigns. Elections for governor do not always follow the national trend, especially in non-presidential years. The Republican tide of 1994 lifted GOP candidates into governors’ mansions across the country, but 1986 was a different story: Democrats suffered substantial losses in governorships, while making big gains in Congress. Still, it’s likely that a few of the close contests will turn at least in part on the extent to which voters are fatigued with President Bush. “It so happens that this is the sixth year of the presidential cycle,” says political scientist Larry J. Sabato, of the University of Virginia. “There’s a clear desire for change in certain parts of the country.”

http://governing.com/articles/2gov.htm