Voters Set to Pick New Governors in 11 States

WASHINGTON — While the presidential race is, understandably, sucking up much of the oxygen this political season, voters in 11 states are also poised to choose new governors who will chart the course of their respective states over the next four years.

The tightest of these races is in New Hampshire, where former Republican state Rep. Kelly Ayotte is seeking to make a political comeback in a race pitting her against former Manchester, New Hampshire, Mayor Joyce Craig.

Ayotte handily defeated her primary opponent, State Senate President Chuck Morse by a roughly 2-to-1 margin. Craig had a tougher time in her primary, only narrowly defeating Cinde Warmington, the only Democratic member of New Hampshire’s executive council.

Although voters in the state have consistently voted for the Democrats in presidential contests since 2000, the Republicans have held fast to the governorship since 2016 when Chris Sununu was first elected.

It’s his retirement this year that has set the stage for the contest, which pundits believe will ultimately be the most expensive governor’s race in New Hampshire history.

As of their most recent campaign finance reports, filed last week, Ayotte had raised over $17.5 million in campaign contributions, while Craig has raised nearly $5.8 million.

Of that money, Ayotte had already spent $15.5 million, but still had nearly $2 million left for the final sprint.

Craig’s filing shows she’s spent about $5.2 million, and has just $500,000 left to get her to the finish line.

By comparison, in 2016, the last truly competitive governor’s race in New Hampshire, Chris Sununu had raised over $500,000 for the race to this point eight years ago, while his opponent, former Executive Councilor Colin Van Ostern, had raised about $1.75 million.

Sununu ultimately won that race by just 2 percentage points, and in an indication of how “flippy” the seat may be, President Joe Biden won the state by around 7 percentage points in 2020.

Ayotte, a former state attorney general and U.S. senator, has said she is running to keep New Hampshire “safe, prosperous, and free.” She has slammed Craig’s record on dealing with crime and homelessness when she was mayor.

Craig, meanwhile, is running on a platform of creating economic opportunity, promising to promote policies that support sustainable jobs, affordable housing, quality public education and reproductive health care. 

On the contentious issue of abortion, Ayotte has said she would stand by the 24-week ban signed into law by Sununu in 2022. 

“I support the current law, which like the majority of the states in this country addresses abortion during the last three months of pregnancy, and I would not change it,” she has repeatedly said when asked her position.

At the same time, she has said she would fund reproductive health care centers, though she’s drawn the line at renewing funding to Planned Parenthood, which she has described as “somewhat of a political organization.” 

Though the early momentum in the race seemed to favor Ayotte, Vice President Kamala Harris’s strength in the state — some polls have had her leading Donald Trump here by as much as 7 percentage points — appears to have strengthened Craig’s position.

North Carolina 

Another surprisingly interesting race this fall is occurring in North Carolina, where Democratic Att. Gen. Josh Stein is looking to succeed his political mentor, outgoing Gov. Roy Cooper, and keep the state’s executive office in Democratic hands.

Early on, Stein was expected to face a perhaps insurmountable challenge from Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson — in fact, Stein started targeting Robinson in his online ads months before the lieutenant governor even got into the race.

After Robinson did indeed get into the race, both he and Stein won their primaries by comfortable margins.

But then Robinson’s campaign effectively imploded after controversial comments he made on a porngraphic website more than a decade ago came to light.

In September, an investigation by CNN found that Robinson, a social conservative, repeatedly made gratuitously sexual and lewd comments on the “Nude Africa” website between 2008 and 2012.

The comments were made under the username “minisoldr,” an alias Robinson used frequently online.

Robinson listed his full name on his profile for Nude Africa, as well as an email address he used on numerous websites across the internet for decades, CNN said.

Most disturbing of all to the CNN investigators were posts in which Robinson referred to himself as a “black NAZI” who expressed support for reinstating slavery.

At the same time, despite his recent use of anti-transgender rhetoric, Robinson said he enjoyed watching transgender pornography online and referred to himself as a “perv.”

Robinson has denied making the comments, but the controversy has caused a number of Republicans — including GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump — to do all they can to distance themselves from him.

Until the controversy erupted, Robinson was considered to have a real chance of being elected North Carolina’s first Black governor. Since it hit, Stein, who served four terms in the state Senate before being elected attorney general in 2016, has consistently pulled ahead in the polls and currently maintains a clear, double-digit advantage.

Even bigger than the change of fortune has been the change in the tone of campaign ads from the Stein team. Early on, Stein mostly refrained from featuring some of Robinson’s more provocative statements on a wide range of issues in his advertising. In recent weeks, he highlighted almost nothing but; thwarting any and all attempts by Robisnon to soften his now tattered image.

The state is currently considered a toss-up on the presidential contest level, and Trump likely will desperately need North Carolina to have a shot at winning a second term in the White House. 

That could mean a massive infusion of GOP money into the state in the final week of the campaign that could benefit Robinson as well.

At present, a slim majority of the nation’s governorships, 27, are in Republican hands, while Democrats hold 23.

This year’s contests aren’t expected to change the gubernatorial map all that much — the midterms are historically the principal gubernatorial cycle, when much more is in play. 

Of the 11 gubernatorial races this year, eight of the seats are currently held by Republicans, but only three are running for reelection, meaning the remainder of the races are essentially up for grabs and potentially ripe for the Democrats to flip.

All of this adds up to North Carolina being the must-watch governor’s race on election night. As an added bonus is the possibility that Stein’s strong down-ballot performance could boost Democratic turnout and help Vice President Kamala Harris deny Trump a victory in this battleground state.

Indiana

Aside from the two races already mentioned, another unexpectedly competitive race is taking place in Indiana, where incumbent Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb is term-limited.

U.S. Sen. Mike Braun won a six-way Republican primary in the state with 40% of the vote.

He is now running against Democratic nominee Jennifer McCormick, who was unopposed in her primary.

McCormick, herself a former Republican, ran and was elected in 2016 to serve as the state’s superintendent of Public Instruction, ousting the incumbent Democrat.

She later switched her own registration to Democratic after becoming disenchanted with Trump, who was the president at that point in time.

It has been nearly a quarter century since Indiana elected a Democratic governor, but Braun’s campaign has been stymied by an unusual twist — instead of allowing him to pick a running mate, delegates at the state Republican convention following the primary tossed Braun’s handpicked running mate in favor of Pastor Micah Beckwith, a Christian Nationalist.

Beckwith is almost as well known a provocateur as North Carolina’s Mark Robisnon, who has claimed, among other things, that God told him that he sent the rioters to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

While Braun has had to repeatedly grapple with Beckwith going off script and off message, McCormick appeals to both Democrats and many Republicans precisely because she bolted the GOP due to her having had enough of Trump and all the controversy and chaos that surrounds him.

While Braun still leads, slightly in the polls, this one is considered a real “margin of error” race.

Washington State

Washington State hasn’t had a Republican governor since John Spellman went down to defeat in 1984, making this one a seat the GOP would love to pick up.

The opportunity was created after incumbent Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee decided not to seek a fourth term in office. At present, he’s the longest serving governor of either party in the country.

Seeking to succeed him are Democratic Att. Gen. Bob Ferguson and former Republican Rep. Dave Reichert, the first and second place finishers in the state’s all-party primary.

Reichert, a moderate Republican, had been considered to have a reasonable shot at winning the governorship, but the odds appeared to be turning against him in the latter weeks of the campaign.

Ferguson has surged ahead and recently held as much as a 11-point lead in the contest, mainly due to the issue of abortion.

Though he’s been towing a more progressive line during the race, Reichert, who served in Congress from 2005 to 2019, has not been able to overcome his vote backing a national ban on abortion after 20 weeks.

At the same time, polls show Harris with a lead over Trump in the state by as much as 21 percentage points, making it almost a certainty that next Tuesday night will be a good one for Democrats up and down the ballot in Washington state.

Montana

It’s when we turn our attention to races like the one in Montana that we get into more or less uncompetitive territory.

Here, Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte is seeking a second term against former firearms company executive Ryan Busse.

Busse, a Democrat, has become an outspoken critic of his former industry, and he’s assailed Gianforte over the issue of high property taxes.

Gianforte has responded by trying to paint Busse as “too liberal for Monatanans.”

While Gianforte is considered widely popular — he defeated state Rep. Tanner Smith by a 3-to-1 margin in the June Republican primary in Montana — his reelection bid could be impacted by the fact there is an abortion rights question being on the ballot this year.

In the meantime, Busse has been campaigning aggressively across the state, though attention in this contest has been somewhat muted compared to that accorded the U.S. Senate race between incumbent Democrat Jon Tester and Republican Tim Sheehy.

Missouri

Another race considered to be in the “safely Republican” column with abortion rights serving as something of a wild card is in Missouri where current Republican Gov. Mike Parson is term-limited.

As a result, Republican Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe is facing off against Democratic State House Minority Leader Crystal Quade.

Quade has closely tied her campaign to that of the abortion rights initiative, with one of her recent ads featuring a Republican voter saying they planned to vote for both Quade and the ballot measure.

Kehoe, on the other hand, is hoping moderates who feel inclined to support the ballot measure in this solidly red state will nevertheless come back to the party and vote for him for governor.

Utah

Republican Gov. Spencer Cox, a moderate, has secured Trump’s endorsement, but that hasn’t been enough to mollify hardcore right wingers in his party.

He was faced by one of them, state Rep. Phil Lyman, in a primary, soundly defeated him, but Lyman refused to concede the election and is now running as a write-in candidate.

Even with Lyman still in the running, however, Cox, a former chair of the bipartisan National Governors Association, seems destined to be reelected.

Recent polls show him with a double-digit lead on Democratic state Rep. Bryan King, with Lyman a distant third.

King has been making a play for supporters of former South Carolina Gov. and UN ambassador Nikki Haley, who garnered the support of 43% of Republicans casting a ballot in Utah’s Super Tuesday primary — but it doesn’t seem to be helping him gain ground.

In a sign that we’ve truly reached the silly season, King and Lyman recently appeared in an ad together, making fun of the “disagree better” initiative Cox has championed at the governor’s association and elsewhere.

During the spot, the two make it clear they disagree on a lot of things, including policies on the use of public lands, education and reproductive rights.

But there is one thing they do agree on.

“Spencer Cox should not be our next governor,” they said in unison in the ad. 

West Virginia

Republican Attorney General Patrick Morrisey is expected to easily win this race to succeed two-term Gov. Jim Justice, who is running for the Senate.

The Democratic candidate is Huntington, West Virginia Mayor Steve Williams who is considered a strong candidate, but one whose campaign is woefully underfunded and unable to chip away at Morrisey’s sizable lead in the polls.

Three other candidates: Erika Kolenich, of the Libertarian Party, Chase Linko-Looper, of the Mountain Party; and Marshall Wilson, of the Constitution Party, round out the race.

Delaware

With Democratic Gov. John Carney term-limited, many thought Lt. Gov. Bethany Hall-Long would be the candidate to beat after Delaware’s Sept. 10 primary.

However, a campaign finance scandal proved her undoing and New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer prevailed in the contest.

He is facing state House Minority Leader Mike Ramon, who easily defeated two lesser-known candidates for the Republican nomination.

Given Delaware’s deep blue history — it has not elected a Republican governor since 1988 — the odds are in Meyer’s favor.

North Dakota

The year a Democrat last won the governorship of North Dakota was 1988, and the party isn’t expected to win this year either.

The frontrunner in the race to succeed retiring Republican Gov. Doug Burgum is Rep. Kelly Armstrong, who soundly defeated Lt. Gov. Tammy Miller, 73%-27%, in the state’s June primary.

The Democrat in the race is State Sen. Merrill Piepkorn, who has long been celebrated in the state for his positive approach to politics and public service. 

A one time country musician — he co-founded a country band called Skunk Hollow — Piepkorn later went to work for Prairie Public Radio, and became the public address announcer for the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks, a minor league baseball team.

He has served in the North Dakota State Senate since 2016.

Piepkorn’s biggest challenge in the race isn’t Armstrong, rather it’s the sad state of the North Dakota Democratic Party, which has not managed to win a statewide election since 2012.

Michael Coachman, an Air Force veteran, is running as an independent.

Vermont

Once Gov. Phil Scott, a moderate Republican, announced his decision to seek a fifth two-year term, Democrats in the state could be forgiven for breaking into a chorus of Willie Nelson’s “turn out the lights, the party’s over.”

Scott is considered one of the nation’s most effective and popular governors. A Morning Consult poll last Spring showed 81% of respondents approved of Scott —10 percentage points ahead of Wyoming Republican Governor Mark Gordon, the second place finisher.

His Democratic opponent is Esther Charlestin, a former Middlebury selectboard member, who won the Democratic primary commandingly — garnering almost 72% of the vote — but nevertheless trails Scott badly heading into the last week of the campaign.

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and at https://twitter.com/DanMcCue