KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE

— In North Carolina’s hotly contested Senate race last year, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) narrowly won reelection against a scandal-plagued opponent, former state Sen. Cal Cunningham (D-NC).

— Had Cunningham’s candidacy not been weighed down by a personal affair, he may have still lost. Indeed, a Tillis win was consistent with other results around the country and in the state.

— Still, Cunningham certainly didn’t benefit from his scandal, and it very likely cost him votes.

Democrats fumble away a winnable race… or did they?

It is one of the great what-ifs of the 2020 election cycle: absent a late-breaking scandal, would Democrats have won North Carolina’s Senate race? Even though Democrats won the Senate anyway, thanks to twin victories in Georgia’s early January Senate runoffs, the question merits exploration. For one thing, every Senate seat is vital to both sides in an evenly-divided chamber. And at a time when elections seem more nationalized than ever, it may be that the foibles of candidates matter less.

During the 2020 cycle, North Carolina’s Senate contest was seen as a must-win for Senate Democrats. In this light red state, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) looked vulnerable. He was never particularly popular, and six years earlier, he was initially elected in what was an overwhelmingly favorable year for Republicans. Though he was the incumbent in 2020, the thinking seemed to be that he’d have a close race in a more neutral, or even pro-Democratic, environment.

Leading up to the March 2020 primary, national Democrats took the race seriously: the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee endorsed former state Sen. Cal Cunningham (D-NC). With service in the U.S. Army Reserve and roots in the red-leaning Piedmont area, Cunningham had a single term in the legislature on his resume, but he conveniently lacked a lengthy record of votes for Republicans to attack.

Cunningham won the Democratic primary by a clear 57%-35% over state Sen. Erica Smith, though some of the returns suggested that he had work to do for the fall campaign. Specifically, he was relatively weak in areas that had high minority populations — during (and after) the primary, Smith complained that, as a Black woman, she was passed over by the DSCC. But similarly, on the Republican side, Tillis was not beloved by the Trump base, either. The result was a race that the Crystal Ball saw as a Toss-up for much of the 2020 calendar year.

In what was already one of the nation’s most closely watched races, the events of early October rolled in at a breakneck speed. Immediately before the contest’s final debate, on October 1, the Cunningham campaign announced that it had raised over $28 million during the third quarter, shattering the state’s records. The next day, a Friday after both candidates largely stuck to the script in the previous night’s debate, Tillis announced that he tested positive for COVD-19 — this prompted concerns that he had exposed Cunningham, and others, at the in-person debate. But perhaps nothing would define the final stretch of the race more than a report that came out that weekend which suggested Cunningham had an affair months earlier.

As a candidate who put his image as a veteran and family man at the center of his campaign, the news undercut Cunningham’s credibility. Comparisons to former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC), another state politician who made national news for the wrong reasons, were quickly drawn.

Still, Cunningham continued to lead in polls — there were even some signs that he gained ground with certain demographics as the story developed. Though he occasionally ventured out to make in-person campaign stops, the scandal nonetheless put his campaign on the defensive until Election Day. While the state party didn’t abandon their Senate nominee, other local Democrats tried to keep their distance. As it encouraged voters to support its “whole slate,” the state party released a video in mid-October that featured cameos from many of its statewide candidates — but Cunningham was absent.

On Election Night, as Trump narrowly held North Carolina by just over one percentage point, Tillis kept his seat by a slightly better 49%-47% spread — the same result he won with in 2014. To political observers, Cunningham’s narrow loss, especially when contrasted with his standing in the polls (in the final RealClearPolitics average, he was leading by nearly three points), begged the question: would the result have been different without the scandal?

Tillis’ upset win made sense in the bigger picture

Despite the narrative of Cunningham’s damaged candidacy, the most straightforward answer seems to be that Tillis’ win, though an upset by many measures, simply “fit” with the other results that year.

As the Crystal Ball has emphasized several times since last year’s election, senatorial races are increasingly falling along presidential lines. Between the 2016 and 2020 election cycles only one state, Maine, voted for a presidential nominee of one party and elected a senator of the other party. In the case of Maine, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who has a well-established history in the state and an independent brand, should be viewed as very much an exception. So Biden losing North Carolina put Cunningham in a tough spot regardless.

The Iowa Senate race was another contest where, despite seeming to have the upper hand at some points in the campaign, Democrats ultimately fell short. As Biden lost Iowa by 8.2%, the Democratic nominee, Theresa Greenfield, came up 6.6% short against Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA). If Cunningham had run that same 1.6% ahead of Biden, he would have defeated Tillis by a few tenths of a percentage point.

But Iowa, with its almost monolithically white population, lacks North Carolina’s rigid racial polarization. In part because of this, Crystal Ball guest columnist Lakshya Jain has noted that North Carolina is a highly inelastic state that is home to few persuadable voters.

Still, there are some similarities between the two contests. Let’s consider Map 1, which shows the difference between Trump and Tillis in North Carolina:

Map 1: Trump vs Tillis, 2020

Generally, Tillis, in red, outperformed Trump in the state’s urban centers. This difference was especially acute in southern Mecklenburg County and western Wake County — these are essentially the financially better-off, and more transient, communities near Charlotte and Raleigh, respectively. By contrast, Tillis lagged Trump in the rural pockets of the state. The dynamic was identical in Iowa: though Ernst performed worse than Trump in 89 of the state’s 99 counties, the ones where she beat his showing house many of the state’s major cities and universities.

Speaking to Iowa’s greater elasticity, while Ernst ran more than 10% behind Trump in six of Iowa’s counties, Trump and Tillis were within single digits of each other in all of North Carolina’s counties.

In southern states where Democratic senatorial candidates did run ahead of Biden, the margins were not decisive, and the contests themselves were not among the nation’s most competitive. In Virginia, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) polled two percentage points better than Biden in the Old Dominion to win 56%-44%. Democratic candidates in Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina outran the top of the ticket, but did not get nearly enough crossover support to overcome Trump’s double-digit margins in their states.

Georgia, though it narrowly voted for Biden, may be the southern state most comparable to North Carolina. Similar in size, the two are roughly comparable in terms of demographics: each has a sizable Black population (though North Carolina’s is smaller), many loyally Republican rural white voters, and a bloc of college-educated white suburbanites, who are becoming increasingly important in close elections. Though he eventually won in a January runoff, now-Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), as a challenger, finished two percentage points behind Biden in the November election, and then-Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) did better than Trump in some of the highly-educated suburban areas around Atlanta — similar to the dynamic in North Carolina. So we may have seen Tillis do better than Trump in the suburbs even without the Cunningham scandal.

Just within the context of North Carolina’s electoral picture, Tillis’ win also seemed to make sense. Aside from its federal offices, North Carolina elects 10 statewide officers, known collectively as the Council of State. Table 1 shows the results of these races in 2020.

Table 1: 2020 federal and Council of State races in North Carolina

In 2020, no sitting statewide Republicans were defeated. Along those lines, every statewide Democrat who won was an incumbent seeking reelection — and their incumbency wasn’t really enough to guarantee robust margins.

In the case of Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC), his final 4.5% margin was considerably smaller than what polling suggested. Voters reelected Secretary of State Elaine Marshall to a seventh term, but her 2.3% margin was the closest of her career. Attorney General Josh Stein, a likely contender for governor himself in 2024, had razor-close races in both 2016 and 2020. Finally, though Republicans didn’t seriously challenge state Auditor Beth Wood, she still came within two points of losing to a candidate who faced criminal charges.

So a Cunningham win would have really stood out as a pro-Democratic outlier compared to the other statewide results, given that Trump carried the state, no Republican incumbent statewide officeholders lost, and some Democratic statewide incumbents had very close calls without the kinds of problems that Cunningham had.

Third parties, the undervote, and voting methods

Structurally, one factor that separated the Senate contest from other statewide races was its relatively high third-party vote, though most of the Council of State races only had two-party competition. Excluding write-in votes, third party candidates took 4.4% in the Senate race, compared to only about 1.5% in the presidential contest (excluding write-in votes).

Of the state’s 100 counties, Cunningham ran furthest behind Biden in Charlotte’s Mecklenburg County. Map 2 looks deeper at just Mecklenburg County. The first image shows the Senate margin, the second shows how Tillis’ margin compared to Trump’s, and the last shows the third-party vote. Countywide, its third-party share, 4.5%, about matched the statewide number.

Map 2: Mecklenburg County in 2020

The third-party share was lower in the county’s northern and southern extremes — these are the wealthier, and whiter, parts of Charlotte (earlier in his career, Tillis represented the northern edge of the county in the legislature). If Biden voters were protesting Cunningham’s candidacy, surely this is the area that would see a high third-party vote. Instead, it seems likelier that these voters supported Biden, but preferred Tillis as a “check” on a seemingly imminent Democratic presidential administration — this was a dynamic that helped down-ballot Republicans in 2016 and likely again in 2020 (particularly in a number of House races in similar kinds of places). Given that phenomenon, some Biden/Tillis voters may not have been winnable for Cunningham, scandal or not.

In Mecklenburg County, the third-party vote tended to be higher in precincts that Cunningham carried easily, suggesting he may have lost votes there. But as we’ll see in a later map, some deeply GOP precincts in the state’s western Piedmont also tended to vote third-party at higher rates — likely at the expense of Tillis. This suggests that there was a certain partisan symmetry with third-party voters, and that the Biden/Tillis voters in places like south Charlotte were key to Tillis’ overperformance.

There was also not a particularly large undervote in the suburbs (voters skipping the race on the ballot). This was notable because voters could have also protested by leaving the Senate ballot blank. In fact, the undervote was consistently the highest in Robeson County, specifically in the precincts home to the Lumbee Indian tribe. The area shifted red in 2016 and, somewhat surprisingly, even more so in 2020. As Trump promised the tribe federal recognition if he were reelected, it’s possible that many voters there supported him but left other races blank — so could Tillis, not Cunningham, have been the one shortchanged by the dynamic there?

Still, it does seem that Cunningham’s scandal hurt his chances with some voters. Map 3 shows the statewide third-party share. In the days after Cunningham’s affair came to light, the Army Reserve announced that it was investigating him for potentially violating military rules concerning adultery. The state’s two most prominent military facilities — Fayetteville’s Fort Bragg and Camp Lejeune, in the Jacksonville area — stand out as pockets where third parties did well. Both areas also had relatively high undervote rates. It’s easy to see Cunningham’s conduct turning away veterans and military personnel who would otherwise find his biography attractive.

Map 3: 2020 Third-party vote in North Carolina

Finally, Table 2 looks at the difference between the presidential and Senate race by voting method. Roughly 65% of the state’s vote was cast early in-person, while the balance was split about evenly between the mail-in and Election Day vote.

Table 2: 2020 vote in North Carolina by method

Perhaps counterintuitively, the only group that Cunningham outpaced Biden with was those who voted on Election Day. Theoretically, these are the voters who would’ve had the most time to hear about the scandal. But Cunningham’s relatively good showing with this group may have had more to do with Tillis’ weakness.

During the campaign season, Trump encouraged his supporters to vote on Election Day. Considering Tillis polled 3.4% lower than Trump with those voters, it’s easy to see some of the former president’s hardcore supporters voting third-party over Tillis, who at times throughout his first term butted heads with Trump. As there was no Green Party candidate (Libertarian and Constitution Party candidates were on the Senate ballot), if there were no third parties in the race at all, Tillis may have been able to do even better, as some of those right-leaning voters may have held their noses for him.

Cunningham’s performance with voters who submitted ballots by mail was especially weak, as his 67% share was more than three percentage points lower than Biden’s. But these voters tend to be disproportionately found in the state’s more affluent precincts — in other words, it’s likely that a high number of these voters would have normally favored Biden and Tillis, anyway. And, as Democrats assured themselves as Cunningham’s scandal was breaking in early October, a fair chunk of this vote had already been cast before the revelations of Cunningham’s affair became widespread (the state began sending out ballots in the mail a month earlier).

Conclusion

As much as we’d like to treat elections like a science experiment — something that can be replicated but tweaked with different variables — they don’t actually work that way. So it’s hard to know with certainty what might have happened had Cunningham’s affair not become public. There is also some indication that it may have hurt Cunningham on the margins, at least in military-heavy areas and quite possibly elsewhere.

That said, we think there are some good reasons to think Cunningham would have lost anyway. Using Occam’s Razor, his biggest problem was that Biden simply didn’t carry the state. Tillis also did better than Trump in the suburbs, something we saw from several other Senate and House Republican candidates across the country in 2020. And Cunningham doing a little bit better than Biden in the Election Day vote — these are the voters who would’ve had the most time to digest the scandal — also suggests that the scandal may not have been decisive.

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE

— Though new congressional lines are typically put into effect for election years ending in “-2”, four states adopted new maps at later points during this last decade.

— In North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, Republican-friendly maps were thrown out mid-decade in favor of plans that were more amenable to Democrats.

— If those pro-Republican maps were still in place, there’s a good chance that House Republicans would be in the majority now.

Democrats’ slim majority

After his first few choices made it through the Senate in January, President Joe Biden continues to have success in getting his Cabinet nominees confirmed. This week, now-former Rep. Deb Haaland (D, NM-1) made history when she took office on Tuesday as Secretary of the Interior — she became the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary. Last week, now-former Rep. Marcia Fudge (D, OH-11) began her tenure leading the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

As the Biden Cabinet has taken shape, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA-12) has steadily seen the ranks of her caucus dwindle. Aside from Haaland and Fudge, former Rep. Cedric Richmond (D, LA-2) relinquished his seat in January to take a post in the administration. These seats will simply remain vacant until they’re filled in special elections — and we expect Democrats to ultimately retain all three. Still, many Democratic partisans have watched pensively as their numbers in the House have gone down. With five vacancies total (there are two on the GOP side), Democrats have a 219-211 advantage in the chamber, down from the 235-199 edge they won in November 2018.

These vacancies give Pelosi less room for error, at least in the short term, but could her control of the House be even more tenuous? Of course!

When Democrats came out of the 2020 election with just a 222-213 advantage, some observers claimed that Pelosi’s majority was due to several states that saw mid-decade redistrictings. Specifically, beginning with the 2016 election cycle, North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, and Pennsylvania discarded maps that were favorable to Republicans and replaced them with plans that were more generous to Democrats. For this article, we’ve gone through each of those four states to weigh the impact that mid-decade redistricting may have had on the fight for House control.

The bottom line: If no maps changed throughout the decade, Republicans would likely now hold a narrow majority.

North Carolina

North Carolina is the state that’s seen the most redistricting-related turmoil over this past decade: since 2012, it’s had three congressional maps and each chamber of its legislature has been redrawn, to some degree or another, multiple times. Going into the 2020 cycle, North Carolina adopted a fresh congressional map that was expected to give Republicans eight of the state’s 13 seats and Democrats control of five. As none of the districts were intended to be especially competitive, that 8-5 split was borne out in last year’s results. For Democrats, this was an upgrade from the 10-3 deficit that they faced before the remap. But what would happen if there was no mid-decade redistricting there?

First, let’s consider some of the state’s recent political history.

After the 2010 census, North Carolina was called the Republicans’ “golden goose” of redistricting. Though House Republicans netted 63 seats nationally in President Obama’s first midterm, the Democrats in the state’s delegation made out mostly okay. Democrats narrowly lost one seat in the state, but they still kept seven of the delegation’s 13 seats — this was thanks to a mixture of strong incumbents and favorable district lines (Democrats were in charge of the 2001 round of redistricting). Unfortunately for Democrats, their legislative candidates saw less success, as Republicans gained both houses of the state legislature for the first time since Reconstruction.

North Carolina is unique in that the legislature is tasked with redistricting but the governor has no role in the process. As a result, while the newly-empowered GOP legislators drew districts that insulated their party, then-Gov. Bev Perdue’s (D-NC) veto pen was useless.

For their congressional plan, the Republican legislators in North Carolina drew the top image in Map 1. Even as then-candidate Barack Obama won the state by about 14,000 votes in 2008, he would have only carried three of the 13 districts. Essentially, Blacks and urban liberals were packed into three districts that each gave Obama over 70% of the vote, while John McCain earned about 55% of the vote in each of the remaining 10 seats.

Map 1: North Carolina 2012 congressional map

The Republican-engineered map was successful — in 2012, the GOP netted three congressional seats to claim a majority of the state’s delegation. Rep. Mike McIntyre (D, NC-7), then one of the most conservative Blue Dogs in the House, was the only Democrat who was targeted but survived that year. When he retired in 2014, his NC-7 was an easy GOP flip. So in a state that’s often split roughly 50/50 in statewide elections, Republicans controlled 10 of 13 congressional seats. But would the delegation’s balance have stayed that way for the rest of the decade under that map?

The bottom image in Map 1 shows the 2020 presidential vote in the state broken down by the districts that were enacted for 2012. Almost immediately, one contrast is apparent: even as Biden performed slightly worse than Obama did 12 years earlier, and lost the state, he would have carried two additional districts. In the Charlotte area, Biden carried the old NC-9, which takes in many of the city’s whiter and economically better-off suburbs, by a 52%-47% margin. Democrats made a serious play at that seat in 2012 but fell 6% short, as the Charlotte suburbs were more loyal to the GOP.

Moving east, there was a similar dynamic in the fast-growing Raleigh area. While it reached out into a handful of rural counties, over 60% of the old NC-13’s votes came from Raleigh’s Wake County. At the time, the Wake County portion of NC-13 favored McCain 50%-48% — combine that with its holdings in the more rural counties, and the result was a Republican-leaning district. But in 2020, Biden would have carried the Wake County portion of the district 55%-43%, which was enough to override the other counties. Overall, Biden would have carried the old NC-13 by 1.5%.

Despite Biden’s success in these two suburban districts, they may not have automatically sent Democrats to the House. In the Senate race last year, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) would have carried the same 10 districts that McCain did in 2008. Tillis won both the old NC-9 and the old NC-13 by about 1% each. Perhaps those voters found Tillis’ opponent, former state Sen. Cal Cunningham (D-NC), too unpalatable. Both areas have also been Republican-leaning until very recently — down the ballot, a certain bloc of Biden voters probably retained some of their GOP proclivities.

On the other hand, the old NC-9 and NC-13 may have preferred congressional Democrats under the right circumstances. If the 2012 map was in place for the 2018 elections, either district could have flipped that cycle, before subsequently reelecting their incumbents in 2020. Aside from now-former Rep. Donna Shalala (D, FL-27), there were no Democratic incumbents who lost in Biden districts outside of California — and in Shalala’s case, she seemed an especially weak incumbent.

The old NC-13 is, altogether, very comparable to the current VA-7, which is based in metro Richmond and takes in a sampling of more rural counties. Both would have narrowly backed Biden last year, and a relatively centrist Democrat in the mold of Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D, VA-7) may have been a good fit for the area.

If either the old NC-9 or NC-13 were open or Republican-held in 2020, though, it seems more likely that they would have stayed red. Democrats didn’t defeat any incumbent House Republicans in 2020. Outside of North Carolina — where they were essentially handed two new seats — the only open seat that Democrats gained last year was GA-7, with now-Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux (D, GA-7). While that district voted similarly to the old NC-9, going 52%-46% for Biden, let’s not make the exception the rule.

Not long after it was introduced, Democrats challenged North Carolina’s 2012 congressional map in court. As a result of litigation, Republican legislators were ordered to draw new maps before the 2016 election. Ironically, the 2016 map would have been even more solid for Republicans. After the incumbent Democrats that they originally targeted in 2012 were out of office, GOP mappers had a freer hand. While they drew more compact districts, the overall result was the same: only three seats leaned Democratic. This new map was enacted for 2016 and remained in place for 2018.

As Map 2 shows, Biden would have only carried the three deep blue districts on the 2016 map. The current map, that was adopted for 2020 and has five Biden-won seats, is below it for comparison.

Map 2: Biden vs. Trump on the 2016 and 2020 North Carolina maps

In 2018, Democrats made serious attempts at districts 2, 9, and 13 but fell short in each — in the case of NC-9, the contest went to a rare re-do election in 2019. If that 2016 map were in place for 2020, Trump would have carried all three of those districts by at least four points, making it exceedingly unlikely that any would have elected Democrats.

There is a lot of uncertainty here. What districts would have featured incumbents in 2020? How much would ticket-splitting impact the result? For the sake of keeping a running tally, let’s assume that the 2012 map was never overturned and that Republicans ended up holding one of the two Biden-won suburban seats — that seems like a reasonable “compromise” outcome.

North Carolina bottom line with no mid-decade redistricting: Republicans +1

Florida

In late 2015, the Florida state Supreme Court approved a map that had support from several Democratic-leaning groups — it replaced a map that was drawn by the state’s Republican legislature. According to numbers by state political guru Matthew Isbell, while Biden carried 12 of the state’s current 27 seats last year on the current map, he would have only won nine districts on the previous version (Map 3).

Map 3: Florida districts before and after 2015

One of the biggest winners out of Florida’s 2015 redistricting was now-Rep. Val Demings (D, FL-10). In 2012, after her time leading the Orlando Police Department, she ran for the previous version of her district and lost by 3.5% to Republican Rep. Dan Webster, who now holds FL-11. When a new, safely Democratic seat was created in Orlando for 2016, she was elected to Congress.

The current FL-13 is entirely contained within Florida’s swingy Pinellas County, but before 2016, many of its Black-majority precincts were in the neighboring FL-14. Almost as soon as the lines were redrawn, Democrats got one of their best candidates, former Gov. Charlie Crist (D-FL). Crist was elected governor in 2006 as a Republican, lost a 2010 Senate race as an independent, and then came up slightly short in the state’s 2014 gubernatorial election as a Democrat. Despite three different affiliations, and an electoral scorecard that was mixed at best, he carried Pinellas County in each of those statewide runs.

In 2016, Crist beat then-Rep. David Jolly, an anti-Trump Republican, 52%-48%, which about matched Hillary Clinton’s showing in the district. As the incumbent, Crist ran 2% ahead of Biden in 2020, winning 53%-47% compared to Biden’s 51%-47%. But Trump would have carried the old FL-13 by just over 4% in 2020 — that difference could have been too much for Crist to overcome. Perhaps Jolly, who has since left the GOP, would have retired or lost a primary to a more conservative Republican, giving Democrats a better chance to win the seat. But considering Trump himself won the old FL-13 by a clear margin, Republicans would still be favored to hold it.

In the Miami area, Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R, FL-27) would be more secure under the old map, as her FL-27 would have supported Trump over Biden. Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D, FL-7) would have gotten a somewhat tougher district. If Murphy hadn’t won the old version of FL-7, which voted narrowly for Trump in 2016, it’s easy to see her winning in 2018, then holding the district in 2020 as it flipped to Biden.

One of the members who was most hurt by the 2016 redistricting was then-Rep. Gwen Graham (D, FL-2). A Blue Dog whose father was a popular governor and senator, her 2014 win was one of only a few bright spots for House Democrats that year. On Map 3, Graham represented the light red district in the panhandle on the left image. That Tallahassee-based seat took in a handful of red-leaning rural counties around the state capital, though the area is historically Democratic (her father always did particularly well there). The old FL-2 favored Mitt Romney by 6% in 2012, so it was not overwhelmingly Republican. But for redistricting, Graham’s seat was essentially split in two: many minority voters were put into FL-5, which stretched to Jacksonville, while the new FL-2 was safely GOP. Graham retired in 2016 and then ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2018.

In 2020, Graham’s old district would have given Trump a nearly 54%-45% margin. For context, currently, Rep. Jared Golden (D, ME-2) is the Democrat who holds the reddest seat — his ME-2 was 52%-45% Trump last year. So if Graham managed to hold on in 2016 and still ran for governor, Democrats would’ve needed to recruit another exceptionally strong candidate to replace her. Rep. Al Lawson (D, FL-5), a Black Democrat who represents part of Graham’s old district, has seen his once-robust rural support drop through the years, suggesting that any Democrat would have struggled to hold the old FL-2.

Something to keep in mind for the current round of redistricting in Florida is that, after some retirements over the past few years, the state Supreme Court is now a more conservative court. If Republicans, who control the redistricting process, draw themselves a favorable map (which should be the expected outcome), the court will likely be less sympathetic to future Democratic challenges, even though voters approved a state constitutional amendment in 2010 that aimed to curtail gerrymandering.

For the purposes of looking backward, Florida seems pretty straightforward — without her deep blue Orlando seat, Demings would be out of office while Crist may not have even run for Congress. Let’s also assume that Democrats can’t pull the rabbit out of the hat twice in FL-2: either Graham is defeated for reelection or the Republicans recapture the district when she vacates it to run for governor in 2018.

Florida bottom line: Republicans +2

Virginia

For this exercise, the Center for Politics’ home of Virginia is actually one of the harder states to handicap. During the last round of redistricting, a Republican governor and a divided legislature agreed on a map that aimed to lock in the 8-3 advantage that Republicans had in the congressional delegation after the 2010 elections. For 2016, though, a federal court ordered a partial redraw of the state’s map, citing the racial composition of some districts in the Tidewater area. Five of the state’s 11 districts were redrawn — Democrats picked up one seat immediately that cycle, VA-4, and the redistricting loosened the GOP’s hold on another seat that would flip later, VA-7.

Unfortunately, Virginia’s current election reporting system doesn’t allocate early votes by precinct. In years before 2020, when only a fraction of the state’s votes were cast before Election Day, this wasn’t very problematic for election data junkies. Last year, though, a majority of the state’s vote was cast ahead of Election Day, and the precinct-level data that we have reflects the Republican-leaning electorate that showed up to vote in-person on November 3rd. While this makes going back and breaking the presidential election down by the previous districts challenging, we still have some clues from past elections as to how the state’s 2012 map would have held up in more recent years.

In Virginia, the two districts currently in Democratic hands that would be at risk of electing Republicans under the old map are VA-4 and VA-7.

While VA-2, which is based in the Hampton Roads area, is a purple district and was impacted by the 2016 redraw, it would’ve been slightly more Democratic under the old lines. According to Dave’s Redistricting App, the old VA-2 was essentially tied in 2016, as Trump carried it by fewer than 100 votes out of the 325,000 it cast. Trump won the current version by a clearer 48%-45% spread. So Rep. Elaine Luria (D, VA-2), who won two competitive races in 2018 and 2020, would have likely won by larger margins under the old map.

In any case, Map 4 breaks down the 2016 presidential results in the Virginia districts that were impacted by the remap.

Map 4: Clinton vs. Trump in Virginia’s districts affected by 2016 redistricting

In 2014, Virginia’s 7th District was the site of one of Congress’ greatest upsets. In a June primary, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R, VA-7) lost to Dave Brat, a college professor. Brat easily won the district in the general election and, even after Hanover County, a Republican bastion north of Richmond, was excised from the district for 2016, Democrats didn’t truly target him. But in 2018, Brat lost to now-Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D, VA-7).

Hillary Clinton lost the current version of VA-7 by 6.5% in 2016. Two years later, Spanberger performed 8.4% better than Clinton to win 50%-48%. The pre-2016 version of VA-7, which included Hanover County, went to Trump by 9.4%. Theoretically, if Spanberger outperformed Clinton by the same 8.4% in the old district, she would have come up about 1% short against Brat.

The 4th District in Virginia is something of a question mark. It was redrawn in 2016 to have a higher minority population — VA-4 is now over 40% Black, up from the previous version’s 32%. Now-Rep. Don McEachin (D, VA-4) won by double-digits that year, as the national GOP wrote off the seat. The pre-2016 version of VA-4 was Republican-leaning, but it may not have been immune to the blue wave of 2018. According to Dave’s Redistricting App, Trump would have carried the old VA-4 by a 50%-45% vote in 2016 — several districts that were redder went on to flip blue two years later. With this in mind, perhaps then-Rep. Randy Forbes (R, VA-4), assuming he secured reelection in his Trump-won district in 2016, would have emerged as a more attractive target to Democrats in 2018 than Brat.

In this alternate scenario without mid-decade redistricting, Brat survives 2018 in a Trumpier district and, like all GOP incumbents that stood for reelection in 2020, was reelected. But Democrats make VA-4 a priority in 2018 and flip it then.

Virginia bottom line: Republicans +1

Pennsylvania

In February 2018, the Pennsylvania state Supreme Court threw out the GOP-drawn congressional map that the state had been using since the 2012 election. At the time, Nate Cohn, writing for The New York Times, claimed that no single event of that cycle would do more to shape the battle for the House. Cohn was correct that the Keystone State’s new congressional map was important — Democrats went on to net four seats out of the state. But considering how the old map would have voted last year, the 2018 remap may have been even more critical to the 2020 cycle.

Map 5 shows how the 2020 presidential and state Attorney General races would have broken down under the pre-2018 districts. As Biden carried the state by just over a percentage point, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D-PA) won by 4.5% — for this, we can consider Shapiro’s performance to be something of a Democratic ceiling.

Map 5: 2012 Pennsylvania districts in 2020

On the current Pennsylvania map, Daily Kos Elections found that Biden and Trump split the state’s 18 districts evenly, carrying nine each. On Map 5, as Biden carried the state narrowly, he would have only claimed seven seats.

If Pennsylvania’s 2012 map was still in place, the Democrat who’d be in the clearest danger would be Rep. Conor Lamb (D, PA-17). In March 2018, before the new map was implemented, Lamb won a high-profile special election in PA-18, a red district in the southwestern corner of the state. For the 2018 general election, Lamb’s PA-18 was carved up multiple ways. He ran in the new, and friendlier, PA-17 — he has been reelected twice in that Trump-to-Biden district.

If Lamb had to run in the district that he was originally elected to, he would have almost certainly lost — the old PA-18 voted 57%-42% for Trump last year. To be fair to Lamb, probably no Democrat could have held the old PA-18: even Shapiro came up about 5% short there.

On the other side of the state, the 15th District was based in the swingy Lehigh Valley since the 1950s. For 2012, it was carefully altered by Republican mappers: it was elongated to include much of Lebanon County, which often gives GOP candidates over 60% of the vote, and it ran further west to take in some of Harrisburg’s suburbs, notably Hershey. In something of a bittersweet irony for the GOP, the Republican who held this seat until it was struck down, now-former Rep. Charlie Dent (R, PA-15), endorsed Biden last year.

Dent resigned in mid-2018, and was replaced by Democrat Susan Wild — the Lehigh Valley seat was also renamed “PA-7.” In November 2018, Wild won an election for her current (and more Democratic) district, but also won a simultaneous special election in the old PA-15 to finish out the balance of Dent’s term. Against a Republican and a Libertarian, Wild won with a 48.5% plurality in the old district. If the former PA-15 were in place, Wild would have probably been a slight underdog — it voted 51%-48% for Trump, and Shapiro lost it 48%-47%.

Just north of the Lehigh Valley, Rep. Matt Cartwright (D, PA-8) would have likely had a closer race. Cartwright hails from Scranton and has retained uncommon blue-collar appeal through the years. Last year, he was one of House Democrats’ strongest overperformers, winning by 3.5% in a seat that Biden lost by 4.4%. Before the remap, he represented the old PA-17, which was actually drawn to be a Democratic district. Cartwright’s old PA-17 would have gone for Trump by six points — so if he overperformed Biden by the same amount, he would have been reelected more narrowly. Indeed, the old PA-17 was the sole Trump/Shapiro district on the map, suggesting that enough Trump voters there are receptive to the right type of Democrat.

In the suburban Collar Counties, around Philadelphia, Reps. Mary Gay Scanlon (D, PA-5) and Chrissy Houlahan (D, PA-6) would have had to run in more competitive districts, but they probably would have been reelected. Their old districts — PA-7 and PA-6, respectively — were both Romney-to-Clinton seats that each would have given Trump about 45% in 2020. Outside of California’s delegation, the only Republican who holds a district that Trump performed worse in is Rep. John Katko (R, NY-24), who is by now a veteran House member.

It’s possible that former Rep. Ryan Costello (R, PA-6) might have opted to run again in 2018 under the old map instead of retiring. He may have been able to hold on against Houlahan and, if he did, he likely would have won again in 2020 given how other Republican incumbents performed nationally. The Republican nominee in the 2018 Senate race, now-former Rep. Lou Barletta (R, PA-11), would have lost the old PA-6 by 14%, so Costello would’ve needed to run considerably better — not impossible, but the environment would have made it challenging.

In the old PA-7, former Rep. Pat Meehan (R) had problems beyond redistricting — he ended up resigning after a sexual harassment scandal. Scanlon, like Wild, ended up winning a special election for the old PA-7, by six points.

In Pennsylvania, let’s assume that the GOP takes back PA-15 and PA-18. Cartwright survives and Trump is too toxic in the suburbs for Republican candidates to beat Houlahan or Scanlon.

Pennsylvania bottom line: Republicans +2

Conclusion

Adding together our final tallies from each state, if there were no mid-decade redistrictings that took place since the 2012 cycle, we’d estimate that Republicans would have netted an additional six seats over four states. This boost would have turned the 222-213 majority that Democrats ended the cycle with into a 219-216 Republican majority.

Of course, much of this is hypothetical and none of these elections would have happened in a vacuum. While Republicans ended up conceding two seats to Democrats in North Carolina in 2020, what if Democrats had to actually spend significantly to win those districts? How would that have impacted their resource allocation in other races across the country? Beyond that, it’s also possible that Republicans could have done even better in these states than the scenario we laid out above, perhaps holding the old PA-6 or VA-4, for instance.

In one of the Crystal Ball’s first articles of 2021, we wrote about what we called the Democrats’ “51% Trifecta”: Joe Biden took office after winning 51% of the national popular vote, and with his party controlling shaky majorities in either house of Congress. Democrats wouldn’t have taken the Senate majority without special elections in Arizona and Georgia, while in the House, their edge was very likely due to mid-decade redistrictings. If just a few court rulings had gone differently, Republicans could now be in control of the House — and Biden’s presidency may be off on another trajectory.

On one level, in the House, a majority is a majority, no matter how slim it is or how special the circumstances that led to it were. But for now, some additional House Democrats who would like to join the Biden administration seem to be waiting in frustration — the current congressional vacancies may have to be filled before their leadership is willing to entertain additional openings.

P.S. NM-1, OH-11, and Louisiana elections

As we suggested earlier in this piece, and in a recent article, we see Democrats as favorites to retain the seats that Haaland and Fudge have left open. Haaland’s NM-1 gave Biden a 60%-38% vote last year, making it the most Democratic seat in the state. Still, until we have a better idea of what the general election match-up will be, we’re starting it off as Likely Democratic. Stretching from Cleveland to Akron, Fudge’s Black-majority OH-11 gave Biden nearly 80% of the vote last year — this is an utterly safe seat for Democrats.

Aside from federal general elections in November, Louisiana typically votes on Saturdays. This weekend, the state will see jungle primaries in LA-2 and LA-5 — they are Safe Democratic and Safe Republican, respectively. While either would go to a runoff if no candidate clears 50% on Saturday’s balloting, it is a strong possibility that Republican Julia Letlow, the widow of the late Rep.-elect Luke Letlow, wins the 5th District seat outright.

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE

— 38 states will see gubernatorial races over the next two years; Democrats currently hold 18 of the seats that will be contested while the GOP holds 20.

— Maryland, where popular Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD) is term-limited, will be hard for Republicans to hold. With a Leans Democratic rating, the Crystal Ball expects a Democrat to flip the seat.

— We’re starting the cycle off with five Toss-ups: Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Not coincidentally, four of those gave President Biden very narrow margins last year.

— Democrats are clear favorites to retain governorships in three of the nation’s most populous states — California, Illinois, and New York — but they could be better-positioned in each.

— In the Senate, Sen. Roy Blunt’s (R-MO) retirement nudges that contest from Safe Republican to Likely Republican.

Sizing up 2022’s gubernatorial landscape

Midterm election cycles feature the lion’s share of the nation’s gubernatorial races, and there will be 38 gubernatorial elections over the next two years — New Jersey and Virginia in November, and the rest next year. We took a look at the 2021 races last week, and now we’ll dive into the 2022 races.

Just as in congressional elections, the president’s party often struggles in gubernatorial races. The president’s party has lost governorships in 16 of the 19 midterms since the end of World War II, and two of the three exceptions (1962 and 1998) were years where there was no net change. Only in 1986, Ronald Reagan’s second midterm, did the president’s party enjoy a gubernatorial net gain (eight seats) in the postwar era.

Overall, Republicans control 27 governorships and Democrats control 23. Of the 38 up this cycle, Republicans hold 20 and Democrats hold 18. The current party control of those governorships is shown in Map 1.

Map 1: Current party control of governorships being contested in 2021-2022

Our initial ratings for these races are shown in Map 2.

Map 2: Crystal Ball gubernatorial ratings

Compared to 2018, 2022 could be a cycle defined by greater stability in gubernatorial politics. Four years ago, only 20 races featured incumbents running for reelection. This time, only seven governors who were up in 2018 are term-limited, though others who are eligible to run again may decide not to. Still, this isn’t to say that there’s no potential for partisan turnover.

Maryland: A tough hold for the GOP without Hogan

We’ll start our initial sweep through the map with Maryland, which is the only state we see changing hands right off the bat. Now-outgoing Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD) was one of 2014’s upset winners. That year, Hogan made fiscal restraint a centerpiece of his campaign and had the good fortune of running against then-Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown (D-MD) — Brown was widely criticized for his handling of the state’s Obamacare exchange. In 2018, against an underfunded Democratic challenger, Hogan rode out a national Democratic tide to become Maryland’s first Republican governor since 1954 to secure reelection.

Though Hogan, who has emerged as one of the most prominent voices in the anti-Trump faction of the GOP, was able to find success, he’ll likely have a tougher time trying to dictate his successor. Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford (R-MD) may be an attractive candidate, but his office might as well have an “abandon all hope ye who enter here” sign above it — Maryland voters have never elevated an incumbent lieutenant governor to the state’s top job. With Democrats in charge of the state’s redistricting process, the lone Republican in Maryland’s congressional delegation, Rep. Andy Harris (R, MD-1), may very well get a blue district. This may push Harris to consider running statewide, though he’s much more conservative than Hogan.

Of the few announced Democratic candidates, state Comptroller Peter Franchot leads the field. First elected to public office in 1986, Franchot has carved out a niche as something of a moderate Democrat who will take on his own party. From an electoral perspective, this approach seems a hit with voters: in 2018, he was reelected 72%-28%, the best showing for a statewide Democrat since 1990. Aside from Franchot, there are no shortage of Democrats who could run in this blue state, and we think any competent Democrat would be favored over a generic Republican. Hence, our Leans Democratic rating.

The Toss-ups

Perhaps not surprisingly, four of the closest states in the 2020 presidential election feature Toss-up gubernatorial races in our initial 2022 ratings. Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin were all states that Donald Trump carried in 2016, but each gave President Joe Biden pluralities last year. Digging further into that quartet, there’s a nice symmetry: two will see open seat contests this cycle while two feature incumbents who can run again.

In Arizona, Gov. Doug Ducey (R-AZ) is term-limited. While some governors have seen their approval ratings soar as the COVID-19 pandemic has lingered on, this has not been the case for Ducey — as Arizona has been hit particularly hard, his image has suffered. So in Arizona, the GOP could benefit from running a fresh face. Aside from Ducey, who led the state Republican ticket in 2018, first-term state Treasurer Kimberly Yee was the best-performing Republican that year. But in a primary, Yee may have competition from state Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who is term-limited in his current job. Unlike the past few midterms, Democrats are entering the cycle with a statewide bench in Arizona — specifically, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs has been mentioned as a candidate, though other Democrats may run.

After two impressive performances in the Keystone State, Gov. Tom Wolf (D-PA) can’t run for a third term. In 2014, Wolf, who had no prior experience in elected office, parlayed his background as a business executive into a winning campaign against then-Gov. Tom Corbett (R-PA). If Wolf’s image as a political outsider was part of his appeal, many state Democrats seem intent on replacing him with a more experienced politician. In Pennsylvania politics, it’s been a poorly kept secret that state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who was just reelected last year, has his eye on the governorship.

While Pennsylvania elects its governor in midterm years, it elects a slate of three row offices — auditor, attorney general, and treasurer — in presidential years. Even as Trump carried the state in 2016, Democrats swept the three row offices. But, almost paradoxically, as Biden flipped Pennsylvania, the GOP picked up the auditor and treasurer posts. So aside from Wolf, Shapiro is now the only non-federal statewide Pennsylvania Democrat who’s been elected in their own right (Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, also a Democrat, was part of Wolf’s ticket in 2018 and is running for U.S. Senate). The Republican side is more open. Pennsylvania is unique this year in that it has open contests for both Senate and governor, so candidates may take some time to settle on which campaign seems more promising. Until Wolf’s 2014 victory, one rhythm was constant in state politics: beginning in 1954, Pennsylvania voters would put one party in control of the statehouse for two terms, then choose the other party for two terms. Could 2022 mark a return to form?

Wisconsin shouldn’t see an open seat contest in 2022, but, as usual, we expect the state to host a competitive race. In 2018, in their fourth attempt, Badger State Democrats finally defeated now-former Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI). But after taking office, Gov. Tony Evers (D-WI), a generally inoffensive Democrat who is expected to run again, has constantly battled with a hostile legislature. Though they’ve fought over several items, the COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated the fault lines between Evers and state Republicans. In the earlier months of the pandemic, legislative Republicans challenged a stay-at-home order that Evers issued — on a partisan vote, the GOP-friendly state Supreme Court sided against the governor. More recently, last month, Republicans, with their large majorities in the state legislature, repealed a mask mandate that Evers put into place.

Former Rep. Sean Duffy (R, WI-7), who held down a rural district in the northern part of the state for much of the last decade, is sometimes mentioned as a gubernatorial candidate. Last week, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), who’s been noncommittal on his 2022 plans, suggested that he’s leaning towards retirement. The Senate race, without Johnson, would likely attract some ambitious Republicans, but in this sharply divided state, we have to imagine Republicans will find a quality recruit. In 2020, Biden carried the state by outperforming Evers in the suburban counties around Milwaukee — known to political junkies as the “WOW” counties (Map 3). If Evers can’t match Biden in those suburbs, he will need to retain as much of his rural appeal as he can.

Map 3: Wisconsin, 2018 vs. 2020

Moving back to the Sun Belt, we don’t consider Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) to be an especially strong incumbent. In fact, for Kemp, what Trump giveth, Trump may also taketh away. During the 2018 primary, Kemp, then the Georgia secretary of state, was locked in a competitive race with then-Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle (R-GA). Though it wasn’t the only decisive factor, Kemp’s endorsement from Trump was certainly helpful. After finishing 13 percentage points behind Cagle in the May primary, Kemp won the runoff by a smashing 39% margin. In a contentious general election campaign against former state House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, a Black woman who got national attention for her historic run, Kemp ran to the right. On Election Day, Kemp won with 50.2%, and avoided a runoff — under Georgia law, if no candidate receives a majority in the general election, a runoff is required.

Once in office, and despite governing as a conservative, Kemp made several moves that drew Trump’s ire. After a Senate vacancy arose in late 2019, Kemp appointed businesswoman Kelly Loeffler, snubbing Trump’s choice, then-Rep. Doug Collins (R, GA-9). After the presidential election, Kemp signed off on Georgia’s official vote count, which showed that Biden carried the state by 11,779 votes. To Trump, who insisted, without any proof, that the election was rife with voter fraud, this amounted to a betrayal — the former president promised to campaign against Kemp. As of last month, Collins was considering challenging Kemp, though other pro-Trump candidates may emerge. On the Democratic side, it’s easy to see Abrams clearing the primary field — since her loss, she’s stayed active in Democratic politics. As the two senatorial runoffs from earlier this year show, Democrats can win Georgia in non-presidential scenarios.

As an aside, one of the key differences between our current map and our initial map for the 2018 cycle was the positioning of Georgia and Florida. Four years ago, we started Florida, the more traditional battleground state, off as a Toss-up, while Georgia was in the Likely Republican category — this year, those are switched. In a state where Democrats have struggled to get their act together for much of the last decade, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has posted positive approval ratings and seems to be well-positioned.

The final race that the Crystal Ball sees as a Toss-up isn’t a swing state at the presidential level, but like Wisconsin, it features a Democrat who could be in for a tough race. In 2018, now-Gov. Laura Kelly (D-KS) had the benefit of running against a polarizing Republican, former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. While Kobach, who was known for his hardline stances on immigration, was outright toxic in the suburban pockets of the state — after Clinton narrowly carried the Kansas City-area KS-3, Kelly did so by almost 20% — Kelly was also able to keep the GOP margins down in the rural parts of the state: In KS-1, a sprawling, rural district that often gives Republicans over 70% of the vote, Kobach took just 51%.

Two big-name Republicans have gotten into the race already: former Gov. Jeff Colyer and state Attorney General Derek Schmidt. A Colyer nomination may give Democrats reason to bring up his old boss, former Gov. Sam Brownback (R-KS), who left office a deeply unpopular figure. Colyer, formerly the state’s lieutenant governor, took over the top job after Brownback left office for a diplomatic post in 2018 but then narrowly lost to Kobach in the gubernatorial primary. Had Colyer won the primary, he might have beaten Kelly in 2018. As Kelly won in 2018, Schmidt was elected to a third term as Attorney General 59%-41%, suggesting he may lack the baggage of some other Republicans.

Gov. John Bel Edwards’ (D-LA) reelection may offer somewhat of a template for Kelly. Edwards was first elected in 2015 — in a red state, he was running against a well-known but flawed Republican to replace another Republican who had low approvals. Edwards was reelected in 2019 over a less problematic opponent, but it was an all-hands-on-deck effort by state Democrats.

New England: Still defying political gravity?

On the gubernatorial map, no single region defies its presidential partisanship more than New England. Though Biden carried all six states in the region fairly comfortably, we don’t put any New England states in the Safe Democratic category.

In terms of personality and style, Maine may feature one of the biggest contrasts of any race. In 2018, then-state Attorney General Janet Mills won the open gubernatorial race to replace Republican Paul LePage. As governor, Mills has kept a low-key profile while LePage was known for his bombastic attitude. Since leaving office, LePage has worked as a bartender and even spent some time living in Florida. But back in Maine now, LePage seems intent on challenging Mills. We’d start LePage off as an underdog — if he follows through with his plans — but he did beat expectations last time he was on the ballot, in 2014. In fact, his strength in northern Maine’s 2nd District presaged Trump’s showing in the area two years later.

Moving one state west, we’re starting New Hampshire off as Leans Republican; until Gov. Chris Sununu’s (R-NH) plans are more solid, this will be something of a hedge rating. Sununu, who is broadly popular in the state, is under pressure from national Republicans to run for Senate against Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) — Hassan also preceded him as governor. While Sununu isn’t term-limited, Granite State governors must face voters every two years. If he takes the plunge against Hassan, an open gubernatorial contest may look more like Toss-up. If Sununu runs for a fourth term as governor, we’d probably upgrade the GOP’s chances here.

In next-door Vermont, the only other state that requires its governors to run biennially, Gov. Phil Scott (R-VT) hasn’t announced his 2022 plans, but he is immensely popular. As one of the most moderate Republican officials in the country, he was reelected last year with nearly 70%, as Biden took about the same share up the ballot. Recently, Scott was tested in hypothetical polling against veteran Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) and was actually slightly ahead. Serving as governor and handling the day-to-day affairs of a state is one thing but going off to the Senate to vote with the national party is something else entirely. So we’re skeptical that, when push comes to shove, Scott, or any Republican, could win a federal race in Vermont. But for now, while Vermonters give national Democrats landslide margins, they seem content with electing moderate Republicans to state office. We’ll start this race off as Likely Republican, though an open seat situation would make for an attractive Democratic target.

Massachusetts, though its governors enjoy the luxury of four-year terms, is in much the same situation as Vermont. Gov. Charlie Baker (R-MA) was first elected in 2014 has and routinely ranked among the country’s most popular state executives. Last month, polling from MassINC showed him with a 74% approval rating; often, his numbers are higher with Democrats than Republicans. A frequent critic of Trump, Baker seems to also benefit from the electorate’s appetite for split government — as a Republican who emphasizes bipartisanship, he’s in a position to work with, and serve as a check on, the Democratic supermajorities in the legislature. With his fundraising picking up, it seems like he’ll run for a third term (there are no term limits in the Bay State). We’ll default to Likely Republican for now, but if he runs, Baker is a very strong bet for reelection.

Rhode Island has the nation’s newest governor, though it may also see competitive primaries. As then-Gov. Gina Raimondo (D-RI) was sworn in to lead the Department of Commerce earlier this month, her lieutenant governor, Dan McKee, replaced her in the Ocean State’s top office. McKee was first elected as lieutenant governor in 2014 and he survived a close primary from a more liberal challenger in 2018. As McKee looks to winning the governorship in his own right, another potential primary looms large. Both Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea and state Treasurer Seth Magaziner are term-limited in their positions, and either would be formidable opponents in a Democratic primary. Rhode Island is also expected to lose one of its two congressional districts, as a result of the 2020 census — rather than running against each other for the state’s sole seat, one of Reps. David Cicilline (D, RI-1) or Jim Langevin (D, RI-2) may run for governor.

Like other New England states, Rhode Island tends to be more receptive to local Republicans, and it has seen competitive state-level races over the last few decades. In fact, when Raimondo received 53% in 2014, it was the first time since 1992 that a Democrat claimed a majority of the vote in a gubernatorial race there (until 1994, it elected governors biennially). Still, given the strong Democratic bench, if McKee loses a primary, we think most of his potential foes would perform at least as well as he could in a general election. We’re starting Rhode Island off as Likely Democratic.

Rounding out New England, Connecticut may be in for a different type of gubernatorial election. After losing the keys to the governor’s mansion in 1990, Democrats were locked out until 2010. They’ve since strung together three victories, but the margins have been close. Despite the red environment of 2010, then-former Stamford Mayor Dan Malloy won an open seat race by six-tenths of a percentage point — on Election Night 2010, some networks called the race for him while he was still behind his GOP opponent. Even with subpar approval ratings throughout his first term, Malloy was reelected by about 3% in 2014, and now-Gov. Ned Lamont (D-CT) won by about that same amount in 2018.

With the pandemic, Lamont’s approvals numbers went up, and they haven’t come back down — last week, some polling found his approval rating at 71%. During Malloy’s time leading the state, his party’s standing in the legislature eroded: after 2016, for the final stretch of his tenure, the state Senate was tied and Democrats had only a slim majority in the state House. By contrast, in 2020, voters strengthened Lamont’s hand by giving him a supermajority in the state Senate while expanding the Democratic edge in the state House. Though he’s taking his time setting up his campaign, Lamont seems to be in a surprisingly strong position for reelection, so we see the race as Likely Democratic.

Democrats’ big three: Likely but not Safe

One of the things that most stands out about the Crystal Ball’s initial map is the lack of states that we consider to be Safe Democratic. Aside from Hawaii, which is actually open — though in gubernatorial races there recently, Democrats have generally won by wider-than expected margins — there aren’t any states that we’d place in that most secure category.

On one level, this reflects the nature of gubernatorial races — as mentioned earlier, in state-level contests, voters tend to be less partisan than in federal contests. Also, with the election roughly a year and a half away, a lot can change. But in three of the most populous states that they control, Democrats aren’t as well-off as they could optimally be.

After his initial landslide election in 2010, over a controversial Republican nominee, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) fell into something of a holding pattern for 2014 and 2018. A moderate Democrat, he was never beloved by liberals. For his two reelection campaigns, he easily beat back underfunded challengers from the left in primaries, but would go on to win by double-digits in the general elections, as many of his Democratic critics held their noses for him. In the early months of the pandemic, Cuomo became a national figure — with many press outlets based in New York City, his daily briefings buoyed his profile and his approval ratings were stratospheric for much of the year. But more recently, Cuomo’s image has taken a massive hit. Criticism is mounting over his handling of the state’s nursing homes during the pandemic. Meanwhile, at least six women have come forward accusing the governor of sexual harassment. Last week, polling from Quinnipiac University found that, while New Yorkers don’t think the governor should resign, they would rather not see him stand for a fourth term (the state has no term limits).

Cuomo has not ruled out running again. On a historical, and lighter, note, his father, the late Mario Cuomo, was defeated in his bid for a fourth term in 1994 but immediately afterwards, landed a high-profile gig advertising Doritos chips. New York is a Democratic state, but to some degree, we’re waiting to see what Cuomo does. Despite facing calls to resign in early 2019, Gov. Ralph Northam (D-VA) rode out a scandal stemming from a mid-1980s photograph allegedly of Northam in blackface alongside someone dressed in KKK garb, plus another blackface incident from the same era where Northam was posing as Michael Jackson. Two years later, the Virginia governor has largely resuscitated his image, so perhaps Cuomo may be trying to follow a similar path. But in Virginia, which limits its governors to a single consecutive term, reelection is not an option for Northam anyway, and if a damaged Cuomo runs again, Republicans may be more competitive than usual.

In the heart of the Midwest, Illinois is a blue state, but it’s also one that doesn’t fall in love with its governors: it’s ousted two over the last two midterms. In 2009, as his legal troubles were compounding, an actor impersonating then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D-IL) on Saturday Night Live joked that in Illinois, having a governor end up in jail is “like flipping a coin and landing on tails.” While we consider Gov. J. B. Pritzker (D-IL) to be better off for reelection than some of his predecessors, there are a few uncertainties for Illinois Democrats on the horizon. In a referendum in 2020, voters defeated a tax proposal that Pritzker supported. Perhaps with that in mind going into an election year, the governor’s most recent budget excluded an income tax hike. Pritzker probably will be fine but we’re not going to start the race as Safe Democratic.

Finally, in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) made a strong debut in 2018 — aside from Hawaii’s term-limited David Ige (D-HI), he was the only Democratic candidate for governor to win with more than 60% of the vote that year. Ordinarily, Newsom would be a solid choice for reelection, but he faces the prospect of a recall election later this year, which injects some uncertainty into the picture.

In California, recalls are essentially a two-part proposition. On the ballot, voters are first asked whether the current governor should remain in office. A second ballot question lists a slate of replacement candidates — the incumbent governor is not eligible to be a choice. On the first question, if a majority of voters agree to replace the current governor, the candidate who gets the most votes on the second question becomes the new governor. In 2003, the last (and only) time such an effort has been successful in California, voters chose to recall Gov. Gray Davis (D-CA) by a 55%-45% margin, while Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger — with high name recognition from his acting career — got the most votes as the replacement candidate.

As of last month, Newsom’s approval rating was above 50%, but organizers of the recall claim that they’ll gather enough signatures to initiate the process. Republicans have also recruited one of their strongest candidates, former San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer, and their 2018 nominee, businessman John Cox, is also running. Against either, Newsom likely would have little to worry about, but under recall rules, and out of an abundance of caution, we’re rating California as Likely Democratic.

Streaks to watch out for and some other notes

Though we don’t expect them to be among the most closely-contested races, two states we’ll be watching are Oregon and Arkansas — both carry some historical significance. Aside from its neighbor, Washington state, Oregon has the longest continuous streak of electing Democratic governors, as no Republican has won there since 1982. Oregon Republicans can sometimes come close — the last time the state saw an open seat contest, in 2010, Democrats held the governor’s mansion by just 1.5% — but putting together the final pieces of a winning coalition has proved challenging for them. Republicans had a credible candidate in 2018, former state Rep. Knute Buehler. But in what could be an ominous sign for the GOP, Buehler has since left the party. As Gov. Kate Brown (D-OR) cannot run for another term, we’ll start the race as Leans Democratic, though if Republicans have trouble finding a quality recruit, we may shift the race more in the incumbent party’s direction.

The Crystal Ball sees Arkansas as a safely Republican state, but some history could be made there next year. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who served as former President Trump’s press secretary and is the daughter of former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR), is running with Trump’s endorsement. Sanders will have a primary with state Attorney General Leslie Rutledge. In a general election, either would be heavily favored to replace outgoing Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR) — in a sign of the times, this would mark the first time since Reconstruction that a Republican has handed off the Arkansas governorship to another Republican.

Looking to some more competitive states, aside from Evers and Kelly, we’re starting off all of the Democratic governors who were first elected in 2018 as favorites. In the west, it remains to be seen if Govs. Jared Polis (D-CO) or Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM) will draw credible opposition — both won open seats by solid margins in 2018 and are now in Likely Democratic races. Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) was another solid performer that year, winning an open seat by a 54%-42% vote. This week, former Republican state Sen. Scott Jensen announced plans to run. Jensen represented Carver County, west of the Twin Cities, in the legislature, though another prominent local figure may make the race: Trump has reportedly encouraged MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell to run for governor. Given his outlandish statements after (and before) the election, Lindell would likely be a weaker nominee. In any event, we put Walz in the Likely Democratic category, as well.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) saw her national stock rise with the COVID-19 pandemic last year. While Whitmer’s approval numbers are usually healthy, Republicans may be competitive, depending on their recruit. Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak (D-NV) also starts off a slight favorite, though some recent upheaval within the state Democratic Party may add a layer of uncertainty here. Biden carried Michigan and Nevada by about 2.5% apiece, so starting each off as Leans Democratic seems reasonable.

Two of Biden’s disappointments last year were Iowa and Ohio, on either side of the Midwest. Though polling showed him competitive in both, he lost them each by about 8%. In 2018, despite serious efforts, the story was similar for state Democrats. Govs. Kim Reynolds (R-IA) and Mike DeWine (R-OH) each won by about 3%. DeWine, who has upset some local Republicans with his COVID-19 restrictions, could potentially have more to worry about in a primary than a general election. No major Democrat has entered the race against Reynolds, though state Auditor Rob Sand hasn’t ruled out seeking a promotion. Both are Likely Republican for now.

Conclusion

Even though 2018 was, broadly, considered a “blue wave” year for Democrats, Republicans still won several of the most competitive gubernatorial races. So with local issues figuring more prominently into campaigns, statewide races are often more candidate-driven than federal elections, which are increasingly breaking along presidential fault lines. Going into the 2014 cycle, Republicans, who had a great year in 2010, were thought to be overexposed. But by running candidates who fit their states, like Hogan in Maryland and Baker in Massachusetts, the GOP ended the cycle with a net gain of statehouses.

Hopefully by 2022, the COVID-19 pandemic will have subsided. While many governors are still riding high from their handling of the pandemic, more “conventional” issues may be dominating gubernatorial campaigns by then — perhaps this will lead to more competitive races.

P.S. Missouri Senate to Likely Republican

Table 1: Crystal Ball Senate rating change

On Monday, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) became the fifth Republican senator of the 2022 cycle to announce his retirement. Blunt’s departure may open the door to a competitive GOP primary in the Show Me State. Democrats may look harder at the contest as a long shot opportunity, especially if former Gov. Eric Greitens (R-MO), who left office in disgrace in 2018 but is reportedly eyeing a comeback, is nominated.

To be clear, we recognize that Missouri, which gave Trump 57% of the vote last year, is not the bellwether that it once was. If he were around today, Harry Truman, the state’s favorite son, might not even be able to win there as a Democrat. But for now, we’re keeping the race at the right edge of the playing field.

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE

— Virginia Democrats are trying to win three consecutive gubernatorial races, a feat the party has not accomplished since the 1980s.

— Former Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-VA) is the favorite for his state’s Democratic nomination, though he faces a diverse field.

— In a move that’s ruffled some feathers on their side, Virginia Republicans will select their nominee at a May convention.

— In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ) is poised to become the state’s first Democratic governor to secure reelection since 1977.

— Virginia’s open-seat race starts as Leans Democratic in the Crystal Ball ratings. New Jersey starts as Likely Democratic.

Back to the 1980s for Virginia Democrats?

With the presidential contest over, and the midterms almost two years off, Virginia and New Jersey are both due for some attention. As the only two states that hold their gubernatorial elections in the odd-numbered years after presidential elections, their results are sometimes framed as barometers for national political moods.

We’ll start with the Center for Politics’ home of Virginia, but before we dive into the current election year, some historical perspective is in order.

Though they’ll settle on their nominee in a June primary, the ultimate goal of Virginia Democrats in 2021 will be to accomplish something they haven’t done since the 1980s: win three consecutive gubernatorial elections.

During the closing decades of the 20th century, and into the first decade of the new millennium, Virginia was the ultimate contrarian state, at least in state contests. Starting in 1977, the Old Dominion elected governors from the political party opposite that of the previous year’s presidential winner — this streak would continue until 2013, as now-former Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-VA) won despite President Barack Obama’s reelection the year before.

While the electoral pattern that dominated that stretch of the state’s history makes for something of a fun political trivia point, Virginians didn’t simply go down that path just for the sake of voting against the White House. Zeroing in on the 1980s, Frank Atkinson, in his book Virginia in the Vanguard, identifies several reasons why state Democrats found success during that decade. Though Virginia — and the country as a whole — gave GOP presidential nominees easy wins in 1980, 1984, and 1988, Democrats cobbled together a string of victories in the 1981, 1985, and 1989 gubernatorial contests (Map 1).

Map 1: Virginia presidential and gubernatorial races in the 1980s

From 1969 to 1977, Virginia Republicans also won a gauntlet of three gubernatorial races, so the pro-Democratic trend that began in 1981 represented a dramatic sea change in state politics.

What caused the tide to shift? Atkinson points out that, broadly, Democrats enjoyed something of a best-of-both-worlds posture. Once in power, their governors took credit for the economic gains of the Reagan and Bush years. While bashing the national Republican administrations on the campaign trail, Virginia Democrats invested new revenue in popular programs, like infrastructure and education — this, of course, helped them when voters went to the polls.

Quality, and in some cases, history-making, candidates also bolstered Democratic prospects in the 1980s. Elected in 1981, Gov. Chuck Robb (D-VA) was the face of the state party that decade. Robb framed himself as a pragmatic moderate, but liberals could appreciate his connection to Lyndon Johnson (he is the late president’s son-in-law). In 1985, then-state Attorney General Gerald Baliles won the governorship by running very much in the same mold, with an emphasis on the bread-and-butter Democratic issues of transportation and education.

Baliles, though a white candidate himself with a moderate veneer, led what Atkinson dubbed a “rainbow” ticket. Democrats nominated state Sen. L. Douglas Wilder for lieutenant governor, who would become the first Black candidate elected statewide, and state Delegate Mary Sue Terry for attorney general, who became the first woman elected to a statewide office. In 1989, Wilder again made history: his narrow gubernatorial victory marked the first time a Black candidate was popularly elected to lead *any* state — a distinction that Virginia’s complicated history on race made even more significant.

A third advantage Democrats had in the 1980s was fractious opposition. If Virginia Democrats fielded tickets that successfully appealed to both white moderates and minorities, state Republicans seemed to have something of an identity crisis. The state GOP of the time proved to be a wobbly coalition of religious conservatives, Appalachian moderates, and former Byrd Machine loyalists — among other groups. In the 1985 and 1989 contests, Republicans also seemed to struggle with messaging; given the historic nature of Wilder’s candidacies, attacks on him that were perceived as too racially tinged risked backfiring.

Though Virginia Republicans had much better luck in the 1990s, the party finds itself again struggling for relevance. After victories in 2013 and 2017, Virginia Democrats are positioned to pull off another electoral hat trick. If they accomplish that this year, it will probably have more to do with the state’s partisanship more than anything else. President Joe Biden’s 54%-44% showing in the state in 2020 was the best margin for a post-World War II Democratic presidential nominee. More tellingly, Republicans have lost all 13 statewide races that Virginia has seen since 2012 — even during the 1980s, the GOP at least claimed the state’s electoral votes and held both its Senate seats for much of the decade.

With that history in mind, let’s consider the current field.

The Democrats: McAuliffe vs. the field

For much of 2020, one of the worst-kept secrets in Virginia politics was that former Gov. Terry McAuliffe was eyeing a comeback. A Democrat with strong ties to the Clintons, he won what turned out to be a very competitive 2013 gubernatorial contest. As governor, McAuliffe sported generally positive approval ratings — as he was leaving office in late 2017, polling from Quinnipiac University put his approval rating at a healthy 56%-36% spread. It’s likely McAuliffe would have been reelected in 2017, but Virginia is the only state in the Union that limits its governors to serving a single consecutive term. Though McAuliffe wasn’t on the ballot himself, his popularity certainly didn’t hurt his party that year — he campaigned for now-Gov. Ralph Northam (D-VA) in 2017, and the Democratic ticket swept all three of the state’s top offices for the second straight cycle.

In December 2020, McAuliffe formally announced that he’d run again. If Virginia Democrats, as a whole, are looking for a return to the 1980s, McAuliffe, personally, may have the 1970s in mind. In the 1973 gubernatorial contest, then-former Gov. Mills Godwin (R-VA) staged a return to the governor’s mansion — he previously occupied it, as a Democrat, for a term after the 1965 election. Godwin is the most recent Virginia governor to serve two non-consecutive terms, though Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), who is also a former governor, was considered a potential 2013 candidate before ruling out a return.

A former chair of the Democratic National Committee, McAuliffe entered the race with a known fundraising advantage. Despite a relatively late entrance into the race — most of his rivals got in months earlier — as of January, the former governor had a war chest of about $6 million, more than the rest of the primary field combined. As the only candidate who’s experienced the state’s top job, his campaign seems to be betting that, in a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has upended society, voters will see him as a steady hand.

Few doubt McAuliffe’s commitment to the Democratic Party — during his term, he constantly promoted Virginia on the national and international stages, but often battled a hostile GOP legislature at home. Still, his competitors argue that the party’s nominee should be more in touch with current political realities. McAuliffe was first on the state ballot in 2009, when he unsuccessfully sought the gubernatorial nomination. The party’s electorate has changed markedly over the past dozen years, and the state overall has moved more firmly into the Democratic column.

While Virginia’s politics will likely be more prominent in national news this year, the race for the governorship truly began almost a year ago. In May 2020, state Delegate Jennifer Carroll Foy was the first Democrat to announce a gubernatorial run. Elected in 2017, Carroll Foy has a background as a public defender and has stressed issues of criminal justice — she’s often discussed her support for cash bail reform. After Democrats took control of the legislature in 2019, she was instrumental in the state’s efforts to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. She resigned from the state legislature to focus on her run.

In June 2020, state Sen. Jennifer McClellan entered the Democratic primary. Almost immediately, some parallels to Carroll Foy sprung up: both offer a generational contrast to recent governors — on Election Day, they’ll each be in their 40s — and either would be the first Black woman elected governor of any state. McClellan, though, has more experience in government and cited quality public education as her highest priority.

From a purely geographic perspective, McClellan has an advantage. While her four opponents come from Northern Virginia — a region that the party has increasingly leaned on in general elections — she represents a Richmond-area district. In fact, occupants of McClellan’s seat tend to go on to bigger things: her immediate predecessor is now-Rep. Donald McEachin (D, VA-4), who won a newly-drawn congressional seat in 2016, and former Gov. Doug Wilder represented it for several terms before launching his statewide career. As the state Senate is only up in odd-numbered years before presidential elections, McClellan can at least keep her seat if she comes up short in the gubernatorial primary.

A fourth primary candidate — who’s also Black and in his 40s — is Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax (D-VA). When Fairfax succeeded now-Gov. Ralph Northam as lieutenant governor, he was seen as a rising star in the party. However, in early 2019, around the time Northam was fighting for his political life after some of his medical school yearbook pictures came to light, Fairfax was battling a scandal of his own, as two women accused him of sexual assault. Northam simply rode out his yearbook scandal and worked to make amends but Fairfax’s reputation never recovered. As a result, even as a sitting statewide officer, Fairfax has generally not been a factor in the race — with only $79,000 in the bank, as of January, he lacks any major endorsements.

The final Democratic candidate, who entered in January, is state Delegate Lee Carter. Like Carroll Foy, he was initially elected to a Northern Virginia district in 2017. A member of the Democratic Socialists of America, Carter co-chaired Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) 2020 primary campaign in the state. Though Virginia, to put it mildly, is not a state that has historically been defined by a progressive political culture, Carter is angling for the support of blue-collar voters. In the legislature, he’s positioned himself as a friend of labor — recently, he introduced a bill that would shield teachers from being fired during strikes. Still, unions have not rushed to endorse Carter, and he is far behind in fundraising.

The bottom line for the Democratic race is that the well-funded McAuliffe appears to have a significant edge. As Virginia doesn’t have runoffs, he could simply win with a plurality in a divided field. The filing deadline is in late March — if some candidates drop out before then, or don’t get around to actually filing, McAuliffe would likely have a harder time if his opposition is more consolidated. Either way, we’ll have to see if any of his declared rivals pick up steam leading into the June 8 primary.

With a convention, GOP tries to avoid chasing away swing voters

If the Democratic primary for Virginia governor seems straightforward, the Republican side is looking more volatile. To start, while the Democratic race currently features only five candidates, nine Republicans are running, though only a few have a serious chance of being nominated. Second, the party will choose a nominee at a May drive-through convention. In February, after a process that was marred by indecision, party officials announced the evangelical Liberty University, in Lynchburg, as its convention venue. This decision caught some university personnel flat-footed, though it apparently won’t be held on the actual university campus (the formal details are still being worked out).

For Virginia political observers, especially those in the Charlottesville area, the convention storyline may bring back memories of last year’s congressional race. Now-Rep. Bob Good (R, VA-5) ousted former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R, VA-5) at an opaque, drive-through convention that was held in Campbell County, just east of Lynchburg.

The convention format may have the effect of hampering state Sen. Amanda Chase’s prospects. She fashions herself as “Trump in heels,” and has been at war with the party establishment for much of the last year. When it was first reported that the state party was considering a convention, Chase threatened to leave the party and run as an independent, though she eventually settled on seeking the GOP nomination anyway. Still, as recently as last week, she seemed to be singing her old tune: as she accused the state party committee of stacking the upcoming convention, Chase suggested that a new political party is needed.

Traditionally, state Republicans have preferred conventions, which are decided by a relative handful of party loyalists, to primaries — as Virginia has no party registration, primaries are essentially open to any registered voter. From 1953 to 1985, the Republicans nominated gubernatorial candidates via convention, and they’ve only since held primaries in 1989, 2005, and 2017.

Put in a historical context, Chase’s opposition to a convention is a curiosity. In recent decades, state conventions typically benefited the more ideological candidates — in other words, those that could inspire partisans to show up for hours at a time. In last year’s VA-5 race, Good, running as a “Biblical conservative,” benefited from that format against Riggleman, who was a Republican with libertarian leanings. As an aside, after his losing his seat, Riggleman seemed open a 2021 gubernatorial bid. Given his recent criticisms of the GOP, he may consider running as an independent — in that case, he’d have until August to file papers for his candidacy. Before his time in Congress, he was briefly a candidate for governor in the 2017 Republican primary.

In 2013, the last time Republicans held a gubernatorial convention, then-Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, a well-known moderate who’d have some appeal to Democrats in a general election, was muscled out by then-state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a strident conservative with a reputation as an immigration hawk. Had the contest been decided in a primary, Cuccinelli may have struggled to expand past his base. But post-Trump, a different dynamic may be at play in state primaries. It’s easy to see how Chase could turn out low-propensity voters who are sympathetic to Trumpism, but are suspicious of political parties and wouldn’t participate in a convention.

At the 2021 convention, Republican delegates will cast ballots in Lynchburg, with their preferences ranked. The Chase campaign worries that this system will benefit candidates who have deeper connections to the state party. Specifically, Delegate Kirk Cox, who served as Speaker of the state House from 2018 to 2020, would seem to have the inside track in that scenario. Cox was first elected to the House of Delegates in 1989, and has the most endorsements — notably, former Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) and former Sen. George Allen (R-VA) are backing him.

In 2017, Virginia was a frontier in the culture war, as the fight over Confederate monuments was a topic that became a campaign issue. In a similar vein, Cox has made combatting “cancel culture” a key issue of his campaign — perhaps as an overture to the right.

Businessman Pete Snyder, who lives in Charlottesville, is billing himself as a more conservative alternative to Cox, but as one without the type of baggage that Chase brings. Cuccinelli has endorsed Snyder.

Retired private equity executive Glenn Youngkin suggests that his image as a political outsider would provide a stark contrast to McAuliffe in a general election (assuming Democrats nominate the former governor). Republicans at the convention may also consider Youngkin’s ability to self-fund.

Other candidates in the race include Merle Rutledge, Sergio de la Peña, Kurt Santini, Peter Doran, and Paul Davis. But any Republican who makes it out of the convention will have to be prepared for an uphill campaign against the Democratic nominee. In recent general elections, Virginia Republicans have earned about 45% of the vote, but getting much past that has proved challenging.

Broadly, the Republican brand has been on the decline in the state’s suburban localities, which are still growing relatively rapidly. Gov. Northam’s statewide career illustrates this shift quite well. In 2013, when he ran for lieutenant governor, his opponent was E. W. Jackson, a Black preacher with a history of inflammatory statements — Jackson beat Snyder for the nomination at a 2013 convention. Northam carried the Northern Virginia area with 64%. Four years later, in his race for governor, he was running against former Republican National Committee leader Ed Gillespie. With a long history in party politics, Gillespie was the type of “establishment” Republican that the Northern Virginia area had traditionally been receptive to. But as Map 2 shows, Northam fared even better in the region against Gillespie, even as he won statewide by less (Northam won in 2013 by nearly 11 points and in 2017 by about nine points).

Map 2: Northern Virginia, 2013 vs 2017

Perhaps without the albatross of Trump, Republicans will be better able to localize the race. Although, in the case of Northern Virginia, with its proximity to the country’s capital, local politics is often national politics. While Virginia Republicans certainly have their work cut out for them, and a Likely Democratic rating would be justified, out of an abundance of caution, we’ll start the race off as Leans Democratic.

Depending on the salience of the local issues this fall and the trajectory of the pandemic, this race might end up being a good test as to whether Republicans can make up ground in suburbia by arguing that Democrats are too close to teachers’ unions on school reopenings.

New Jersey: Democrats favored to (finally) re-elect a governor

In 2021, Garden State Democrats are looking to make some history of their own: even though the state has voted blue in presidential contests since 1992, no Democrat there has been reelected as governor since 1977. Facing voters this year, Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ) seems positioned to break that curse.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Murphy’s outlook for reelection was somewhat more dicey, but voters gave him high marks for his handling of the crisis. His recent approval ratings have still been over 50%. Despite its aversion to reelecting Democratic governors, New Jersey is still one of those states where, in order to win statewide, almost everything needs to go right for Republicans.

In 2009, enough factors fell into place for Republicans to deny a Democrat reelection. With an ailing economy and budget shortfalls dominating headlines, then-Gov. John Corzine (D-NJ) spent the lead-up to his reelection campaign fighting with his own party in the legislature. The favorite for the GOP nomination that year was Chris Christie, a plain-spoken former U.S. attorney. At this time in the 2009 cycle, Corzine had a 40% approval and was trailing Christie by nine percentage points. The governor made up some ground by the fall, but still lost by almost four points. A former Goldman Sachs executive with connections in the financial services industry, one of the few advantages Corzine had was in fundraising — altogether better-positioned, Murphy seems fine on that front (as it happens, he is also a Goldman Sachs veteran).

But this isn’t to say Murphy’s tenure as governor has gone perfectly. As with Virginia, Republicans will certainly try to localize the race, and they may have some openings. In 2019, Murphy promised to fix the state’s transit system — “[I’ll] fix NJ Transit if it kills me,” as he put it — but the state’s commuters still face challenges. In the 2017 gubernatorial election, Republicans kept a focus on property taxes, and their nominee, then-Lt. Gov Kim Guadagno (R-NJ) overperformed in several higher-income pockets of the state.

The clear Republican frontrunner is former state Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, who came up short to Guadagno in the 2017 primary. In some matters of style, Ciattarelli is borrowing from Christie’s playbook. In a state with a truly distinctive culture, Christie played up his authentic New Jersey persona — he’s quick to mention his affinity for the state’s musical icon, Bruce Springsteen. In his campaign kickoff, Ciattarelli, a native of the state, charged that the Massachusetts-born Murphy, “…doesn’t understand New Jersey.”

This is still a very machine-driven state in primaries. Murphy has no primary opposition, and Republicans will spend the next few months jockeying for the party line in most of the state’s counties. Ciattarelli already has the line in several counties.

New Jersey typically votes more Democratic than Virginia, and given Murphy’s advantages as the incumbent, the Crystal Ball sees this race as less competitive. We’re starting it at Likely Democratic.

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE

— In the second impeachment trial of his presidency, former President Donald Trump was acquitted by the Senate. Seven Republicans joined 50 Democrats in voting to convict Trump.

— The sole Republican running for reelection in 2022 who voted to convict Trump was Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) — she has a reputation as a political maverick.

— Democrats will be targeting a few open-seat contests next year in the Senate, specifically North Carolina and Pennsylvania, where retiring Republicans have been censured by their local parties.

— For now, Senate Democrats probably won’t see much electoral backlash from their votes, though Democrats representing Trump states may feel heat in 2024.

Trump acquitted, but conviction vote is bipartisan

Over the weekend, former President Trump was acquitted by the Senate. Days before his term as president expired last month, the House, in a bipartisan vote, impeached Trump for inciting an insurrection at the Capitol. After a shorter-than-expected trial in the Senate — one which featured no witnesses — 57 senators, out of 100, voted to convict the former president. As this was short of the constitutionally required two-thirds of the chamber, Trump was acquitted.

Though Democrats control both houses of Congress, achieving a two-thirds majority in the Senate to secure a conviction was always going to be a tall order. It seems hard enough to get more than 60 votes in the Senate for any major policy these days — let alone for something as politically, and emotionally, charged as impeachment.

Map 1 shows the breakdown of the Senate vote by state delegation. Republicans Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Susan Collins (R-ME), Ben Sasse (R-NE), Richard Burr (R-NC), Pat Toomey (R-PA), and Mitt Romney (R-UT) joined a unanimous Democratic caucus in supporting conviction.

Map 1: 2021 Senate vote on Trump conviction

A month ago, when the Crystal Ball first looked at how Trump’s second impeachment trial may shape up, we noted that, in the Senate, his fate largely rested with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). While he himself voted against conviction, many observers went into the process expecting fewer than seven GOP defections.

Given his standing within the caucus, McConnell could have likely whipped the necessary votes if he felt that barring the former president from running for office again, a potential consequence of conviction, was worth it. Instead, the minority leader made it known that, while he considers Trump responsible for January’s insurrection at the Capitol, he viewed the trial as out of the Senate’s purview: citing Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution, he argued that as a former president, Trump shouldn’t be eligible for conviction. Much of the GOP conference agreed.

Republicans up in 2022 mostly supported Trump

To a large extent, Republican hands were tied, as Trump is still a popular figure in the party. When he was on the ballot himself, Trump generated turnout that boosted Republicans down the ballot. In 2016, he arguably kept the Senate in GOP hands and in 2020, Republicans beat expectations in the chamber, only narrowly losing control. While Trump didn’t carry the states he needed for reelection, the rural turnout he inspired helped vulnerable Republicans in states like North Carolina and Iowa, while other red state Senate contests that seemed competitive — such as South Carolina and Montana — ended up as solid Republican wins.

The Republican senators up for election next year would very much like to have Trump’s base on their side. To GOP members, this would be helpful both in their primaries as well as in the general election, where turning out Trump’s voters, without the former president on the ballot, will be a priority. Perhaps not surprisingly, every Republican senator facing voters in 2022 was against conviction, with the exception of Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

Murkowski, in some ways, can be viewed as an independent who caucuses with Republicans. A moderate, she’s faced primary challenges since her earliest years as an incumbent legislator; she famously lost her 2010 senatorial primary, but mounted a successful write-in campaign to keep her seat that year. Murkowski seemed free to vote her conscience, as she won’t realistically be a favorite of the Trump crowd anytime soon — the former president has vowed to campaign against her. But the Alaska senator has put together diverse electoral coalitions in the past and, as the Crystal Ball outlined recently, the state’s new ranked-choice electoral system may insulate her from more ideological challengers.

Two of the top three Democratic Senate targets that the Crystal Ball identified in our initial 2022 ratings — Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Wisconsin — are open seats. Both retiring Sens. Richard Burr and Pat Toomey voted for conviction but were promptly censured by partisans in their states. It’s a good sign of where the party is that Republican candidates running to replace them struck a much more pro-Trump tone. Former Rep. Mark Walker (R, NC-6), who’s framing himself as something of a consensus candidate for North Carolina Republicans, charged that Burr cast a “wrong vote.” In the third state, Wisconsin, there was no question that Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) would support acquittal. Though he’s still deciding whether to run again, Johnson is popular with conservatives in his bright purple state.

Last weekend’s vote may lead to some new maneuvering from Republicans who aren’t in especially tough races, too. One of the most surprising votes for conviction was Sen. Bill Cassidy — since his election in 2014, he’s generally supported GOP leadership. When asked for his reasoning, he simply summed up that Trump “is guilty.” While Cassidy isn’t up in 2022 himself, his colleague, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) is.

Kennedy got to the Senate by beating out several other Republicans in a 2016 jungle primary, in part because he was able to own the conservative mantle. It’s easy to see Kennedy criticizing Cassidy’s stance on the campaign trail, as he tries to preserve that image. After the vote, the Louisiana Republican Party immediately censured Cassidy but praised Kennedy.

As an aside, this type of contrast between Louisiana senators of the same party isn’t new. For the first eight years of her three-term tenure, former Sen. Mary Landrieu’s (D-LA) critics would often compare her to the state’s other member at the time, Sen. John Breaux (D-LA). Republicans would bash Landrieu as a New Orleans liberal, while Breaux was held up as a “conservative” Cajun Democrat.

Aside from Kennedy, the only other Republican up in 2022 who had a home-state colleague of the same party vote for conviction is Utah’s Mike Lee. Though he serves with Sen. Mitt Romney, a frequent Trump critic, Lee has a libertarian streak, and few question his credibility with conservatives.

Conviction votes may hurt red state Democrats in 2024 — if the electorate remembers it

If Republicans are concerned about their near-term electoral prospects with Trump off the ballot, the consequences of last weekend’s vote may hurt Democrats most in the next presidential year.

In a straight-party vote, the entire Democratic caucus voted for Trump’s conviction. Public opinion does seem to be on their side: according to an Ipsos/ABC News poll that was out Monday, about 60% of respondents agreed that the former president’s actions merited conviction.

So with the 2022 midterms on the horizon, impeachment probably won’t be a liability for many Democratic senators, as none of them will be up in states that Trump carried. But 2024 promises to be a much tougher cycle for Democrats. That year, they’ll be defending roughly two-thirds of the states with elections — and Trump himself could feasibly be leading the GOP ticket again.

For Republicans, the most obvious 2024 targets will be three Democrats who represent states that Trump won in both times he was on the ballot. Specifically, these are Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and Joe Manchin (D-WV). All three have been reelected because they’ve been able to cast themselves as different types of Democrats. Though the impeachment vote may well be a distant memory by 2024, Republicans will almost certainly point out that these members voted with their party when it mattered most.

Any competent Republican presidential nominee should carry those three states in 2024, so the electoral threat that those Democratic senators would face is clear. This vote could potentially complicate their efforts to attain the crossover support they’ll almost assuredly need in order to win.

Over the last two presidential election cycles, just one senator (Susan Collins in Maine) won while the other party’s presidential candidate was carrying their state. Even going beyond federal offices, aside from these senators, there are no Democrats left in partisan, statewide positions in Montana, Ohio, or West Virginia.

This isn’t to say that those seats will be sure-fire Republican flips. Though Manchin has, at times, indicated he may retire in 2024, the others won’t be pushovers, should they run again. Brown and Tester were reelected in 2018 after voting against both of the Supreme Court nominees that Trump put forward during the first part of his presidency.

For now, the Senate will return to its more routine business of considering President Biden’s nominees and negotiating another COVID-19 relief bill. But, looking to future campaigns, last weekend’s vote will likely figure into partisan messaging from both sides.