2010 Governor

COPYRIGHT 2009 BY SABATO’S CRYSTAL BALL, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Campaign ads provide a window into any election. Who are the candidates? What do they stand for? What issues are at stake in the race? Campaign ads help to define the candidates, set the agenda of the campaign, and provide the critical information–wrapped up in a bundle of fear or pride or humor or some other emotional appeal–that many citizens rely upon as they strive to make sense of a sometimes perplexing decision-making process. What does campaign advertising have to tell us about this year’s gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey? Advertising in the Commonwealth In Virginia, Republican Robert F. McDonnell faces off against Democrat R. Creigh Deeds in a re-match of their 2005 squeaker of a state attorney general race, which McDonnell won by 360 votes out of almost two million cast. During a hard-fought Democratic primary in which Deeds defeated two strong opponents (McDonnell enjoyed a clear primary field), the Democratic Governors Association spent close to $3 million on ads targeting McDonnell. (The one disadvantage of having no primary opponents is that one is essentially a sitting duck for attacks from the other side.) Since the end of

Editor’s Note: Last week, Larry Sabato examined the 2009 and 2010 races for governor taking place in the Northeast and Midwest. This week, in part two of his analysis, he analyzes the Southern and Western races. Counting New Jersey and Virginia in 2009, 39 of the 50 governorships will be decided in the next thirteen months. Twenty-one of these statehouses are currently held by Democrats, and eighteen by Republicans, as the map below shows. There are 19 open governor’s races in 2010 without an incumbent running (plus one in Virginia in 2009), balanced almost evenly between the two parties (9 D, 10 R). See the chart below for the electoral status of all incumbent governors. Compiled by Isaac Wood, U.Va. Center for Politics. Without furter ado, a look at the current state of the Southern and Western gubernatorial races: SOUTH Alabama: Gov. Bob Riley (R) is term limited. This deeply conservative state, where Barack Obama did poorly, naturally tilts to the GOP. Congressman Artur Davis (D) hopes to change that, and this impressive African American is the probable Democratic nominee. But even Davis’s fervent admirers admit he’ll have an uphill climb against the Republican candidate that emerges from a large

Editor’s Note: This week, Larry Sabato examines the races for governor taking place in the Northeast and Midwest. Next week, in part two of his analysis, he will analyze the Southern and Western races. Enjoy! With the off-year midterms just a year away, the Crystal Ball will focus on the statehouses. It gets us out of Washington and away from Congress–and that is refreshing in itself. It’s more than just refreshing. The 2010 competitive action is in the statehouse races. A much higher proportion of contests for governor are clearly competitive than contests for Senate and House. In fact, as you will see from our summaries below, all but a handful of governorships are moderately to highly competitive in 2010. Moreover, in comparing this midterm to those over the past two decades, it appears that a higher proportion of governorship races will be competitive in 2010 than in the most recent half-dozen midterm years. We’ve already taken a preliminary look at the governorships on the ballot next year (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3), but in just a few months, there have been dramatic changes in some places. And thanks to the nomination of Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman as

There is no exact formula for projecting the number of voters that will turn out on any given Election Day. The intensity of the contest, the issues being discussed, and the hot-or-cold personalities of the candidates can spike turnout up or down. But history can provide some clues. Voting is like inertia in most years. Objects (or people) in motion tend to remain in motion; objects at rest tend to remain at rest. Regular voters almost always show up, while something big is needed to attract casual, occasional voters. Take a look at the accompanying table that compares Virginia voter turnouts in presidential and gubernatorial years. On average, turnout drops 30 percent from one year to the next. The major exception was for Doug Wilder (D) in 1989. Everyone had a strong opinion on that nationalized election, and the turnout broke all gubernatorial records for the time. Virginia Voter Turnout Compiled by Isaac Wood, U.Va. Center for Politics. In 2008, 3.75 million Virginians voted in the Obama-McCain election, by far the heaviest voter participation in the state ever. If there is the usual 30 percent drop, then 2009’s turnout for governor will be in the neighborhood of 2.6 million. However,

It was nearly twenty years ago. While assessing L. Douglas Wilder’s 1989 victory for governor of Virginia, I first noticed that for four consecutive elections (1977, 1981, 1985, and 1989), the Old Dominion had voted for the gubernatorial nominee of the party opposite to the one controlling the White House. It merited a paragraph, but nothing more. After all, four data points do not a trend make. This could have been a mere coincidence. For one thing, it seemed early–just nine months after a president was sworn in–for an off-year, anti-White House incumbent effect to be real. Another four elections for governor have passed (1993, 1997, 2001, and 2005), and the presidential jinx is still holding. Maybe there is something to it, with another test awaiting this November. Republican Bob McDonnell hopes it is authentic, and Democrat Creigh Deeds is intent on proving it a fake. Let’s take a brief look back at the eight elections under discussion. The most enlightening data will be presidential popularity. By clicking here, you can see the graphs of the Gallup job-approval ratings for newly sworn-in presidents in Virginia’s gubernatorial election years. The gubernatorial winners, and their percentages, are shown below. Unfortunately, until very

In the mid-nineteenth century, a delegate to a Virginia constitutional convention argued against the office of lieutenant governor, calling it, “the fifth wheel of a wagon, and much more useless.” Worse has been said about the vice presidency over the centuries. Franklin Roosevelt’s first VP, John Nance Garner, declared his position was not worth a pitcher of warm spit. He actually cited another bodily excretion, but the press of the day cleaned up the language. Gradually, as lieutenant governors and vice presidents succeeded to governorships and the Oval Office–just this week Sean Parnell assumed the top job in Alaska after former Gov. Sarah Palin’s resignation–the occupants of the second-banana, Rodney Dangerfield posts finally began to get some respect. After Al Gore and Dick Cheney, few doubt the influence of the V-POTUS (the acronym for Vice President of the United States). And given what has happened in statehouses across America in the past decade, lieutenant governors are recognized as more than stand-by equipment. Only 42 states have an elected lieutenant governor, though New Jersey will become the 43rd following this year’s election. Arizona, Oregon, and Wyoming have an elected secretary of state that is the functional equivalent of a lieutenant governor

It is often said that the past is prologue. In that regard, this year’s gubernatorial candidates in Virginia–Democrat Creigh Deeds and Republican Bob McDonnell–share a bit of common history. They ran against each other for state attorney general in 2005, a race that ended as one of the closest statewide elections in Virginia history. Following a recount, McDonnell emerged the winner by a margin of just 360 votes out of nearly 2 million cast. The question is how much that first, razor-close Deeds-McDonnell race can serve as a road map for their rematch this year. Four years ago, they were part of the “under card,” overshadowed by the much higher profile race for governor. Since then, Virginia politics has been turned on its head, with a succession of Democratic victories that has arguably transformed the state from bright red to at least the color purple. Yet their first contest for attorney general highlighted the generic strength of each party that to a large degree still holds true today. Of the state’s 11 congressional districts, McDonnell carried eight, Deeds only three. But the election ended in a virtual tie because McDonnell’s strength geographically was broad but not particularly deep, while Deeds’

People who live for politics appreciate what real votes in real elections mean. It’s pure heroin for junkies. There is no cold turkey like the one between the end of a presidential election and the midterm election that occurs two full years later. The presidential high–the flood of votes in all fifty states for the Electoral College and the thousands of contests for every other office under the sun–is intense. It takes weeks to devour the totals, and months to think through what they mean. Then comes the void, an emptiness that rivals the black vacuum between galaxies. Six months after a president is chosen, the political community has the shakes, and begs for votes, real votes, any votes. And that is why New Jersey’s and Virginia’s contests for governor always assume a larger role than their actual importance merits. Here we are in the off-off year again, and sure enough, the statehouse battles in the Garden State and the Old Dominion are the focus of a surprising degree of attention. Wild claims are already being made about the ultimate meaning (more about that later) but at the Crystal Ball, we understand. Speculate away, friends, and get that perfectly legal

We’ve had two good weeks of gubernatorial fun in the Crystal Ball, reviewing the early match-ups for the 2010 midterm Governor battles here and here. Now it’s time to examine the remaining sixteen statehouses, all currently controlled by Republicans. ALABAMA–Gov. Bob Riley (R-AL): OPEN SEAT. With Gov. Riley completing his second and final term, Alabama can look forward to a rough and tumble contest to succeed him. The Democrats appear certain to have a competitive match-up between Lt. Gov. (and former Governor) Jim Folsom, Jr. and Congressman Artur Davis (D-AL), an African-American. There is some talk that others may jump in, but Folsom and Davis would probably be the front-runners. If black turnout is high in the primary, as it often is, Davis would be in a good position to win the party nod, but it’s too early to know. The Republicans hoped to get Congressman Jo Bonner (R-AL) into the race, and he would have been the presumed frontrunner, but Bonner bowed out in February. Instead, the GOP will have a choice among state Treasurer Kay Ivey (R), former Judge Roy Moore (R), the social conservative who ran unsuccessfully in the Republican primary against Gov. Riley in 2006, and

Last week the Crystal Ball conducted a historical overview of gubernatorial midterm elections in the past sixty years. Now we’ll continue our initial analysis of the statehouse battles to come by assessing the situation in each of the 36 states hosting a contest for Governor in 2010. Let’s start with the 20 Democratic statehouses on the ballot. ARKANSAS–Gov. Mike Beebe (D-AR): Count this one almost over, barring some giant scandal or cataclysm. Beebe has been very popular in his first term, and one successful term deserves another. There are no potent challengers to Beebe in either party on the horizon. DEMOCRATIC HOLD. COLORADO–Gov. Bill Ritter (D-CO): We don’t know quite what to make of Ritter, or his upcoming reelection race. Elected in a landslide in 2006, Ritter has made his share of stumbles and doesn’t always do the politically smart thing. Just one example: His interim appointment of Denver Schools Superintendent Michael Bennet to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar was a truly odd pick. It may work out, and Bennet is a bright fellow, but Ritter put the seat in some jeopardy at the very time Ritter, also on the ballot in 2010, could have

Every midterm year, the lion’s share of the attention seems to go to the U.S. Senate and House contests at the national level, even though the governorships are arguably more important. Despite the unusual all-Senate match-up of Barack Obama and John McCain in 2008, the statehouses are still the incubators for most modern presidents (Carter, Reagan, Clinton, G.W. Bush). Moreover, the 36 gubernatorial battles and the state legislative elections that will accompany them in 2010 will determine what happens during the 2011 post-Census redistricting of the U.S. House and the state legislatures themselves. More than a few House seats will shift parties because of the partisan line-drawing that results. Therefore, over the next several issues, we’ll take a look at the early maneuvering for governor in every state with such a race. The candidates are already reasonably clear in a handful of states. In others, we have a good idea about the nominee of one party (usually the incumbent). But in quite a few states, where the incumbent is retiring or term limited, a free-for-all is in store. There’s nothing like an open governorship to release the pent-up ambitions of politicians angling for their chance to run the show. As