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2016 Governor

Sabato's Crystal Ball

Governors 2015: For Republicans, a Kentucky-Fried, Cajun-seasoned mess

In this year’s two most prominent gubernatorial races, the Republicans have taken what probably should have been victories and put them into doubt by selecting weak nominees. Whatever the results, the GOP better hope that these races are not harbingers for 2016. Because while deep-red Kentucky and Louisiana still might ultimately vote for flawed Republican candidates this year, the country probably will not do the same next year. First of all, in Kentucky, it appears to us that the Democrats are now small favorites to hold the governorship. We are moving the race from Toss-up to Leans Democratic. Most of the available information in the Bluegrass State’s governor’s race, which is five days away, suggests that Attorney General Jack Conway (D) is outperforming businessman Matt Bevin (R). Conway has led every recent public poll, although there have not been that many of them. Conway was even narrowly ahead in a Bevin internal poll. Bevin has not done a good job of uniting his party after winning the GOP primary by 83 votes, and he has engaged in unnecessary confrontations and petty, wasteful food fights with his rivals and the state’s media. He is one of the most argumentative candidates we

Kyle Kondik

New Hampshire: Toss-Up Central

Think New Hampshire isn’t getting enough political attention? You’re probably alone, but a long-awaited move by Gov. Maggie Hassan (D) will likely result, remarkably, in an even greater focus on the Granite State during the 2016 cycle. Hassan announced Monday that she will challenge incumbent Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R) in the state’s U.S. Senate contest next November, a decision with major consequences not only for that contest but also the state’s concurrent gubernatorial election. The result, at least for the time being, is two toss-up races. The Ayotte-Hassan Senate contest immediately becomes a Toss-up, having previously been a Leans Republican race while Hassan mulled her options. Correspondingly, the now-open gubernatorial election is also a Toss-up, moving from Leans Democratic. Tables 1 and 2: Crystal Ball 2016 Senate and gubernatorial ratings changes Hassan was far and away Democrats’ strongest possible candidate to take on Ayotte; thus, the governor’s Senate candidacy increases her party’s chances of recovering a majority in Congress’ upper chamber. After all, conservative groups had spent the last few months running ads trying to discourage Hassan from running for Senate, a sign that the GOP also viewed her as the Democratic best bet. Early polling, for what it’s worth

Geoffrey Skelley

Kentucky Governor: With a Month to Go, Bevin Has Squandered His Edge

For months we’ve argued that Kentucky’s increasing lean toward the Republican Party and the state’s antipathy toward President Barack Obama gave businessman Matt Bevin, the Republican nominee, a generic edge in the open Kentucky gubernatorial race. While Bevin is not a strong candidate, we thought that ultimately those inherent advantages — advantages that have nothing to do with Bevin’s campaign — nonetheless made him a small favorite over state Attorney General Jack Conway (D). We no longer feel that way. With five weeks to go the Kentucky gubernatorial race is now a pure Toss-up, instead of Leans Republican. Bevin is in real danger of blowing this race. In fact, according to the Bluegrass Poll released Wednesday, Conway is leading by five points, 42%-37%, with 7% for independent Drew Curtis, the quirky founder of the website Fark.com. Conway recently said that his internal polls and those from the Democratic Governors Association also show him leading by five points. This race is confounding. Kentucky is so anti-Obama that it ought to be relatively easy for a Republican to capture the governorship. However, Bevin is not just any Republican. He seemingly has done little to endear himself to his party after winning a

Larry J. Sabato and Kyle Kondik

Louisiana Governor: Ganging Up on Vitter

In his classic biography of Earl Long, who was Huey’s brother and a three-time governor of Louisiana, A.J. Liebling described the state’s primary for gubernatorial nominations as “the grand gimmick of Louisiana politics.” Back then, when winning the Democratic primary was tantamount to election, all Democratic candidates would run together in the same primary. If someone got over 50%, that person would be the Democratic nominee, and, thus, the governor. If not, the top-two vote getters advanced to a runoff. Since 1975, Louisiana has used a more exotic system in which all candidates, regardless of party, run together in the same wild “jungle primary.” If no one wins a majority, there is a “general election” encounter between the top-two vote getters (who could be from the same party), i.e. a runoff election, about a month later. The particulars of the primary may have changed, but Liebling’s observation that this primary system provides state politics “with a central mechanism as fascinating as a roulette wheel” remains operative. With the Oct. 24 all-party primary fast approaching, four major candidates are fighting for two spots in what is an almost-assured runoff on Nov. 21. There are three Republicans — Public Service Commissioner Scott

Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley

Ratings Changes: A Senate Sleeper in Kentucky?

The prospect of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) winning the Republican presidential nomination seems as remote as ever. But that doesn’t mean Senate Republicans can just assume the seat will stay safely in their column next year. The Senate situation in the Bluegrass State highlights six Crystal Ball race ratings changes, which are shown in Table 1. Table 1: Crystal Ball race rating changes Notes: Some of these changes were previously announced on Twitter earlier this month. Kentucky Senate: While he appears to be fading in the presidential race, Rand Paul did win a victory in his home state recently. With the help of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Paul persuaded Kentucky Republicans to hold a presidential caucus next March instead of a presidential primary in May. That will allow Paul to compete for presidential delegates in his home state while also preserving his ability to run for renomination in the Senate primary. Kentucky law prohibits candidates from running for different offices in the same primary election. Paul has agreed to pay the state party $250,000 by this Friday to help cover the costs. The party told us earlier this week that it will not publicly reveal whether the payment has

Kyle Kondik

Early Thoughts on 2016’s Presidential and Down-Ballot Races

U.Va. Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato is a regular contributor to Politico Magazine, and this week he and the Crystal Ball team offer snippets and links to a two-part series that takes an early look at the 2016 presidential and down-ballot pictures. The first article, which appeared in Politico Magazine on Sept. 7, 2015, reviews eight important facets of the presidential campaign. The second column, which appeared in the magazine on Sept. 13, 2015, offers eight things to keep in mind about elections for the U.S. Senate, U.S. House, and governor. — The Editors The Truth About the 2016 Race The rise of Donald Trump might represent some massive sea change in American politics — but it’s far more likely he will fade long before the primary season does. Thanks to Trump, August was a blockbuster month for the political press, but most of what is happening now won’t decide who is sworn in on Jan. 20, 2017. Given the early beginning to this cycle’s presidential derby — Jeb Bush unofficially jumpstarted the race back in December 2014 — it feels like the primary season should be launching in a couple of weeks. But it’s not. As Nathan

Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik, and Geoffrey Skelley

Notes on the State of Politics

How the North Dakota gubernatorial race could decide the Senate The decision by Gov. Jack Dalrymple (R-ND) to not run for another term potentially puts a 2016 gubernatorial race in play for Democrats. But winning it might involve a trade-off that most Democrats wouldn’t make: the governorship of one of the nation’s least populous states in exchange for continued Republican control of the U.S. Senate. That’s because the strongest Democratic contender for the open governorship is Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), who was elected to the Senate in 2012. If Heitkamp runs for governor and wins, a special election will be held to fill the remaining two years of her term, a recent change enacted by the Republican-controlled state legislature designed to prevent a future Gov. Heitkamp from appointing her own Democratic successor. The special election must be held no later than 95 days from the time of a vacancy, and the seat would remain vacant in advance of the special election. In North Dakota, the new governor will be inaugurated on Dec. 15, 2016. That would probably put the special election sometime in mid-March 2017. It’s not impossible to imagine the Senate starting 50-49 either way in January 2017, with

Kyle Kondik

My Old Kentucky Home: Could Matt Bevin’s Soon Be the Governor’s Mansion?

These days, the Bluegrass State is looking a lot less blue at the federal level. In the last four presidential elections, the Democratic candidate only averaged 40.6% of the two-party vote, the party’s 10th-worst state in that time period. Four-term Sen. Wendell Ford (D) was the last Democrat to win a Senate race in Kentucky and he retired before the 1998 election. The last time the Democrats controlled a majority of the state’s seats in the House of Representatives was after the 1992 election, when they held four. Today, Rep. John Yarmuth (D, KY-3) is the state’s lone Democrat in Congress. Yet things have been far rosier for Bluegrass Democrats at the state level. Exactly one Republican has held the governorship in the last 44 years: ex-Gov. Ernie Fletcher, who lost to current Gov. Steve Beshear (D) in 2007 after one difficult, scandal-plagued term. Although the Republicans control the state senate, the Democrats surprised many observers by maintaining their hold on the state house in 2014 despite the pro-Republican environment that saw U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) easily defeat Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) that year. The 2015 gubernatorial election will test whether Kentucky Democrats

Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley

Governors 2015-2016: Republicans lose edge in Kentucky

The potential for Republicans to build on their already-gaudy collection of state governorships — they hold 31 of 50 — was rooted in their red state opportunities among the 15 states being contested this year and next year. Democrats are defending open seats in Kentucky this year, and Missouri and West Virginia next year. These are all states that Republicans now regularly win at the presidential level but where Democrats retain strength in elections for statewide executive offices. Democrats hold five of six of these executive offices in each of these three states. Still, one would think that Republicans should have a generic advantage in these states given the increasing nationalization of gubernatorial races and a natural desire for change following what will be at least eight straight years of Democratic control in each state. But there’s reason to question that generic GOP edge in all three states. In Tuesday’s Republican primary in Kentucky, businessman Matt Bevin apparently defeated Agriculture Commissioner James Comer and former Louisville Metro Councilman Hal Heiner. Bevin was the third wheel in the race for much of the contest as Comer and Heiner battled for first, but late-breaking accusations that Comer abused a former girlfriend upended

Kyle Kondik

Notes on the State of Politics

West Virginia governor: Manchin’s choice makes Republicans a narrow favorite After months of hinting that he might prefer to return home to run for a third term as governor, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) decided to stay put in the Senate. That creates an open seat in the Mountain State — Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin (D) cannot run again — and there are many potential candidates on both sides. Ultimately, West Virginia’s movement toward the GOP in recent elections suggests that the Republicans should start this race with a small edge, so we’re moving West Virginia’s gubernatorial contest from Toss-up to Leans Republican. While Democrats have suffered setbacks all over the country during President Obama’s time in office — historically, that’s a regular price a party pays for holding the White House (though it’s been particularly rough for Obama) — the party’s losses in West Virginia are amongst the worst in the country since 2009. In 2012 Obama got just 35.5% of the vote in the state — the worst performance for a Democratic presidential nominee in West Virginia since George McClellan (D) versus Abraham Lincoln (R) in 1864, which was the first election held in the new state after it

Kyle Kondik

Notes on the State of Politics

The retirement of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) last week gives Republicans something they have been lacking in the early stages of this Senate cycle: a 50-50 shot at picking up a seat currently held by a Democrat. True, Reid’s poor approval numbers meant he was going to be a target of Republicans anyway. But he’s also a proven commodity who would have had the power of incumbency. In our view, the open-seat race is now a Toss-up, as opposed to the prior rating of Leans Democratic. Democrats are only defending 10 of the 34 Senate seats that are up for election in 2016, which is a consequence of their poor performance on this map during the 2010 cycle, the last time this group of Senate seats (Class III) was contested. But of those 10 seats, three are open: In addition to Reid, Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) also have already announced their retirements. Reid’s retirement is almost certainly the most costly — we still consider both the California and Maryland seats to be Safe Democratic, a rating that so far has been vindicated by the seeming lack of interest from big-name Republicans in running for

Kyle Kondik

Are Voters Drifting Away?

For the first decade after Sept. 11, national elections showed a steady rise in voter turnout. The number of ballots cast in presidential elections jumped from 105 million in 2000 to a record 131 million in 2008, an increase of 25% in just eight years. Similarly, the midterm congressional turnout swelled from 66 million in 1998 to an all-time high of 86.5 million in 2010, a 31% increase over a dozen years. The number of ballots cast from election to election should be increasing at least a bit as the size of the voting-eligible population constantly grows. But in the last two national elections, 2012 and 2014, the upward turnout trend has been broken. The total votes cast in the 2012 presidential election were down by more than 2 million from four years earlier, while the midterm vote last fall for the House of Representatives (the only office contested in all 50 states in a midterm election) dropped by more than 8.5 million votes from 2010. It marked the first time since 1996-98 that the turnout declined in back-to-back national elections. What has happened? Surveys point to an increasingly busy and mobile society, where voting is not a high priority

Rhodes Cook

Now Available: The Surge, the Center for Politics’ New Book Analyzing the 2014 and 2016 Elections

The Surge, the University of Virginia Center for Politics’ postmortem of the 2014 midterms and preview of the 2016 presidential election, is now available. Edited by Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato and Sabato’s Crystal Ball editors Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley and published by Rowman and Littlefield, The Surge: 2014’s Big GOP Win and What It Means for the Next Presidential Election brings together some of the nation’s top political journalists and analysts to explain why and how the Republicans took the Senate and where American politics stands as the country’s polarized political parties gear up for 2016. The Surge can be purchased via Rowman and Littlefield, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other major booksellers. The contributors and their chapters are: Larry J. Sabato provides an overview of the 2014 election, including a look at historical election patterns and demographic voting trends. Long-time political expert and Crystal Ball Senior Columnist Rhodes Cook explores the 2014 primary season and how those nominating contests influenced the November results. Politico’s James Hohmann and the Crystal Ball’s Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley provide in-depth analysis of, respectively, the Senate, House, and gubernatorial races. Former Federal Election Commission chairman Michael Toner and former

UVA Center for Politics

Religion in Politics: A Look at Data from the New American Values Atlas

On Wednesday, the Public Religion Research Institute released its new American Values Atlas. It is full of information regarding the American public’s religious identity, political views on hot-button issues such as abortion and immigration, and demographic information for regions, states, and major metropolitan areas. This atlas should prove to be a highly useful resource, especially because of the incomplete state-by-state data in recent exit polls. Using this treasure trove of new data, the Crystal Ball took a look at three major religious groups in the American public: white evangelicals, the unaffiliated, and Catholics. White evangelicals and Romney It’s no secret that white evangelical Christians voted heavily for Mitt Romney in 2012, a notable fact given his Mormon faith. Many commentators had wondered if Romney’s performance among voters in this crucial GOP base group would suffer. But according to the exit poll, 78% of them backed the Republican nominee, a four-point improvement over John McCain’s performance in 2008. This is a testament to the partisan polarization that has taken deep root in the United States, almost across the board. Let’s see just how consequential this mode of identity seemed to be for the election outcomes in many states. Table 1: Percentage

Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley

Oregon Governor: Democrats Retain an Edge as Race Comes onto the Board

Just like that, there are now 12 gubernatorial races on the docket for 2016 instead of the original 11: Oregon’s now ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber (D) announced on Friday that he would resign the governorship effective Wednesday, Feb. 18. Because the Beaver State has no lieutenant governor position, the next in line is the state’s secretary of state, new Gov. Kate Brown’s (D) former position. By law, Oregon will have a special election in 2016 (the next regularly-scheduled statewide election), adding it to the list of 2016 contests. Kitzhaber’s difficulties began prior to his reelection this past November to a state-record fourth term as governor. What started with questions about his fiancée Cylvia Hayes’ odd history grew into serious concerns that she had violated ethics rules or even criminal laws by using the position of first lady for personal gain. These inquiries grew to include Kitzhaber’s own activities. On Feb. 4, the state’s largest paper, The Oregonian, ran an editorial calling on him to resign, with a thorough review of the many questionable actions taken by the couple. Then on Feb. 9, the state attorney general announced that she had opened a public corruption investigation regarding Kitzhaber and Hayes. With pressure

Geoffrey Skelley