Governors 2017-2018: The Democrats’ Complicated Path to Big Gains

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Governors 2017-2018: The Democrats’ Complicated Path to Big Gains
A Commentary By Kyle Kondik
in Political Commentary
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Thursday, August 17, 2017

A couple of weeks ago, Crystal Ball senior columnist Alan Abramowitz unveiled a model for predicting party change in next year’s gubernatorial elections. The results were rosy for Democrats: The model suggested Democrats should gain somewhere between six to nine governorships depending on the Democratic lead in House generic ballot polling. The Democratic advantage is in large part simply because: 1.) There is a Republican in the White House, and the presidential party often loses ground in midterm elections up and down the ballot; and 2.) Republicans are defending 26 of the 36 governorships up for election next year, meaning that they have a lot of ground to defend while the Democrats have relatively little.

The model does not take into account two other factors, both of which are also positive for Democrats. President Donald Trump is unpopular, and many of the governorships the Republicans are defending next year are open seats, which inherently are harder to defend. Of the 36 governorships up next year, Republicans will be defending 12 open governorships and an additional four (Alabama, Iowa, Kansas, and South Carolina) where successor incumbents who took over for departed or soon-to-be departing governors likely will be on the ballot next year seeking election to full terms. As the Crystal Ball ’s Geoffrey Skelley found recently, these successor incumbents historically do not have as much of an incumbency advantage as their elected counterparts. So one could say the Republicans are defending 16 open seats, while the Democrats are only defending four.



Continued: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_kyle_kondik/governors_2017_2018_the_democrats_complicated_path_to_big_gains

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