WASHINGTON, April 1 (UPI) -- Voters in 36 states go to the polls this November to choose governors. The races, highly competitive in many instances, are seen as a key indicator of partisan strength.
The 1994 GOP landslide led to Republican control of close to three quarters of the nation's governorships. Analysts debated whether this outcome proved the 1994 win was national in nature, evidence the country was shifting to the right.
Voters routinely return to office governors who seek re-election. Statewide races are very expensive, making it difficult for challengers to compete effectively. Governors are able to command the attention of the press in a manner second only to the president of the United States, making press coverage tough for challengers to attract.
In 1998, when these states last chose their chief executives, Democrats won a slim majority of the races, narrowing slightly the gap with the GOP, which maintains a commanding lead in the number of governorships it controls -- 27 Republicans, 21 Democrats (following wins in New Jersey and Virginia in 2001) and two independents.
The outcome of this year's elections is much more unpredictable.
The partisan split among governors is roughly 2 to 1 in the states holding elections. There are 23 states with Republican governors, 13 with Democrats. In 19 out of the 36, the incumbent governor is not seeking re-election.
Just under eight months away from election day, seven GOP-held states are likely non-competitive: Idaho, Nevada, Colorado, Nebraska, Arkansas, Ohio and Connecticut. Only Iowa is in similar shape for the Democrats.
Another 16 states could have a competitive race but will likely not. These include Republican states where President George W. Bush ran strong but the governor is leaving office, like Wyoming, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Kansas -- and Democrat states where former Vice President Al Gore ran strong and the governor's mansion will have a new occupant next year, like Oregon and Hawaii.
Texas and Wisconsin also are in this category because the incumbent was not elected to the position, having ascended to the job through the resignation of his predecessor.
In New York, two-term GOP Gov. George Pataki looks to be on his way to re-election. A nasty primary fight between State Comptroller Carl McCall and former U.S Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo, the son of former three-term Gov. Mario Cuomo, probably will keep the Democrats from pulling together in time to win in November, but they still will make the race competitive.
Rhode Island, Maine, New Mexico, Hawaii and Vermont are all open seats but the Democrats are so strong there as to make a GOP victory unlikely.
Then there are the "maybe" states as in "Maybe, if everything goes right for our side and our opponent stumbles badly. ..."
In Florida, Democrats hope the lingering partisan feelings over the November 2000 long count will damage the re-election efforts of the president's brother in a state that has never granted a Republican governor a second term. Many Georgia Republicans hope state legislator Sonny Perdue, the current GOP front-runner and a former Democrat, will give incumbent Gov. Ray Barnes a strong race, if for no other reason then to keep him out of the 2004 presidential contest. Perdue represents a district in south Georgia while Barnes hails from the Atlanta suburbs, making the race a rural-urban contest in a state Bush carried with 55 percent of the vote.
Maryland also fits into this category. The Democrat front-runner, Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, polls under 50 percent -- a possible indicator of trouble -- and the GOP has recruited Rep. Bob Ehrlich, R-Md., as their candidate. As the Republicans learned in the voter fraud-tainted 1994 election, a Democrat can win here by running up the numbers in three places, Baltimore city and Prince George's and Montgomery counties, while losing everywhere else.
Most of the action will be found in the 13 states that can either be classified as toss ups or where it is at the moment more likely than not that control of the governorship will flip to the opposition party.
These states are: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Tennessee.
Bush carried seven of these states in 2002; Gore carried five. In six -- Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Tennessee -- the winning presidential candidate polled 51 percent of the vote or less. California went for Gore by a seemingly decisive 53 to 42 percent -- with Green Party candidate Ralph Nader at 4 percent and "Others" at 1 percent. Bush carried three of the states by more than 55 percent of the vote: Alabama, Alaska, and South Carolina, while Gore carried two: Illinois and Massachusetts.
This is the battleground over which the control of the nation's governorships will be fought. As chief executives and, taken together, as lobbyists for state interests in Washington, governors possess enormous political policy-making power. The stakes are high and these campaigns will likely be expensive, energetic and, at times, nasty. The leadership of each party understands that occupying the governor's mansion is a key mechanism of control in the American political system.
(In Part 2: The hottest races)
