WASHINGTON, April 1 (UPI) -- Of the 36 states where governors are being elected in 2002, the most competitive races likely will be in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Tennessee.
Seven of these states went for Bush-Cheney; five went for Gore-Lieberman. They all are presidential target states. In six of them, the winning presidential campaign polled 51 percent of the vote or less.
President George W. Bush carried three -- Alabama, Alaska and South Carolina -- by better than 55 percent of the vote. Al Gore carried Illinois and Massachusetts by similar margins.
California, the great prize of American politics, voted for Gore 53 to 42 percent -- with Green Party candidate Ralph Nader at 4 percent and "Others" at 1 percent.
These campaigns for governor will be among the fiercest in the country. In some cases, it is because the partisan divide, as expressed by the presidential vote, is reasonably close and the incumbent governor is not seeking re-election.
In others, it is because the party that carried the state for president by a decisive margin in November 2000 is not the governor's. In a few, each national party wants to claim the bragging rights a victory would give them.
The first state, Alabama, finds weak and scandal-tainted Democrat Gov. Don Siegelman in a tough fight for re-election. His potential general election opponents include GOP Lt. Gov. Steve Windom, U.S. Rep. Bob Riley, and Tim James, son of former Gov. Fob James who Siegelman defeated in 1998.
In Alaska, GOP U.S. Sen. Frank Murkowski wants to follow term-limited Democrat Tony Knowles into the governor's mansion. He should have little difficulty winning the primary or the general election, having been elected to the Senate four times since 1980. The Bush administration proposal to allow limited oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will be an important issue in this campaign.
A messy primary contest on the GOP side in Arizona, pitting "McCainiac's" against regular Republicans who support Bush, creates an environment where state Attorney General Janet Napolitano, U.S. Attorney under Bill Clinton, gives Democrats the best shot they have had at winning the governorship since 1982.
California is a tantalizing prospect for the GOP. Incumbent Democrat Gov. Gray Davis has a lackluster approval rating and has been handicapped by a tax increase and the state's power crisis. The Republican nominee, businessman Bill Simon, has never held public office and is generally regarded as the upset winner of the gubernatorial primary.
If Simon can seize control of the agenda, which, given his multi-million dollar personal fortune is not as big an "if" as it might otherwise be, the race should be competitive. The outcome probably will turn on voters deciding which of the two men they dislike the least.
Democrats are very high on Illinois, seeing 2002 as the best chance they have had to win the governorship since 1976. Uniformly behind Chicago-area U.S. Rep. Rod Blagojevich, they are likely enjoying the failure of the GOP to close ranks behind Attorney General Jim Ryan after the primary.
Ryan must find a way to distance himself from Gov. George Ryan, also a Republican but no relation, who did not seek re-election since a scandal drove his numbers into the cellar, where they have remained for most of his term. It is a tall order.
The Democrats still must decide on a candidate in Massachusetts, a strong Gore state in which the incumbent chief executive, Acting Gov. Jane Swift, dropped out of the race after polling showed her losing the Republican primary to former U.S. Senate candidate Mitt Romney. The state has voted Republican for governor in each of the past three contests and, though it is unlikely based on the party registration numbers, Romney's money and a lack of post-primary harmony among Democrats may keep the GOP streak alive.
Michigan, which had appeared to be moving into the GOP column prior to the 2000 election, now looks ready to admit a Democrat to the governor's mansion. Attorney General Janet Granholm leads the field in primary and general election surveys. Incumbent Lt. Gov. Dick Posthumus, who would like to follow retiring GOP Gov. John Engler into the state's top job, falls behind Granholm in a recent survey by a 2 to 1 margin.
The victory of former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura in a three-way gubernatorial contest turned Minnesota politics on its ear four years ago. Running on the Reform Party line with decidedly populist overtones to his campaign, his candidacy caused a surge in voter turnout in his state while it was depressed around the rest of the country.
Ventura won the race with 37 percent of the vote. Republican Norm Coleman, who is now running for U.S. Senate against incumbent Democrat Sen. Paul Wellstone, finished second with 34 percent and state Attorney General Hubert "Skip" Humphrey III, son of the former vice president, came in last with 28 percent.
Until Ventura decides whether he will seek re-election, creating another three-way race, any attempt to project the outcome is an exercise in futility. However, his approval rating has been declining over the past few months.
New Hampshire was once a solidly Republican state. Current Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, first elected in 1996 on Bill Clinton's re-election coattails, broke the Republican lock on the governorship. Now Shaheen is leaving office to make a bid for U.S. Senate and there are several potential candidates in both parties bidding for the chance to succeed her. Without an incumbent in the race, with major tax questions on the table, the New Hampshire governor's race will be a bloody battle.
Republicans in Pennsylvania have cleared the field for State Attorney General Mike Fisher as he tries to become the state's third consecutive GOP governor. Democrats are in the middle of yet another nasty primary fight, this time between Auditor General Bob Casey, who has been endorsed by the Pennsylvania State Democratic Committee, and Ed Rendell, the former mayor of Philadelphia who served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee during part of the Clinton administration.
Pennsylvania is one state where the abortion issue is a problem for the Democrats rather than the Republicans. Rendell supports abortion rights while Casey, whose father served two terms as governor, opposes them. This coalition split could send many reliably Democrat voters over to Fisher should Rendell become the nominee.
South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges, a Democrat, was first elected in a "maybe" race in 1998. His opponent, incumbent Republican Gov. David Beasley, made several significant policy missteps during his term in office, including a flip-flop on the issue of the Confederate battle flag, that left everyone unhappy. Beasley also was forced to publicly deny an affair with a staffer and a hastily convened news conference where he, the staffer, and their respective spouses faced the press.
Financially, proponents of video poker who were trying to bring their machines into the state undermined the governor while Hodges benefited from their support.
In 2002, the GOP has an embarrassment of riches among its potential candidates including former U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford, Lt. Gov. Bob Peeler, Secretary of State Jim Miles and Attorney General Charlie Condon. If no one is nominated outright in the June primary, the nominee will be chosen in a run-off a little more than a week later. Given that Bush won South Carolina 58 to 40 percent, Hodges probably will have a tough time winning re-election.
Even though he cannot seek re-election because of term limits, outgoing GOP Gov. Don Sundquist of Tennessee probably still will be the central issue in the race. The reason is his continuing efforts to push a state income tax through the legislature. Leading the pack of Republicans looking to follow Sundquist into office are U.S. Rep. Van Hilleary and former state legislative leader Jim Henry. The Democrats also have a competitive primary, though former Nashville Mayor Phil Bredensen appears to have the edge. In any event, the push for a state income tax likely will dominate the debate in the general election.
In any election cycle, there always are competitive races that fizzle early and long shots that come out of nowhere to make a real horse race. Any predictions, especially those almost eight months away from Election Day, are made on rapidly shifting sand. Nevertheless, the 2002 gubernatorial contests should not disappoint veteran political junkies as both parties will be looking for leading indicators that will tell everyone something about the upcoming 2004 presidential contest.
*** This is the second of a two-part piece on the 2002 gubernatorial elections.
