(Headline USA) Republicans are increasingly optimistic about flipping governor’s offices in key battleground states next year, buoyed by President Joe Biden‘s sagging approval ratings, Democratic infighting in Congress and good results in elections in Virginia and New Jersey.
Democrats were already steeled for tough races, but the upset loss in Virginia’s governor’s race and a close win in deeply blue New Jersey’s confirmed the difficult conditions ahead.
In both places, the party was largely caught off guard by the potency of debates over schools and anti-white racism and struggled to stop voters once turned off by former President Donald Trump from migrating back to Republicans.
“Biden’s approval is pulling down Democrats everywhere,” said Charles Franklin, the pollster at Marquette Law School, which released a survey this week showing Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers ‘ approval rating had slid even more. “There’s no question national forces are playing a big role.”
Democratic incumbents will be playing defense in much-watched Michigan and Wisconsin, and trying to hold an open seat in Pennsylvania.
The three governorships are seen as Democrats’ best chance to slow the GOP’s ascendancy in the Rust Belt. The GOP currently holds the governor’s office in 27 states, compared with Democrats’ 23. Thirty-six are up next year nationwide.
Those races are poised to become expensive and intense contests, as voters and political parties have increasingly relied on state leaders to advance — or block — consequential policy.
Evers and Democratic Govs. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania have emerged as major national figures, credited with stymieing Republican-controlled legislatures’ efforts to free citizens from oppressive COVID-19 restrictions.
Democrats see added urgency in holding the three governorships, in part because of their role in presidential elections.
Trump and his backers last year pushed swing-state governors to name electors who would cast votes for Trump in the Electoral College.
All refused, but a new crop of more Trump-friendly governors could act differently should the next presidential race’s results be similarly disputed.
Flipping Michigan and Wisconsin and winning Pennsylvania — Wolf is term limited and can’t run again — would also likely give Republicans a boost heading into 2024 whether that year’s election’s results be ultimately challenged or not.
“Having Republican governors in key presidential battlegrounds like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan can be worth a point or two on the presidential ballot,” said Phil Cox, former executive director for the Republican Governors Association, who is advising GOP gubernatorial candidates for 2022. “Republican governors can be difference makers in 2024.”
Republican strategists say Wisconsin and Michigan are among their best pickup chances next year, along with Kansas — a normally deep-red state where Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly narrowly won a three-way 2018 race. Nevada, Maine and perhaps New Mexico could be within reach, they say.
GOP candidates across the country will likely try to energize conservative parents by denouncing schools adhering to critical race theory, which teaches that white students bear ancestral guilt and that non-whites deserve preferential treatment to atone for historical oppression.
Defending parents’ rights to push back against school districts’ efforts to teach about things like institutional racism helped Republican Glenn Youngkin win the governor’s race in Virginia, a state Biden carried by 10 percentage points just last year, and could further resonate in toss-up states.
“When you’re talking about governors, you’re talking about people who are actually in charge of what’s going to wind up in our kids’ schools,” said Rick Hess, director of education programs for the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “For senators and members of Congress, it’s a little more difficult. But this is such a gut-level, values-driven conversation, it will absolutely still motivate.”
Democrats, meanwhile, see pickup opportunities in open governorships in Maryland and in Arizona, which Biden won according to official results.
Marshall Cohen, the Democratic Governors Association’s political director, said the party is also eyeing Ohio and Texas, where former Senate and presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke is expected to challenge Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.
Both parties, meanwhile, are also focused on Georgia, which went for Biden in 2020 and elected two Democratic senators in January according to official results.
Incumbent GOP Gov. Brian Kemp faces the potential of a primary challenge from a Trump-backed Republican.
“No one knows what the environment’s going to be like in the fall of 2022,” Cohen said. “These races are not being held tomorrow.”
For now, though, Biden’s approval rating has slumped since the early months of his presidency, falling to 48% in an October AP-NORC poll from 59% in July.
That, plus the party being slow to pass its domestic agenda, may be a drag on governors’ in-state accomplishments. Congress approved a White House-backed $1 trillion infrastructure package late Friday, but it came too late to help the party during elections in Virginia and New Jersey.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press.
