Sabato: Model Suggests Democratic Gains Likely in 2018 Gubernatorial Contests

[Virginiá]

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/forecast-model-suggests-democratic-gains-likely-in-2018-gubernatorial-contests/

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Scatterplot of actual change in Republican governors by predicted change in Republican governors, 1946-2014

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Predicted change in Republican governors by different 2018 generic ballot results

[BuckeyeNut]

This is nice and all, but if there's one thing Democrats can't do, it's sit around and look at predictions and assume everything will be fine.

[GlobeSoc]

This is nice and all, but if there's one thing Democrats can't do, it's sit around and look at predictions and assume everything will be fine.

[Virginiá]

Well sure, I plan to volunteer as usual but until then, naturally we need statistics and graphs to satiate ourselves

[Anna Komnene]

This is kind of a surprising correlation for me because I always assumed gubernatorial races were more insulated from the national environment. Different legislature, different bureaucracy, different laws, different dynamics. 2018 will be an interesting test case too because several GOP governors have been very critical of Trump to try to insulate themselves. I guess if this study is accurate, it suggests that voters have always been pretty polarized.

[Virginiá]

This is kind of a surprising correlation for me because I always assumed gubernatorial races were more insulated from the national environment. Different legislature, different bureaucracy, different laws, different dynamics. 2018 will be an interesting test case too because several GOP governors have been very critical of Trump to try to insulate themselves. I guess if this study is accurate, it suggests that voters have always been pretty polarized.

That's the common idea, but when you look at charts like Mondale posted above, it really isn't borne out by actual data. The idea behind the Sabato analysis I posted was that in essence, the House generic ballot question is more than a House prediction, it's basically a barometer of people's support for a particular party at almost every level. If Republicans lose the House PV by 10 points, GOP gubernatorial candidates are going to get hit hard, regardless of how their campaigns were run. There are always exceptions, especially if the candidate has crafted a strong brand for themselves, but I don't think most governors/candidates can do that.

I'd say it's even worse for state legislative races, where the candidates are sometimes completely unknown and people pick them in large part based on incumbency and how they feel about the national party, because the national party gets the most attention and affects everyone downballot.

[Virginiá]

Wouldn't nationalizing races hurt the Democrats from making gains in red areas? GA-06 with "NANCY PELSOI" and those "SAN FRANCISCO LIBERALS" funding Ossoff seemed to be what pushed a pretty sub par candidate in Handel over the finish line.

I don't even think it's entirely about nationalizing races. Trump, and basically any unpopular incumbent GOP president is going to put a penalty on their party downballot even if they aren't mentioned, with the more unpopular the president, the bigger the penalty. But to your point, if Democrats tried to nationalize a race where Trump is popular or at least neutral, then yes it probably could backfire. So long as they only do that where the numbers say it would work, they should probably do well.

[Rjjr77]

Question is where. The democrats could, and should, gain quite a few governorships, but where is the key. If they win back all the blue state Governorships coming up but don't win a single '16 swing state is that a good sign? I could see them winning back NJ, NM, ME, IL, and that's a good haul, but if they fall short of popular R incumbents in blue and blue leaning states, and lose say FL, MI and NV is that a good day?

[Anna Komnene]

Well since I'm a qualitativist, it kinda irks me that they just talk in the aggregate and don't show where this might actually happen with case studies. So I'll make a list of Sabato's tossup and lean races so we can get a better idea of where he thinks things stand.

Current GOP
New Mexico D+3 - Lean D - Open

Florida R+2 - TOSSUP - Open
Illinois D+7 - TOSSUP - Incumbent
Maine D+3 - TOSSUP - Open
Michigan D+1 - TOSSUP - Open
Nevada D+1 - TOSSUP - Open

Iowa R+3 - Lean R - Incumbent
Kansas R+13 - Lean R - Open
Maryland D+12 - Lean R - Incumbent
Massachusetts D+12 - Lean R - Incumbent
New Hampshire Even - Lean R - Incumbent
Ohio R+3 - Lean R - Open
Wisconsin Even - Lean R - Incumbent

Current Dem
Colorado D+1 - TOSSUP - Open
Connecticut D+6 - TOSSUP - Open
Minnesota D+1 - TOSSUP - Open
Alaska (I/D) R+9 - TOSSUP - Incumbent

Pennsylvania Even - Lean D - Incumbent
Rhode Island D+10 - Lean D - Incumbent

So where do we see the Dems making 6-9 gains? On the D side, the most obvious pickup is probably Illinois, and a few others are probably favorable but not sure things like NM, NV, and ME. At the same time, the Dems are hurt by apparently ironclad incumbents in MA and MD, places where you would normally expect easy pickups. Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, and Wisconsin are all tough slogs based on recent history. Meanwhile CT (Malloy toxicity) and PA (swingy) could be tricky holds for Dems, and who knows what the heck will happen in AK if we consider that a Dem incumbent (I do). Maybe I'm a pessimist, but it doesn't look like it's going to be easy for Dems to make big gains, despite the GOP having to defend a lot of competitive states.

But I do disagree with Sabato's classification of VT as "likely R."

[Virginiá]

Question is where. The democrats could, and should, gain quite a few governorships, but where is the key. If they win back all the blue state Governorships coming up but don't win a single '16 swing state is that a good sign? I could see them winning back NJ, NM, ME, IL, and that's a good haul, but if they fall short of popular R incumbents in blue and blue leaning states, and lose say FL, MI and NV is that a good day?

What is the criteria for a good day? To me, it's all about redistricting, because that affects not only the US House by the state legislature as well. In which case, states like NM, MD, MA, VT and ME are not that important, assuming at least in the case of Maine that Democrats hold 1 legislative chamber come 2021.

The most critical states are:

Michigan
Pennsylvania (hold)
Ohio
Florida
Wisconsin
Minnesota (hold)
Illinois (redistricting for Democrats here could be pretty bad due to their geographical disadvantage, and they need to get the govs mansion to avoid what is essentially a coin flip in terms of what kind of maps they get)

Then you have ones like NM, NV, CO, AZ, but their legislatures are either very likely Democratic in one or more chamber or have a redistricting commission like AZ. Democrats have a pretty good shot at CO and NM, but I dunno about Nevada right now.

The big states I listed above are places where Democrats have a good shot, or at least a realistic one, but then you could say these as more long shots:

Georgia
Arizona
Iowa

with Georgia being the most crucial in terms of redistricting, assuming GA Republicans didn't attempt to change the process before 2021.


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From that POV, it's not so much about massive gains but gains in the right places. If Democrats swept my top list above and the southwestern states, they would be in great shape where it counts.

[_]

I had a question on Democratic Strategy in IL, is the national party trying to get someone other than Pritzker or are they leaving it to the state party?  Because if you're leaving it to the state party it's a terrible idea imo.

[Virginiá]

I had a question on Democratic Strategy in IL, is the national party trying to get someone other than Pritzker or are they leaving it to the state party?  Because if you're leaving it to the state party it's a terrible idea imo.

I think the idea is to just have Pritzker get it. Who else is there? JB has practically unlimited money, which is important against someone like Rauner, who is incredibly well-funded due to his own fortune and big donors. Plus, I believe the state party's desire was to get someone who could self-fund mostly, thus leaving other donors free to contribute to legislative candidates in order to have a shot at another supermajority, kind of as a backup in case they lose the govs office again.

I think JB is risky, and that scandal with Blagojevich could hurt, but if he wins, it'll pay off quite a bit.

[SWE]

There's like 6 Democratic governors, it'd be pretty remarkable if they weren't able to make any gains.

[_]

I had a question on Democratic Strategy in IL, is the national party trying to get someone other than Pritzker or are they leaving it to the state party?  Because if you're leaving it to the state party it's a terrible idea imo.

I think the idea is to just have Pritzker get it. Who else is there? JB has practically unlimited money, which is important against someone like Rauner, who is incredibly well-funded due to his own fortune and big donors. Plus, I believe the state party's desire was to get someone who could self-fund mostly, thus leaving other donors free to contribute to legislative candidates in order to have a shot at another supermajority, kind of as a backup in case they lose the govs office again.

I think JB is risky, and that scandal with Blagojevich could hurt, but if he wins, it'll pay off quite a bit.

It really is a risky bet, but Kennedy would probably implode and everyone else is a bit under recognized.  I doubt the state Dems can possibly reach a supermajority in the House with Madigan in power, but we'll see.  One last question, how would you rate the race with Pritzker as the nom?

[Virginiá]

One last question, how would you rate the race with Pritzker as the nom?

I really don't know. JB seems like he could have his history come back to bite him, but Rauner has to own 4 years of IL's problems, isn't popular and will be dragged down by an unfavorable national environment.

Toss-up for now seems reasonable. I'd like to see if anything sticks to JB, but if Rauner can't find anything big to hit him with, I'd probably say Leans D.

It really is a risky bet, but Kennedy would probably implode and everyone else is a bit under recognized.  I doubt the state Dems can possibly reach a supermajority in the House with Madigan in power, but we'll see.

At least on paper, there are enough plausible seats for a supermajority. Clinton won 42 state Senate seats and 76 state House seats, with a number of Obama-Trump seats that may be hard for Republicans to lock down under Trump.

Though, like I was saying, this is just basic presidential results. We'll need to see what seats open up and who the challengers are.

[PragmaticPopulist]

One last question, how would you rate the race with Pritzker as the nom?

I really don't know. JB seems like he could have his history come back to bite him, but Rauner has to own 4 years of IL's problems, isn't popular and will be dragged down by an unfavorable national environment.

Toss-up for now seems reasonable. I'd like to see if anything sticks to JB, but if Rauner can't find anything big to hit him with, I'd probably say Leans D.

I gotta agree that Pritzker is a high-risk, high-reward candidate. I could see him distancing himself from the scandal, since it wasn't really his fault that Blagojevich offered to sell him the senate seat. But that depends if the public believes it.

As for likely Dem pickups, they will almost certainly make new gains in 2018. Assuming they win NJ in 2017, the most likely I see are (in order from likeliest to least likely) NM, MI, ME, IL, FL, NV, KS, OH, MD, WI, NH, and IA. Also deserving a mention are GA, AZ, and OK, which could become competitive based on the national and/or local environments. ME might also become an easy hold for the GOP if Susan Collins decides to run.

The vulnerable Dem-held seats seem safer then some of the vulnerable R-held seats. I think MN will be the hardest to hold, followed by CT, CO, PA, and RI.

[_]

One last question, how would you rate the race with Pritzker as the nom?

I really don't know. JB seems like he could have his history come back to bite him, but Rauner has to own 4 years of IL's problems, isn't popular and will be dragged down by an unfavorable national environment.

Toss-up for now seems reasonable. I'd like to see if anything sticks to JB, but if Rauner can't find anything big to hit him with, I'd probably say Leans D.

I gotta agree that Pritzker is a high-risk, high-reward candidate. I could see him distancing himself from the scandal, since it wasn't really his fault that Blagojevich offered to sell him the senate seat. But that depends if the public believes it.

As for likely Dem pickups, they will almost certainly make new gains in 2018. Assuming they win NJ in 2017, the most likely I see are (in order from likeliest to least likely) NM, MI, ME, IL, FL, NV, KS, OH, MD, WI, NH, and IA. Also deserving a mention are GA, AZ, and OK, which could become competitive based on the national and/or local environments. ME might also become an easy hold for the GOP if Susan Collins decides to run.

The vulnerable Dem-held seats seem safer then some of the vulnerable R-held seats. I think MN will be the hardest to hold, followed by CT, CO, PA, and RI.

It's not that he was offered the senate seat, he declined that, He asked to be appointed State Treasurer, a whole other pay to play scandal that he began himself.