U.S. midterm elections: Governor races to watch

By Julia Harte and Daniel Trotta

(Reuters) – Thirty-six of the 50 states are electing governors in Tuesday’s U.S. midterm elections. Though the races typically get less attention than the battle for control of Congress, they carry high stakes for issues such as abortion access, transgender rights, guns and future elections in those states.

Results from the most consequential gubernatorial races started to trickle in as polls closed on Tuesday:

FLORIDA

Republican Governor Ron DeSantis won a second term in Florida by defeating Democratic challenger Charlie Crist in what was widely seen as a precursor to a DeSantis presidential run in 2024.

DeSantis has been at the forefront of a number of the country’s partisan fights, bucking COVID-19 restrictions while backing a law limiting discussion of LGBTQ issues in schools.

Crist is a former Republican governor who switched parties and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Democrat. He tried to appeal to moderate Republicans in a onetime political swing state that has tilted further to the right in recent years.

    ARIZONA

    Widely seen as one of the closest gubernatorial races in the country, the contest for Arizona’s open governorship pits Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, against former news anchor Kari Lake, a Republican. Several recent polls show Lake leading Hobbs by a small margin.

    Hobbs rose to national prominence in 2020 when she defended Arizona’s election results against former President Donald Trump’s false claims of fraud. Lake, who received Trump’s endorsement, has embraced those claims and vowed to ban mail-in voting if she wins.

GEORGIA

Republican Governor Brian Kemp faces Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams in a rematch of the state’s close 2018 gubernatorial election. If elected, Abrams would be the first Black woman to serve as governor in the United States.

Her voter registration efforts are credited with helping President Joe Biden win Georgia in 2020 and two Democrats capture the state’s U.S. Senate seats in 2021. Polls show Kemp leading in the current race, after he leveraged his incumbency to campaign on lifting pandemic restrictions and using a budget surplus to give teachers a $5,000 raise.

KANSAS

Democratic Governor Laura Kelly is being challenged by Republican Derek Schmidt for the only governorship Democrats are defending in a state won by Trump in 2020. She is seen as one of the most vulnerable Democratic governors this year.

Kelly has run on funding education and transportation infrastructure. Schmidt, the state’s attorney general who was endorsed by Trump, has tried to link Kelly to Biden on issues such as inflation and transgender rights. Kelly could be helped by independent candidate Dennis Pyle, who is expected to take some of the conservative vote in the toss-up race.

MAINE

    Recent opinion polls show Maine Governor Janet Mills, a Democrat, leading her Republican opponent, Paul LePage, who served as governor of the state from 2011 to 2019.

    LePage faced criticism during his time in office for making racist and violent comments that led some state lawmakers to question his fitness to serve. In 2017, he sued Mills, then the state’s attorney general, for joining a legal brief opposing Trump’s executive order to ban immigration from a half-dozen majority Muslim countries.

    MICHIGAN

    Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer has made protecting abortion access in Michigan a central theme of her re-election campaign. Her Republican opponent, Trump-backed conservative commentator Tudor Dixon, supports a near-total ban on abortion, including for child victims of rape and incest.

    A win by Dixon would mean total control of the state government by Republicans, who already have the majority of both legislative chambers. Whitmer’s lead over Dixon has shrunk from double digits to a much slimmer margin, with some recent polls showing her only 1 or 2 percentage points ahead.

NEVADA

Incumbent Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, has emphasized the protection of legal abortion in his campaign for a second term, in addition to issues such as education, expanding child care and affordable housing.

Polls show him in a close race with Republican Joe Lombardo, the Clark County sheriff and a former U.S. Army soldier who has run on supporting law enforcement and cutting public spending.

Although Trump endorsed him, Lombardo has sought to distance himself from the former president, accepting the 2020 elections results as legitimate. When asked in a debate whether Trump was a great president, Lombardo responded, “I wouldn’t use that adjective.”

NEW MEXICO

Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, is running in a competitive race against Republican Mark Ronchetti, a former television weatherman. Lujan Grisham has emphasized abortion rights, directing $10 million in state money to build an abortion clinic near the Texas border.

Ronchetti supports banning abortion after the 15th week of pregnancy. He has campaigned largely on crime, while also criticizing the governor over the economy and her response to wildfires.

NEW YORK

    Democratic New York Governor Kathy Hochul is fighting to defend her seat against Republican challenger Lee Zeldin, a congressman from Long Island, in a race that has tightened.

    Hochul, the state’s former lieutenant governor who took office last year after Governor Andrew Cuomo resigned over sexual harassment accusations, has touted gun laws she has signed, attacked Zeldin’s ties to Trump and warned that Zeldin would roll back abortion rights in New York if elected.

Zeldin has declared New York to be “in crisis,” citing crime, the economy and other issues, while ramping up criticism of Hochul’s policies.

OREGON

A close three-way race could see Oregon’s governorship go to a Republican for the first time since 1982. Democrat Tina Kotek is squaring off against Republican Christine Drazan and a strong independent candidate, Betsy Johnson.

Kotek has run hard on gun violence prevention, while Johnson has emphasized supporting police and gun rights. Drazan has campaigned on public safety and order in a state that experienced sometimes-violent protests over racial equality and police brutality in 2020 and 2021, saying either of her opponents would represent a third term for Democratic Governor Kate Brown, who could not run again because of term limits.

PENNSYLVANIA

    Pennsylvania’s race pits Democratic attorney general, Josh Shapiro, against Republican state Senator Doug Mastriano, who has echoed Trump’s false claims of voter fraud and was present at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to protest the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

    Shapiro has maintained a strong lead in opinion polls and fundraising. The winner of the open governor’s race will choose the state’s top elections official, who will oversee its 2024 presidential election, and will have the power to block or advance efforts by the Republican-led state legislature to severely restrict abortions.  

    TEXAS

    Polls suggest Republican incumbent Greg Abbott has a solid hold on the Texas governorship, despite a lively campaign by his Democratic opponent, former U.S. congressman Beto O’Rourke.

    Known for his online fundraising prowess and fiery rhetoric, O’Rourke publicly heckled Abbott about not doing more to tighten gun regulations in the aftermath of the Uvalde school shooting in May.

    WISCONSIN

    Polls for months have shown a neck-and-neck governor’s race in Wisconsin. Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, is defending his seat from Republican construction magnate Tim Michels. Michels has falsely claimed that Trump won the 2020 election and has promised, if elected, to enforce a 19th-century abortion ban that Evers is challenging in court.

    Michels’ personal wealth and endorsement from Trump helped him prevail over more establishment Republican candidates in the state’s August primary.

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