Governor Races

In the 2014 US Gubernatorial elections 36 seats are up for election, with 12 races being clear blowouts, 8 being relatively close races, although still races with clear advantages, and 18 races being toss-ups. Realclearpolitics.com’s aggregation of point spreads were used as a basis to determine how close races were, as we determined that a race separated by less than 10 points was a toss-up, a race separated by 10-15 points was a close race, and a race separated by 20 points and above was a blowout.  With the majority of races being close enough to fall either way come Election Day, predictions came from trends in statewide voting, trends in turn out, and individual candidate issues, such as recent debate results, money spent, and incumbency advantages. Because of the sheer number of races that are so close, we will only be examining the races that are even closer than the rest of the toss-ups, typically races that are polled to have less than 5 points separating competitors. Our full list of predictions is listed in the table below, but the races we will dissect more closely are the races taking place in Alaska, Colorado, Kansas, Maine, and Massachusetts.

2014 Governor Races	Toss Up	Close	Blow Out	Predicted Winner
Alaska (Parnell vs. Walker)	X			Bill Walker (I)
Texas  (Abbott vs. Davis)		X		Greg Abbott (R)
Iowa (Branstad vs. Hatch)			X	Terry Branstad (D)
Arkansas (Pryor vs. Cotton)		X		Tom Cotton (R)
New Mexico (Martinez vs. King)		X		Susana Martinez(R)
Vermont (Milne vs. Shumlin)		X		Peter Shumlin (D)
Nebraska (Ricketts vs. Hassebrook)			X	Pete Ricketts (R)
Pennsylvania (Corbett vs. Wolf)		X		Tom Wolf (D)
Arizona (Ducey vs. Duval)	X			Doug Ducey (R)
Oregon (Kitzhaber vs. Richardson)	X			John Kitzhaber (D)
South Carolina (Haley vs. Sheheen)		X		Nikki Haley (R)
South Dakota (Daugaard vs. Wismer)			X	Dennis Daugaard (R)
Idaho (Otter vs. Balukoff)			X	Butch Otter (R)
Minnesota (Dayton vs. Johnson)	X			Mike Dayton (D)
Hawaii (Ige vs. Aiona vs. Hannemann)	X			David Ige (D)
Kansas (Brownback vs. Davis)	X			Paul Davis (D)
California (Brown vs. Kashkari)			X	Jerry Brown (D)
Colorado (Hickenlooper vs. Beauprez)	X			John Hickenlooper (D)
Oklahoma (Fallin vs. Dorman)			X	Mary Fallin (R)
Wyoming (Mead vs Gosar)			X	Matt Mead (R)
Maine (LePage vs. Michaud vs. Cutler)	X			Paul LePage (R)
Massachusetts (Baker vs. Coakley)	X			Martha Coakley (D)
Rhode Island (Fung vs. Raimondo)	X			Gina Raimondo(D)
Alabama (Bentley vs. Griffith)			X	Parker Griffith (R)
Tennessee (Haslam vs. Brown)			X	Bill Haslam (R)
Connecticut (Foley vs. Malloy)	X			Tom Foley (R)
Wisconsin (Walker vs. Burke)	X			Scott Walker (R)
Ohio (Kasich vs. FitzGerald)			X	John Kasich (R)
New Hampshire (Havenstein vs. Hassan)	X			Maggie Hassan (D)
Michigan (Snyder vs Schauer)	X			Mark Schauer (D)
Illinois (Rauner vs. Quinn)	X			Pat Quinn (D)
New York (Astorino vs. Cuomo)			X	Andrew Cuomo (D)
Florida (Scott vs. Crist)	X			Rick Scott (R)
Georgia (Deal vs. Carter vs. Hunt)	X			Nathan Deal (R)
Maryland (Hogan vs. Brown)	X			Anthony Brown (D)
Nevada (Sandoval vs. Goodman)			X	Anthony Sandoval (R)

Alaska’s Gubernatorial race is particularly interesting because incumbent Republican Sean Parnell, the Lieutenant Governor after Sarah Palin left office is in a toss up with Independent Bill Walker. Polls have pegged Walker anywhere from 9 points ahead to 3 points behind. Walker has waged a strong campaign, and he will be buoyed by the fact that Alaska’s voting history has never precluded independents from victory. Also, due to initially poor results, the Democrat running, Byron Mallot merged his campaign with Walker’s, giving Walker an Independent ticket with Democratic endorsement. Alaska’s history with Independents, coupled with the Democrats coming on board, will lead to a victory for Bill Walker.

Colorado on the other hand, is left with a more traditional race. Incumbent John Hickenlooper and competitor Bob Beauprez are ingrained in a nail biter; neither has surrendered any lead so to speak of, and the polls have shown two ties and conflicting margins for both candidates. The fact that this is just Hickenlooper’s second term is a boon for him. Both have had problems in the past, and, with neither pulling away, the race still seems to be in favor of Hickenlooper, if only because he has the name recognition value of being the incumbent, and the fact that those in Colorado seem to want to see what he can do with another term.

Kansas’ race shows a race between Sam Brownback and Paul Davis. Incumbent Sam Brownback has faced a rocky term as Governor to this point, and the polls reflect that, as Democrat Paul Davis has pulled to within striking distance of Brownback. The polls have swayed negligibly between both candidates, and on virtue of the fact that Davis has taken the most recent advantage and Kansas voters appear to be tired of their incumbent, this toss up should fall the Democrats way.

In Maine, LePage and Michaud are neck in neck with a 1.2 point spread.  LePage’s favorability and job approval ratings have improved, and his Republican support is locked in. Meanwhile, Michaud’s support among Democrats has declined 10 percent. It is all going to come down to voter turnout, and a recent poll by Portland Press Herald shows that LePage has a great chance to win this election. The poll found that 50 percent of voters, including 20 percent of Michaud’s supporters and 31 percent of Democrats now think LePage is going to win Nov. 4, compared to just 34 percent for Michaud.

Walker and Burke are neck in neck with Walker leading by a 0.2 point spread and is a toss up in Wisconsin’s Gubernatorial Election. Walker has generally led in the polls, but Burke has hung tough. The shift in support toward Walker seen in the latest couple days was largely due to more Republicans indicating they planned to vote — 92 percent compared to 82 percent two weeks ago. Meanwhile, the portion of Democrats planning to vote was stagnant, going from 80 percent to just 82 percent. With such an increase in the Republicans that plan to vote is going to give Walker the push he needs to win this election.

               Ultimately, it will be the toss-ups that will determine which way the balance of power between the US Governors falls. As of now, the Republicans have the lead in terms of Governors, and it appears that trend will continue come November 5^th, with incumbent Republicans closing in on taking control not only in the close races, but also winning the blowouts, and as such we anticipate a Republican controlled Election Day.