High stakes in governors' races

By many indicators, Democrat Jennifer Granholm should be heading for certain defeat in her reelection race as Michigan's governor. State unemployment is at 7.1 percent, well above the nation's 4.7 percent. Sixty percent of Michigan voters give Governor Granholm a negative job rating. And her Republican opponent, multimillionaire Dick DeVos, can spend freely – and has – to try to unseat her.

For sure, Granholm is in a tough race; she's probably the most embattled Democratic governor in the country. But in a year when Republican candidates nationally are laboring under an unpopular President Bush, an unpopular Iraq war, and negative perceptions about the national economy, even Granholm might survive. The latest polls show her either ahead or in a statistical dead heat against Mr. DeVos.

Overall, the Democratic Party may well emerge from the November elections with a majority of governors' seats for the first time since 1994.

The Republicans are "going to lose governors' seats, there's no question," says Jennifer Duffy, an expert on gubernatorial races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. She predicts a net Democratic gain of four to six seats.

Currently, the GOP majority in governors' mansions stands at 28 to Democrats' 22, but the Republican Party is defending far more seats this fall than are the Democrats. Of the 36 seats on the ballot, 22 are held by Republicans and 14 by Democrats. Among the 10 incumbents vacating their seats, nine are Republicans, including Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski, who lost in a rare primary defeat for a sitting governor.

Unlike in the House and Senate, winning a majority of governors' seats holds mainly symbolic importance. But it is still in each party's interest to control as many governorships as possible. Governors' mansions are the training ground of future presidents. (Four of the past five presidents were ex-governors.) Governors who aren't running for president can lend the support of their local political infrastructure to politicians from their party who are.

In the event of a disputed result in a key state, as happened in the past two presidential elections, having friendly statewide elected officials is a bonus.

Governors can also turn their states into laboratories for policy innovations with potential national applications.

New York is the Democrats' top takeover opportunity, with state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer running far ahead of former state Assembly minority leader John Faso to replace GOP Gov. George Pataki.

The Democrats' next best takeover hope is Ohio, where the state's retiring Republican governor, Bob Taft, has been mired in scandal and has at times posted single-digit job approvals. Nonpartisan political handicappers (Cook Political Report, Rothenberg Political Report, and CQPolitics.com) give the edge to Democrat Rep. Ted Strickland, despite the state's close partisan divide, as the beneficiary of a voter desire for change.

Beyond those two, analysts are less in accord, though they all list more Republican-held than Democratic-held seats as "potential takeovers."

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