2018 election analysis: Partisan balance of governors

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2018 State Election Analysis
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Updated 5:50pm EST, November 16, 2018

This content is part of Ballotpedia's analysis of the 2018 midterm elections. For comprehensive election results, click here.

On Election Day 2018, 36 states held elections for governor, with Republicans holding 26 of them before the election, Democrats holding nine, and one—Alaska Gov. Bill Walker (Alaska)—held by an independent. Democrats flipped seven of the 26 GOP-held seats.

Heading into the election, 33 of the 50 governorships were held by Republicans and 16 by Democrats, plus Alaska’s independent. The 2018 results increased the total number of Democratic governors to 23 and reduced the GOP total to 27.

The new gubernatorial count most closely resembles the landscape after the 2010 election. The last time the Democratic Party had more than 20 governorships was in 2010, when they held 26 heading into that cycle. Republicans entered 2010 with 23 governorships and emerged with 29 following that midterm election.

Incumbents were seeking re-election in 10 of the 36 races contested in 2018, six of them Republicans and four Democrats.

All four Democratic incumbents won their races: New York (Andrew Cuomo), Oregon (Kate Brown), Pennsylvania (Tom Wolf), and Rhode Island (Gina Raimondo).

Republican incumbents won in Arizona (Doug Ducey), Iowa (Kim Reynolds), Nebraska (Pete Ricketts), and New Hampshire (Chris Sununu).

Two Republican incumbents lost:

In five other races without incumbents running, seats held by Republicans were taken by Democrats:

In the Alaska governor’s race, former state Sen. Mike Dunleavy (R) defeated former U.S. Sen. Mark Begich (D). Incumbent Gov. Bill Walker (I) suspended his re-election campaign on October 19, 2018, saying in a statement, "In the time remaining, I believe we cannot win a three-way race,” leaving the seat open for the two major-party candidates.

The first of the maps below shows the results of the 2018 gubernatorial elections. The second shows the total gubernatorial partisan affiliations following the 2018 elections.


See also

Footnotes