Decision 2026 Gubernatorial Edition Can Four Governor Races This Cycle Offer the Democrats A Path Back To National Power?

 

You have to hand it to the Democratic Party: we're consistent. Regardless whether we win or lose any election the explanation for the result will always favor the left-side. This is clear when it came to our interpretation of Barack Obama's historic 2008 victory.

The explanation that the left chose to take away was that the Democratic Party's win was based on assembling a multi-racial coalition because we had carried overwhelming majorities of the African-American vote, the women vote, the LatinX vote and what was then considered 'the gay and lesbian vote'.  Because the left has always preferred the idea of diversity in its politics – and because it has always had a contempt for the white working class -  the lesson that became canon was that the Democrats were going to be the permanent party based on our country's seemingly inevitable path towards becoming majority minority.  Therefore the Republicans were doomed and our path forward was now to only focused on making identity politics identical with political power.

This was always going to be a dangerous path to follow as it made the categorical assumption that this coalition would permanently hold together and that the GOP was just going to roll over and take it. Neither of those things happened and as we saw two years ago Trump and the Republicans managed their biggest gains in almost every major identity group in decades.

Our focus should have been the one that focused on electoral math and honestly there was a bigger lesson from both of Obama's wins we should have taken. In the 2008 election 96 of the 365 electoral votes Obama received were from the Midwest essentially mirroring Clinton's path to victory in 1992 and again in 1996. Furthermore Obama had carried Indiana, the first time any Democrat had managed that feat since LBJ's landslide in 1940 something Clinton had not managed to do in either of his wins.

This should have been the biggest news. With the exception of Illinois none of the states in the Midwest have the kind of urban or ethnic populations that have been the Democrats strong suit since the signing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. Indeed many times during the era of Democratic dominance (1932-1968) many of these states were key electoral strongholds for the GOP.  FDR had trouble carrying many of these states in his 1940 and 1944 runs for the White House and Kennedy basically split the Midwest with Nixon in 1960.  In the era since the signing of the Civil Rights Act had sent the South to the Republicans the Democrats return to power had been aided by their making inroads into the Midwest. Carter wouldn't have won in 1976 had he not carried Ohio, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

So for an African-American nominee for President to essentially sweep all of these states should have been the clearest sign that it was not diversity that was a winning formula for Democratic candidates but the neoliberal path that Clinton has mastered in his win. And it's worth noting Obama's reelection four years later happened in large part because he nearly duplicated his success in the Midwest carrying six of those seven states and losing only Indiana. It was clear what the path forward was.

But leave it to the Democrats: as always we chose to listen to our far left flank and you can see where it's taken us ever since. And sure enough the more we embraced the multi-racial flank the more it cost us the Midwest. Only the more diverse Illinois and the far left Minnesota have been consistent ever since and while its clear how necessary Wisconsin and Michigan are to any electoral victory most of the left refuses to admit why.

Some will admit that the Democrats need to win the rest of the Midwest not just Ohio but also Iowa and Missouri. What they refuse to do is give any ground to the right to do so. The path to the victory is always to the left and it's not their fault the voters in those states reject it.

But despite the fact that half of 'The Squad' – Ilhan Omar and Rashida Taib – are from Minnesota and Michigan, the path of the Justice Democrat has rarely done well for them. In addition to those two candidates the Justice Democrats ran fourteen other candidates in the Midwest and only Matt Morgan and Rob Davidson (who ran unopposed in Michigan's 1^st and 2^nd districts) and Randy Bryce in Wisconsin's 1^st won their primaries. All three went down to defeat that fall. They have rarely made an effort to compete in that area since. Morgan Harper ran in Ohio's 3^rd district in 2020 and Nina Turner would tried in Ohio 11^th in 2021. Both lost. Donovan McKinney managed a primary victory in Michigan this week.

None of this should be surprising. While there are progressive roots in some of these states the overwhelming majority of the population is basically white and rural with little inclination to that of the Sanders-Warren wing of the party. This is an area that a mix of the Rust Belt and the Farm Belt which has suffered the most from the loss of jobs that only expanded from the financial crisis. There is nothing in the Justice Democrats platform or that of the Sanders campaign that offers them a way forward and indeed many of their ideas such as the Green new deal and their positions on gun control are diametrically opposed to their values.

The left wing of the party has essentially done what it always does: it chose to dismiss them as inconsequential, part of flyover country. And as a result the Democrats have been suffering at a state and local level in many of them ever since Obama's administration was completely over. The left can afford this attitude. The Democrats do so at their peril.

If there is a way back for the Democrats at a national level the Midwest is clearly the best place to start, if only because it is a more populous region then out west and our roots there have not atrophied the way that they have in the Deep South. And while one might be able to prevail at the Congressional level in some of these states, a big step forward would be win at the gubernatorial level as well. And in one of the biggest steps forward for the party during this cycle there is a possibility that they might – emphasis on 'might' – be able to take the governor's office in four of the most critical states in that region, two of which are swing states, two of which have been under Republican control for the majority of the 21^st century. It's worth looking at the four men and women who will be running this cycle because their potential success could illustrate a path back to the electoral control for the Democrats at a national level.

In Iowa, as I've written before, Rob Sand is the Democratic nominee the current auditor of the state. He considered running against Reynolds in 2022 but opted to run for reelection and was the only Democrat elected to a statewide office in Iowa that year. In 2020 an audit conducted by Sand found that Reynolds misspent $21 million on COVID relief fund, leading them to return the money. Almost as a line of attack the legislature passed a law designed to limit the power of the Iowa state auditor which Sand claimed was done to target the only statewide Democrat left in office.

Sand is running on a policy of 'common sense reform' pointing to the declining economy of the state and the exodus of college educate students. His campaign has drawn the attention of the New York Times considering his appeal to more conservative voters by focusing on issues such as clean drinking water. And as of this writing the governorship seems to be his to lose: he is currently leading his Republican opponents Zach Lahn by an average of six points and the state is listed as Lean Democrat.

In Michigan Jocelyn Benson, the Democratic nominee for Governor, has served as Secretary of State of Michigan since 2019.  In that election she beat Republican Mary Treder Lang by nearly nine percent becoming the first Democrat to hold the office since 1995. During her tenure voters approved a constitutional amendment allowing Election Day voter registration and unrestricted absentee ballots which put her at odds with Trump's administration. She would establish and Election Security Commission and a Collegiate Student Advisory Task Force. During the 2020 election she mailed absentee voter applications to all 7.7 million registered voters in the state. That same year then President Trump particularly targeted her mailing efforts. Ever since she has been the recipient of  constant threats from election deniers.

Aside from that she has advocated for ethics reform and increased transparency in the state government. She has advocating for improvements in the election system and stricter penalties against those who harass election workers. Despite numerous threats she was reelected Secretary of State by 14 points the largest margin by any candidate in Michigan in 2022. Considered a potential contender to replace Debbie Stabenow in the Senate she announced in March of 2023 she would not enter the race. Instead in January of 2025 she announced she would run for governor and overwhelmingly won the nomination with 83 percent of the vote.

She is overwhelmingly the favorite to defeat the Republican nominee John James. In 2022. James has already twice lost as a Senate nominee in Michigan losing to Debbie Stabenow in 2018 and Gary Peters in 2020. Though both elections were closer polls show Benson with anywhere from a five to ten point lead and the state considered Safe Democrat in most polling sites. While the race for Senate in that state may be a tossup the governor's race is not.

One state where the fortunes of the Democrats were see-sawing at the gubernatorial level was Wisconsin. When socialist Francesca Hong was the front runner for the Democratic nomination within a week the state went from toss-up in most polls to Lean Republican. But the voters chose to see reason and by a narrow margin chose to make David Crowley their nominee for governor to run against Republican Tom Tiffany. Within a week of the primary the state swung back to Toss-Up.

It will be a challenging battle given the circumstance but an easier one for Crowley then for Hong. Crowley has been working in Wisconsin politics since he campaign for Russell Feingold's failed 2010 campaign for reelection. He first ran for elected office in 2016, running for a seat on the Milwaukee Common Council. He came in third in the nonpartisan primary that February. However later that month his employer Harris Dodd announced she wouldn't see reelection and in a chain of events he would run in the Democratic primary in the 17^th Assembly district, winning the primary and running unopposed in the election.

While in his second term he won run for Milwaukee County executive narrowly winning by 1026 votes in the April election. As executive he worked along Wisconsin organizations and was responsible for state funding agreement. The result was 2023 Wisconsin Act 12, which allowed the county to raise a sales tax from 0.5 percent to 0.9 percent. He signed legislation provided free legal representation to those facing eviction or foreclosure, distributing $11 million in opioid settlement funds and Milwaukee's County's Climate Action Plan.

Crowley actually began his campaign for governor the day after Tony Evers announced he wasn't seeking reelection. He very quickly raised money and was in a strong financial position. But despite that he couldn't gain support in opinion polls. On July 8^th he suspended his campaign and endorsed Lt. Governor Sara Rodriguez who won the poll. But days later Rodriguez suspended her campaign and Evers tried to get Crowley back in the race. When Mandela Barnes suspended his campaign.

Crowley is the first African-American of either party to be the nominee for governor in the state of Wisconsin. And while it was a mess he will be a great contrast to the Republican Tom Tiffany, one of the most conservative members of Wisconsin's delegation if not Congress as a whole. Early polls show Crowley with a four percent lead over Tiffany and the odds are shifting in his favor.

The candidate with the least chance of taking the governorship among these four is Amy Acton of Ohio. A physician and researcher her first position in politics was as Mike DeWine's director of the Department of Health. During 2020 Acton was an adviser to DeWine involving Covid, saying cases could peak in late April to Early May. DeWine would defer to her for questions on the virus and its spread. But because of the protestors who showed up at her home multiple state legislators and the Speaker introduced bills restricting the power of the governor and Acton. She would receive the Profile in Courage Award from Caroline Kennedy and Jack Schlossberg.

In January of 2025 she announced her candidacy for the governor's race and had raised over $5.3 million by the end of 2025. Her campaign stresses affordability and health care. Still many felt she would easily be defeated by Vivek Ramaswamy, a rising star in the Republican party who was their nominee for governor.

In large part Acton has been helped immensely by the fact that Ramaswamy, who has never run for statewide office, has very quickly become a far weaker candidate then the Republicans had thought given how much appeal he'd shown during his run for the Republican nomination three years earlier. Yet almost from the start the polls have showed the two of them practically running in a near tie with an average of less than one percent between them. Every single political site considers the race a toss-up and considering that Ohio hasn't elected a Democratic governor in 20 years that's almost a miracle. Of the four candidates her Acton faces the most uphill battle but with the President's approval numbers continuing to crater the road keeps getting more level by the day.

While there is little doubt that the RNC and the administration will label the charges of all candidates as part of 'the radical left', this will be a harder charge to land on any of them. In candidates such as Crowley it is nearly ludicrous while for Benson she will no doubt face the burden of who some of the politics of some of the candidates on the ballot with her. Some like Benson and Acton are linked to policies that have made them targets of contempt, if not hatred from the MAGA movement. But the fact is Trump's approval numbers have already hit the low thirties as of the end of August  and the parties attention will be necessity be more focused on the Senate then the governor's races.

In the case of Sand and Benson their popularity may have the affect of coattails lifting up Josh Turek and Abdul El-Sayid up in races that are currently considered toss-ups for the party in the Senate. It's possible the reverse may be true for Acton as Sherrod Brown is currently comfortably ahead of Jon Husted in the race for the Senate in Ohio. All four candidates are running in states each  with quite a few Congressional swing districts that will lead to control of the House something that will be helpful this November.

There is also the fact that in the 21^st century the Democratic Party has suffered from the fact of having qualify candidates at the governor's level. Most of the names have either been associated with the coast (Gavin Newsom, Kathy Hochul) or New England both of which bare the mark of being too liberal for much of America to take seriously. In order for the party to recover nationally in a post-Trump America it can only help to have Democrats who can win a governorship in swing or red states. There are gubernatorial candidates running elsewhere this cycle who may be able to achieve this such as Keisha Lance Bottoms in Georgia or David Jolly in Florida but having a bloc of them in the Midwest can only help our cause. Amy Klobuchar in Minnesota and JB Pritzker of Illinois are heavy favorites to win their states so any more winners that come from this region can only help make us recover nationally in 2028 and beyond.

The biggest weakness of the left-wing candidates in the last decade – whether they are progressive, DSA or pure socialist – is their inability to win elections at a statewide level. We saw this with how badly El-Sayid underperformed compared to Benson in Michigan and how Hong lost the primary to Crowley in Wisconsin and I have little doubt we'll have quite a few more examples by Election Day. The best path for the Democratic Party is going back to the center and that is just as true for these four candidates running for governor as any of those I've backed for Senate this cycle. We have to win back the center and there are few better places to do this -  quite literally – then in the Midwest with these gubernatorial races. For the sake of the party we should hope for their success.