The governors board
An unusually even cycle: 18 Republican-held and 18 Democratic-held mansions among the 36 on the ballot, with a large number of them open because the incumbent is termed out. Open seats behave differently from defended ones, and the model treats them that way.
These are the offices that sign or veto the maps, run the elections and staff the courts. They receive a fraction of the Senate's coverage and decide considerably more.
Net change among the twelve rated mansions only, measured against the party holding each one today. The twenty-four unrated governorships are not in this distribution.
| Mansion | 2024 | Lean | 1σ | Model — left | Desk rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
New Hampshire R held | +2.8 | +0.5 | ±7.5 | 52% | 15%(+37) |
Ohio R held · open | −11.2 | −0.8 | ±9.5 | 47% | 15%(+32) |
Florida R held · open | −13.1 | −1.7 | ±9.5 | 43% | 15%(+28) |
Iowa R held · open | −13.2 | −1.7 | ±9.5 | 43% | 35% |
Nevada R held | −3.1 | −2.2 | ±7.5 | 39% | 50%(-11) |
Kansas D held · open | −16.1 | −3.1 | ±9.5 | 38% | 35% |
Georgia R held · open | −2.2 | +3.2 | ±9.5 | 63% | 50%(+13) |
Michigan D held · open | −1.4 | +3.6 | ±9.5 | 64% | 50%(+14) |
Wisconsin D held · open | −0.9 | +3.8 | ±9.5 | 65% | 50%(+15) |
Maine D held · open | +6.9 | +7.3 | ±9.5 | 77% | 65%(+12) |
Arizona D held | −5.5 | +6.7 | ±7.5 | 79% | 65%(+14) |
Pennsylvania D held | −1.7 | +8.4 | ±7.5 | 85% | 85% |
“Model — left” is the share of 20,000 simulations in which the Democratic nominee wins. Governor probabilities sit closer to 50 than Senate ones in the same state on purpose: these offices track the presidential baseline about half as tightly.
Only contested races are modelled. A governorship omitted here is one the desk judges settled — which is itself a call, and it is on the record with the rest.
Governor's races track the presidential baseline about half as tightly as Senate races do. State offices are routinely won by the party that loses the same state federally, so a high carry-over would produce confident nonsense in exactly the states that decide this board.
The same post-war midterm penalty the Senate model applies, discounted because governorships are less nationalised. It is applied uniformly rather than tuned per state.
Larger than the Senate figure, and this is the best-evidenced asymmetry in the file: sitting governors are re-elected at a substantially higher rate than sitting senators, because voters grade an executive on potholes and storms rather than on the national argument.
The identical figure the Senate model uses, drawn once per simulation and shared across boards. One environment, two chambers and the mansions.
Considerably wider than the Senate's 5.5. Candidate quality, scandal and local record decide governorships more often than the national mood does, and the desk estimates none of those — so they are paid for honestly as variance.
Half this board is open because the incumbent is termed out. With no record on the ballot and unresolved primaries on both sides, the distribution is wider than a defended seat's.
- Only the twelve races the desk rates as live are modelled. The other twenty-four mansions are omitted rather than handed a fabricated near-certainty that would flatter the calibration score.
- Candidate quality is the dominant term in a governor's race and the model does not estimate it. It is carried as a wider error, which widens the interval instead of moving the centre.
- Michigan's live three-way risk is not modelled. A credible independent breaks the two-party assumption every probability on this board rests on, and the desk says so rather than absorbing it into noise.
- Maine runs ranked-choice generals. The model produces a two-party probability; a first-round lead there is not a result.
- No polling. When these races have a public polling record it enters as its own printed coefficient on a dated version bump.
An open mansion in the closest state in the country, with no incumbent advantage on either side.
Open, three-way risk, and a state that has swung hard in both directions since 2016.
A Republican governor in a state whose electorate is still narrowly the other way.
Wisconsin decides statewide races by a point; removing the incumbent removes the only thing that was not a coin flip.
Hobbs won by a fraction of a point and has governed against a legislature of the other party ever since.
Open, in a state where the president's party has historically bled in midterms.
Kansas elects Democratic governors when Republicans nominate badly. That is a bet on the other side's mistake, not on the state.
Open, and Maine's ranked-choice general elections rarely resolve the way the first-round polling suggests.
An open mansion, but Florida has not elected a Democrat statewide since 2018.
New Hampshire re-elects its governors almost as a habit.
Ohio's statewide baseline has moved far enough right that an open seat is not the same as a competitive one.
One of the highest-approval governors in the country seeking a second term.