State & Local Government Policy, Business and Technology

2017-2018 Governors' Races: Where Power Is Most and Least Likely to Flip

Governing: It may be a bit on the early side to be handicapping the upcoming governors' races when all but two are basically two years away. But with Democrats now shut out of the White House and Congress, the large crop of gubernatorial races on tap in 2017 and 2018 has become crucial to the party’s survival as a significant player in American politics. Unsurprisingly, the Democrats have a lot of ground to make up. Currently, the GOP holds a historically wide edge of 33-16 in gubernatorial offices, with one governor -- Alaska’s Bill Walker -- an independent. The gubernatorial battleground in 2018 will be especially important because it offers Democrats the biggest potential haul of governorships in advance of the once-every-decade legislative and congressional redistricting process that will begin after the 2020 Census.

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