New York Times: “Democrats Will Control Most Governorships, a Generational Shift”

New York Times: “Democrats Will Control Most Governorships, a Generational Shift”

New reporting from the New York Times spotlights how, after last night’s commanding victories, Democrats will control the majority of governorships, including in “deep red states where they have not held the top jobs in decades.”

The report added that DGA Chair Governor Andy Beshear “celebrated the wins as the product of years of work, chiseling away at Republicans’ longtime dominance of governors’ mansions.”

Gov. Beshear told the Times: “Tonight, we delivered a Democratic governor in every swing state from the past several elections, and we expanded the map.”

The Times notes how “Their wins were a remarkable turnaround from eight years ago, when Democrats held just 16 of the country’s 50 governorships. They steadily gained ground to hold 24 governor’s seats going into the midterm elections.” 

Read more about last night’s Democratic victories:

New York Times: Democrats Will Control Most Governorships, a Generational Shift

• A string of stunning Democratic upsets in governors races across the country will put Democrats in charge of deep-red states where they have not held the top jobs in decades.

• Democrats flipped five governors’ seats, all in states that President Trump won in 2024, sometimes by double digits. The victories gave them a total of 29 governorships and control of a majority of American governorships for the first time in a generation.

• Their wins could expand the state-level resistance to Mr. Trump’s policies on tariffs and immigration, while also putting new Democratic-run states into play as potential swing states in the 2028 presidential election.

• Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, celebrated the wins as the product of years of work, chiseling away at Republicans’ longtime dominance of governors’ mansions.

• “Tonight, we delivered a Democratic governor in every swing state from the past several elections, and we expanded the map,” Mr. Beshear said in an interview on Tuesday. “There will be some 2028 candidates who can compete in a place like Iowa or Ohio.”

• Mr. Beshear said the Democrats won with campaigns that were “laser focused on the lives of our people, and not just fealty to Donald Trump.”

• In Texas, Gina Hinojosa unseated Gov. Greg Abbott to become the state’s first Latina governor as well as its first Democratic governor in more than 30 years. She has criticized Mr. Trump’s moves to expand the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and could become a new opponent to his immigration enforcement efforts in a state with one of the largest Latino populations.

• Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, flipped a Republican-held governor’s seat in Georgia, to become the country’s first Black woman governor and Georgia’s first Democratic leader since 2003.

• In the Midwest, Amy Acton was elected Ohio’s first Democratic governor in 20 years after a bruising, bitterly personal campaign, and Rob Sand became the first Democrat Iowa has elected since 2006.

• Voters in the swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin also elected new Democrats to replace their outgoing Democratic governors.

• Their wins were a remarkable turnaround from eight years ago, when Democrats held just 16 of the country’s 50 governorships. They steadily gained ground to hold 24 governor’s seats going into the midterm elections.

• After Tuesday’s elections, about 75 percent of Americans will live in a state with a Democratic governor, according to the Democratic Governors Association.

• No Republicans flipped a Democratic-held governor’s seat this year.

• But nearly everywhere else, Democrats won by tapping into national anger over high prices, the war in Iran and Mr. Trump, in general.

• Mr. Sand, who flipped a governor’s seat in Iowa, focused on cancer rates in farm country. Ms. Lance Bottoms highlighted the erosion of Black voting rights in Georgia. Ms. Hinojosa campaigned on the proliferation of data centers in Texas.

• In Nevada, the state’s Democratic attorney general, Aaron Ford, campaigned on worries over a slowdown in Las Vegas’s tourism economy to unseat the incumbent Republican governor, Joe Lombardo.

• But fundamentally, they all tapped into a pervasive feeling among voters that Americans’ lives were getting worse and that leaders in Washington and state capitols were not listening.

• Still, the Democratic governors will be able to reshape their states by appointing their own agency heads, signing executive orders and vetoing Republican bills they don’t like.

• They may also be a new barrier to any Republican efforts to redraw legislative districts ahead of the next presidential election.

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