Thirty-Six Races, Nineteen Without an Incumbent
On Tuesday, voters in 36 US states will choose a governor. That official is the most powerful elected official in state government, with veto power — the power to block a bill passed by the legislature — over everything a state legislature passes. Most of the national attention ahead of the midterm elections — the national elections held midway through a president’s four-year term — has gone to the battle for control of the United States Congress. The governor’s races sit on the same ballot, and their consequences reach well beyond the state line. A governor is the chief executive of a state, overseeing the departments and agencies responsible for delivering public services. The powers vary by state, but the core of the job does not: a governor proposes the budget, appoints senior state officials, directs agencies on how to enforce existing law and issues executive orders — binding directives that take effect without a vote in the legislature. A governor also decides whether bills passed by the legislature become law — or are vetoed.
This year the map is unusual for how many of those offices stand empty. In 19 of the 36 races, no incumbent governor — the person currently holding the office — is on the ballot seeking re-election. Some are term-limited — legally barred from standing for another term in the same office — among them California Democrat Gavin Newsom, who has served as governor since 2019 and cannot run for a third term. Others chose to step away, such as Iowa Republican Kim Reynolds. Nineteen of 36 is a little over half the field, an unusually high proportion of open seats — races in which the current officeholder is not on the ballot. Turnover on that scale gives several states the chance to vote for a significant change in leadership. An open seat is also a different kind of contest: there is no incumbent record to defend, only competing claims about what the next administration would do.
The reach of the office extends past the state border. Governors can challenge federal policies in court. They can negotiate with Washington over funding and over the requirements attached to programmes. State governments carry out much of the work of federally funded programmes, which makes cooperation between a governor and the White House a practical matter rather than a ceremonial one. The same federal law can therefore produce different results in different states, depending on who holds the governor’s office.
A Pen That Outruns the Legislature
The clearest illustration is abortion policy. In 2022 the US Supreme Court ruled that there is no constitutional right to abortion access. The decision moved the question from the federal courts to the states, and each state now regulates the procedure within its own boundaries. Some 13 state legislatures have passed complete or near-total bans. Legality is settled in state capitals rather than in Washington — and inside a state capital, the governor holds a pen that does not require a majority vote to move.
The Guttmacher Institute, a US-based reproductive rights organisation, noted that about a dozen governors have issued executive orders to mitigate the harm done by such bans. [1] The institute describes the tool plainly: “By issuing executive orders, governors could quickly declare immediate protections for providers and patients.” [1] It singles out the state where the split mattered most: “This was particularly helpful in states such as North Carolina, where the governor is supportive of abortion rights — but the legislature is not.” [1] The value of the instrument is speed: it lets a governor act where the legislature will not.
The same instrument was used for health insurance a few years later. After former president Barack Obama’s healthcare law, the Affordable Care Act, passed Congress in 2010, many governors found themselves deciding whether their states would adopt the law’s expansion of Medicaid, the joint federal–state health insurance programme for low-income households. In 2013 Steve Beshear of Kentucky and Earl Ray Tomblin of West Virginia issued executive orders adopting the expansion without their legislatures’ approval. Florida’s then-governor, Rick Scott, opposed the expansion and directed his state legislature not to adopt it. Scott later dropped his opposition, but the Republican-led Florida legislature did not take up a bill to agree to the expansion. One federal statute, three governors, and outcomes that turned on who held the office.
Governors also influence how US elections are administered. In some states the governor appoints the officials responsible for overseeing elections; in others those officials are elected independently. Governors may sign or veto legislation that changes voting rules. Where the officials are elected independently, a governor’s leverage runs through legislation instead of appointment. Either way, the office holds authority over the rules under which every other contest on the ballot is decided.
From the
Statehouse to the White House
The governor’s mansion has long served as a route to the presidency. At least 17 former US presidents were governors first, among them Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W Bush. The route is not a guarantee: the Eagleton Institute of Politics estimates that only 53 percent of presidential nominees who had previously served as governors were ultimately victorious in their races. What a candidate did in a statehouse follows them onto the national stage.
New Jersey’s Chris Christie sought the Republican nomination in 2016 while serving as governor. He dropped out in February of that year amid criticism of several actions undertaken during his governorship. His administration was still reeling from a scandal known as “Bridgegate”, which concerned accusations that a major roadway was closed to punish the mayor of a nearby city. Some Republicans also denounced the way Christie had greeted Obama, a Democrat, when the president visited New Jersey during Hurricane Sandy in October 2012. Both complaints were about governing, not about campaigning.
The 2026 midterms are expected to set the stage for the presidential election in 2028. Several outgoing governors are among the likely hopefuls. Newsom is widely speculated to be a frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, having established himself as a vocal critic of Republican President Donald Trump. Two other potential Democratic contenders are locked in re-election campaigns this cycle: Wes Moore of Maryland and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. Their state races could serve as previews of future presidential bids. For those governors, election night is two contests at once: the state race in front of them and the national audition behind it.
