Governor’s Races and the Republican Realignment
By John Hood
In an earlier NRO piece, I listed 14 states with important state-legislature campaigns to watch in 2006. The places where the two lists overlap — Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, and Oregon — thus represent key battlegrounds where the future of state-level public-policy initiatives such as fiscal restraint and school choice, and the fate of the Republican realignment of the past two decades, may well be decided. Right now, most left-of-center analysts of these races seem ebullient, while most right-of-center analysts either put on a brave face or change the subject. That’s telling. My guess is that incumbents of both parties will tumble, but the net result will be enough Democratic gains to erase the six-state GOP majority, if not flip it over.
The usual hedging statement is required at this point: lots of things could happen between now and November, including national and international events that either accelerate or arrest the overall Democratic momentum. Still, it wasn’t that long ago that some dreamed about a 2006 election cycle of improbable events such as two black conservatives winning governorships in Ohio and Pennsylvania, or Barry Goldwater’s nephew becoming governor of Arizona. Alas, they have indeed proved improbable.
In an earlier NRO piece, I listed 14 states with important state-legislature campaigns to watch in 2006. The places where the two lists overlap — Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, and Oregon — thus represent key battlegrounds where the future of state-level public-policy initiatives such as fiscal restraint and school choice, and the fate of the Republican realignment of the past two decades, may well be decided. Right now, most left-of-center analysts of these races seem ebullient, while most right-of-center analysts either put on a brave face or change the subject. That’s telling. My guess is that incumbents of both parties will tumble, but the net result will be enough Democratic gains to erase the six-state GOP majority, if not flip it over.
The usual hedging statement is required at this point: lots of things could happen between now and November, including national and international events that either accelerate or arrest the overall Democratic momentum. Still, it wasn’t that long ago that some dreamed about a 2006 election cycle of improbable events such as two black conservatives winning governorships in Ohio and Pennsylvania, or Barry Goldwater’s nephew becoming governor of Arizona. Alas, they have indeed proved improbable.
posted by Andy W. Rogers | 7:46 PM
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