The 2002 Gubernatorials: we did pretty well.

We picked up the Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Tennessee, Wyoming governorships plus probably other ones that I'm just forgetting. Does anyone know why we did so well with those governorships in an election cycle that otherwise really really sucked for the Democrats?

Thanks

Huh huh huh!

I know we lost to Taft here in Ohio and Georgia we lost a governership and a senator as well.

It just seems odd to me that we would have picked up so many of those governorships especially since most of those are deep red states.

We had legit hopes of +7 to +10 net governorships that year. Polls were significantly in our favor thoughout the fall. I think it ended up +3 or +4, then of course we lost California via recall a year later.

The big wins were Pennsylvania (Rendell), Michigan (Granholm) and Illinois (Blago). Those came early in the night by relatively comfy margins then we got shocked with all the senate losses including losing control. Plus many gov races fell apart.

That year was notable for a distinct trend in gov races, producing many weird takeovers by historically the minority party. The economy had tanked under Bush but the GOP won senate races due to national security emphasis. On the statewide level voters looked for someone to blame and it became the party in charge. In gov races without an incumbent to state his/her case, the out party won a surreal percentage. Outgoing incumbents had terrible approval marks in many cases, and often their lieutenant governors or someone associated with them was trying to follow into office. That's why you had so many strange crossovers like Republicans winning Maryland and Hawaii while Democrats picked up the seemingly unlikely states you mentioned.

Well, that's the analysis I was looking for, my curiosity has been sated.

You know damn well the out party will emphasize the heck out of those states, confident of pickup. Surprisingly most of those governors in "enemy" territory seem to be popular. I despise smug Ehrlich in Maryland and empress Lingle in Hawaii but when I sample the online local papers and opinion polls they are hardly unpopular. At least we apparently have a strong likely candidate lined up in Maryland, but not in Hawaii where the Democratic field is uncertain.

I should have mentioned one major failure in 2002 that flew against the trend: Romney in Massachusetts. We should have taken over that seat based on the no-incumbent aspect and the GOP holding the governorship. But Romney was able to come out of the Salt Lake City Olympics and present himself as an outsider. Plus many criticized Shannon O'Brien's campaign specifically the final two debates. Taxes became a huge issue in the final weeks and Romney benefited. Jackass Tim Russert moderated many debates that cycle and slanted the tone and the issues in favor of the Republican, including in Massachusetts.

One race we won in 2002 was somewhat fortunate, Brad Henry in Oklahoma. A former Republican ran as an independent and picked off a considerable percentage, just short of 20%. He ripped Steve Largent the GOP nominee much more than criticizing Henry. Also, Largent imploded late in the campaign by shouting "Bullshit!" when he got peeved regarding increased focus on his actions immediately post-9/11. Largent was hunting in a remote location and didn't find out about 9/11 for days, but his congressional office released a supposed statement that they basically made up.

While his approval rating isn't terrible, it is below 50% and he is also trailing O'Malley big time in recent polls.

He also figures to pull a much bigger number in the key urban areas than KKT managed in 2002.

I just liked it much better maybe six months ago when Ehrlich's numbers were worse. He's way up there on my target list for 2006. I wanted to punch him through my TV screen during the televised CSPAN debates in 2002, especially one at a black college where afterward he claimed he had been lynched by the crowd reactions.

She's one of my favorites, and I would love to see her tell Alberto Gonzalez to clean out his desk in 2009!

We lost Maryland(I'm going to call it south since I'm lazy), Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama. We also lost Vermont and New Hampshire, though we did win in Maine. So even though we had a lot of gains largely due to low incumbent approval ratings, we actually didn't do that well.

Gov. Roy Barnes was even being whispered as a possible presidential or at least vice-presidential nominee for '04. Then he lost.

who was obviously in trouble towards the end, but lost by about the same margin.

Benson self-destructed in scandal in less than two years, quite a feat.