The battle for Maryland governor won't be a coin flip, but it's #2 in our Power Rankings.
This month's edition of the gubernatorial Power Rankings, it is fair to say, should yield a lot of head scratching. A race that we here at Daily Kos Elections have on the outer edge of competitiveness slid into the second position, while several of the most potentially competitive races in November still languish outside of the top 15.
After all, you might be an astute observer of news and politics, but you'd be greeted with skepticism if you insisted that you had Maryland as the second most-watched/most-polled gubernatorial battle last month, and Ohio limping in at number 26.
What remains constant, and likely will do so for the conceivable future, is the occupant of the top rung on the ladder. Florida's pitched battle between incumbent Republican Gov. Rick Scott and former Republican governor (and now likely Democratic nominee) Charlie Crist has been no lower than second in the three sets of power rankings released to date. This month, it returns to the number one slot.
As for the rest of the top 10, and what changes one might expect from this point forward, head past the fold for the "geez, it's hot" edition of the Daily Kos Elections gubernatorial power rankings.
(As always, for those curious about the criteria for determining these power rankings, feel free to jump to the end of the piece to peruse the methodology.)
As we get closer to November, the demand for information on all things electoral will likely surge, especially at the traditional post-Labor Day transitional point. But we are already seeing evidence of that: only three gubernatorial battles this month received neither a mention in the Daily Digest nor a pollster's attention. For those electoral nerds who are eagerly trying to name the unloved trio, they are: Tennessee, Vermont, and Wyoming.
Bonus points if you can name those three governors (hint: two Republicans and one Democrat).
As for this month's rankings, the key word here is: parity. Had only one more poll been conducted last month in New Mexico, for example, that state would've shot up from 16th place in the rankings to ninth place. That is how unbelievably tight the rankings were this month. Just ten points (the equivalent of two polls and two mentions in the Digest) separated third place from 20th.
The probable cause for this, at the end of the day, was the calendar. There are virtually no competitive primaries in late June or July, so there was a noticeable lull in the latter half of June, when virtually all of the electoral focus was on Mississippi's Senate runoff, or all matters presidential.
As a result, there is a lot of movement, but it is caused less by tremendous interest (or lack of interest) in certain races, and more by the fact that the rubric for our power rankings is such that, in quieter months, small additions to interest in a state can yield big movement. As a result, this is the most volatile set of movements we've seen in any power rankings to date.
As evidence of that volatility, we not only see four new entries into the top 10, but last month's occupant of the top spot (Georgia) dropped all the way out of the top 10 (the battle between Nathan Deal and Jason Carter came in at number 13). The other ones out of the top 10 this month, likely temporarily, were Ohio (number five last month), Maine (number nine last month) and Connecticut (number 10 last month).
Now, time to discuss the 10 states that did make it into this month's rankings.
#10—ILLINOIS (20 points)—DKE Rating: Tossup
(Last month: 8)
Illinois is listed by DKE as a "tossup" despite the fact that virtually all recent polling shows Republican Bruce Rauner with a lead, and often a large one, over incumbent Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn. In fact, you have to go back to November of 2013 to find a poll with Quinn ahead of Rauner. Two things make tossup feel like the right call: for one thing, there is still a very small sampling of polls here that are not GOP-sponsored endeavors. For another, this is still Illinois, and while they will elect Republicans statewide (see: Kirk, Mark), it still seems that Rauner might have a terrain issue. For what it is worth, this headline from earlier in the week speaks to competitiveness as well. The tenor of the Rauner ad (and the liberties that he took) are generally not what you see from someone sitting on a double-digit lead over an incumbent.
#9—ARKANSAS (20 points)—DKE Rating: Tossup
(Last month: 4)
In the three editions of the power rankings, the open-seat battle between Democrat Mike Ross and Republican Asa Hutchinson has continued to slide down the charts. In the inaugural set of rankings, it stood in second spot. Last month, it had edged down to fourth. This month, down to ninth. Part of that can be attributed to the parity referenced above. But part of that is because this race seems to have settled into a holding pattern. The primaries here (as minimally competitive as they were) are over. One interesting recent headline: Hutchinson made a pretty solid unforced error, and he did so at the worst possible place: a town hall forum sponsored by the Farm Bureau, which swings a pretty big bat in an ag-heavy state like Arkansas. Watch the video, and you will see that "stammering" doesn't begin to cut it.
#8—COLORADO (21 points)—DKE Rating: Leans Democratic
(Last month: Not Ranked)
Colorado, which makes its first (but, presumably, not last) appearance in the power rankings, is a tough one to figure out. Democrats were probably disappointed in June, when their preferred candidate (former congressman and 2010 independent gubernatorial challenger Tom Tancredo) did not emerge from the GOP primary. But then we quickly learned that the newly-minted nominee, former congressman and 2006 gubernatorial nominee Bob Beauprez, was railing against the "47 percent" before Mitt Romney made it cool. Alas, the early indicators (including a PPP poll from earlier in the week) are that this didn't damage his numbers much. In the four polls released since the gaffe became known, Beauprez has trailed by a rather minimal average of three points to the incumbent, Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper.
#7—PENNSYLVANIA (22 points)—DKE Rating: Likely Democratic
(Last month: 3)
Whereas Colorado is a tough race to get a handle on, the battle in the Keystone State is a decidedly easy one to figure out. Even the National Journal's Josh Kraushaar, who conservative readers often turn to for moral support in the media, acknowledges that Republican Gov. Tom Corbett is a political "dead man walking". Indeed, Corbett can't seem to lay a glove on his Democratic challenger, Tom Wolf, which is why we here at Daily Kos Elections, who had already determined that Wolf was the betting favorite, took it a step further earlier this month, moving this race to "Likely Democratic." The race slipped a bit this month in the power rankings, and could actually continue to slide, in part because fewer pollsters are likely to bother with this one when other, more competitive, races continue to demand new data.
#6—MASSACHUSETTS (22 points)—DKE Rating: Likely Democratic
(Last month: Not Ranked)
Massachusetts makes its first appearance in the rankings, propelled by the fact that it seems as if the Boston Globe (and their polling partners at Social Sphere) are intent on polling this race every few days, or something. We did get a little news over the last month or so. After the conventions, only three Democratic contenders remain. But it still seems exceedingly likely (and the polls bear this out) that state Attorney General Martha Coakley will emerge from the September 9 primary with a victory. That will set up a battle of two figures from the 2009-10 cycle, as Coakley (who rather famously lost to Scott Brown in the special election to replace Ted Kennedy) will take on Charlie Baker, who lost by mid-single digits to incumbent Democrat Deval Patrick in that horrific 2010 cycle. Republicans are crowing that Baker has been catching Coakley (which the Globe poll does seem to confirm), but it is a long way to November, and Coakley isn't likely to get caught flat-footed again.
#5—IOWA (23 points)—DKE Rating: Likely Republican
(Last month: 6)
Iowa's gubernatorial battle, pitting incumbent Republican Gov. Terry Branstad and Democratic challenger Jack Hatch, remains near the top of the charts this month, but one does begin to wonder if the incredible competitiveness of the state (thanks, in no small part, to nonpartisan redistricting) might work against the challenger here. With a Senate race that many feel will be a coin flip, all four U.S. House seats at some level of competitiveness, and both chambers of the state legislature up for grabs, Hatch has to be at least a little concerned about getting lost in the shuffle. Ironically, the best news for Hatch in recent weeks might've been a Republican poll, from Gravis, which showed the challenger down eight points. That partially counteracted the NBC/Marist poll taken the week before, which had the challenger down 15.
#4—MICHIGAN (24 points)—DKE Rating: Tossup
(Last month: 7)
Those Daily Kos/DKE readers who went to Detroit last week for Netroots Nation 2014 are now much better aware of life in Gov. Rick Snyder's Michigan, and probably caught a glimpse of the man seeking to replace him, Democrat Mark Schauer. There's just a sense that this race will be one of the ones we talk about through election night. The margin appears to be tightening, and how often do you get to talk about hidden cameras in the realm of electoral politics (sweet lord, was that a clumsy attempt at surveillance)? If, as has been past practice, this is a state where polling tends to underestimate Democrats, Schauer has to be feeling at least cautiously optimistic about the state of play as it stands right now. Four of the last five polls here have had Snyder leading by five points or less.
#3—ARIZONA (24 points)—DKE Rating: Leans Republican
(Last month: Not Ranked)
Arizona makes an inaugural appearance in the rankings, fueled entirely by the sudden interest in the GOP primary for governor in the state. This makes sense: Arizona's late primary means that the race is just ramping up, and it is one of the few statewide primaries remaining without a genuine defined frontrunner. The race may be, when all is said and done, a two-person contest between state Treasurer Doug Ducey and former GoDaddy executive Christine Jones. But, with no candidate really even breaking out of the 20s in most polling, it won't be hard for someone from the second tier to make a late run and get into the picture. What is fascinating, from my perspective, is how under-polled the general election here is. It is an open seat, and a March PPP poll actually showed Democrat Fred DuVal in a coin flip with any of the GOP contenders. As it happens, that was also the last time the general election was polled.
#2—MARYLAND (27 points)—DKE Rating: Likely Democratic
(Last month: Not Ranked)
Maryland makes its first, and quite possibly last, appearance in the countdown. Why the sudden surge for the great state of Maryland? A look at the primary calendar is most instructive there. There were, for all intents and purposes, a pair of competitive late June primaries (remember, the power rankings are based on the activity in the prior month). Colorado was one, and Maryland was the other. Maryland wound up being a fairly uncompetitive primary on the Democratic side, as Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown swept to the win, but it was not an inexpensive primary, which meant lots of ads hitting the Digest. And there, in short, is your answer for how Maryland made the power rankings. Will it remain there? It's pretty doubtful, quite frankly. While DKE rates the race as "Likely Democratic," there is no sense that Maryland is high on the DGA/RGA priority lists. What's more: the only post-primary polling (from Rasmussen) had Brown up by a pretty comfy 13-point margin (48-35). Democrats don't seem particularly nervous here, nor do Republicans seem terribly optimistic.
#1—FLORIDA (48 points)—DKE Rating: Tossup
(Last month: 2)
Let's be blunt: it is almost impossible to conceive of a gubernatorial landscape in 2014 where Florida isn't the big enchilada. As we said when we debuted the power rankings, Florida has it all. The past two governors, one a party-switcher. A race where the polls have been on a razor's edge throughout. As David Nir noted last month, incumbent GOP Gov. Rick Scott had spent a shit-ton of money early to try to drive up Charlie Crist's negatives. That worked in the short run, and Scott spent most of June staked to an early lead. But two independent polls this week (one from SurveyUSA and one from Quinnipiac) moved Crist back into the lead. If there was a cautionary note in that data, it was that a five-point Crist lead in the Q poll eroded to just two points when the Libertarian candidate (Adrian Wyllie) was added to the mix. That might be the place where Scott's relentless blitz on Crist in the Spring will pay dividends. Scott's high water mark in any polling in this cycle, when paired with Crist, has been 45 percent. But he doesn't need much more than that if Wyllie can creep into the high single digits. The Wyllie factor just adds another layer of intrigue into an already fascinating battle.
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With the rankings in the books, here, as promised for those interested, is the statement about the rubric for determining the power rankings:
THE RUBRIC: Three criteria were used to generate our top 10 list.
One is competitiveness. This was done rather easily, utilizing our DKE Gubernatorial race ratings. If a race had been designated by the Daily Kos Elections crew as a "toss-up," that netted that race 15 points. If the race was designated as a "lean" D/R race, it was worth 10 points. If the race was designated as a "likely" D/R contest, it was worth five points.
The second criteria is newsworthiness. Some races, for lack of a more elegant way of putting it, have more going on than others. The criteria here was also objective: a gubernatorial race received a single point for every day in the past month in which it was mentioned in a Daily Kos Elections Daily Digest. For those who are curious, top spot during the month of May went (for the second month in a row) to Pennsylvania, which was mentioned a total of 10 times.
The final criteria is "pollworthiness". Media outlets, campaigns, and polling firms are not going to poll a race for nothing. The more intriguing races are going to get more data points, typically. So, four points were awarded for each poll conducted (primary or general) in a given state's gubernatorial race, as logged in our comprehensive DKE polling database. As mentioned earlier, Georgia rocketed to the #1 position this month by virtue of being polled nine times during the month of May.
The "tiebreaker", when races have the same number of points accumulated, is as follows: 1) The first tie-breaker is the number of mentions in the month ("newsworthiness"); 2) The second tie-breaker, should their number of mentions also be equal, is that the state that was lower in the rankings in the previous month gets the higher of the rankings among the tied races. If last month was also a tie, it goes back to previous months until the tie is broken.
By the way, for those who actually tested yourselves on those three governors whose re-elections seem so certain that no one is polling or writing about them, they are: Bill Haslam (Tennessee), Peter Shumlin (Vermont), and Matt Mead (Wyoming).