Iowa’s Republican Gov. Terry Branstad was finally confirmed on Monday to be Donald Trump’s ambassador to China, and he announced that he would resign on Wednesday. Branstad’s two non-consecutive tenures as governor from 1983 to 1999 and again from 2011 to 2017 add up to 8,169 days in office, or over 22 years, making him the longest-serving governor of any state in American history. GOP Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds will assume office following Branstad’s resignation, and the state’s first woman governor subsequently will face election to a full term in 2018. Reynolds has yet to formally clarify her intentions for 2018, but she is expected to run.
If Reynolds does decide to run for election in her own right, she’ll have history on her side. Geoffrey Skelley of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics recently conducted an extensive analysis of how every governor since World War II who took office after a vacancy has fared if they ran in the next election. He finds that such unelected governors won their own terms on 39 of 62 occasions, a success rate of 63 percent. However, that proportion has risen considerably in recent decades, and all nine such incumbents who sought a full term since 2006 have won. Nonetheless, Skelley also found that incumbents who had previously won separate statewide elections fared better than those who hadn’t, which could be a detriment for Reynolds, who was merely a state senator before running on a ticket with Branstad in 2010 and 2014.
While Reynolds starts out with some advantages, they aren’t deterring opponents from lining up to potentially challenge her. On the Republican side, Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett and white-nationalist extremist Rep. Steve King have previously said that they were considering the race. Iowa’s lurch to the right in 2016 hasn’t stopped a slew of Democrats from expressing interest in running as well. The pool of Democratic candidates already includes: former state party chair Andy McGuire; state Sen. Nate Boulton; state Rep. Todd Prichard; ex-Des Moines School Board President Jonathan Neiderbach; and Polk County Conservation Board Director Rich Leopold. Several others have also said they’re considering a campaign, including: John Norris, a well-connected former chief of staff to ex-Gov. Tom Vilsack; state Rep. Chris Hall; Davenport Alderman Mike Matson; and prominent wealthy businessman Fred Hubbell.