With 3 gov. rating changes, Democrats are favorites to some degree in MI & NM, while FL gets more competitive
Three 2026 gubernatorial races have shifted towards Dems.
The TL;DR chart...
Florida
Dems have a viable candidate in Florida, not just another sacrificial lamb. David Jolly is making opposition to new AI data centers an issue. While still behind Trump fanboy Byron Donalds, Jolly has been moving up in the polls.
We would not call Florida truly competitive. But an open seat and relatively close polling are enough to move this off Safe Republican and into Likely Republican. We also noticed that Donalds recently challenged Jolly to a series of debates. Though Donalds, as the GOP primary frontrunner, may simply be signaling that he’s ready to pivot toward the general election, candidates who are comfortably ahead are not usually the ones pressing for debates.
Yeah, it's usually candidates who are behind or worried who call for debates.
Michigan
Detroit's former Mayor Mike Duggan ended his race for governor as an independent. This is helping Democrats who had worried about Duggan splitting the anti-MAGA vote. The frontrunner for the Democratic nomination is Michigan Sec. of State Jocelyn Benson.
A key development in the gubernatorial race came in late May, when former Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, who had spent a long career in local politics and government as a Democrat but who dropped his party affiliation to run statewide, left the race entirely. Though the likely Democratic nominee, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, was frequently still leading Republicans in three-way polls, she often did so by close margins and, given where Duggan is best known, it stood to reason that he could pull votes in one of the state’s bluest constituencies. Since May, the race has taken on a more familiar two-party dynamic, with Benson establishing a clearer lead in a few polls taken since Duggan left the contest.
New Mexico
Democrat Deb Haaland, a former Interior Secretary, won her primary and now heads into the general election with a large war chest. She now looks like the clear favorite against Republican Gregg Hull.
Last month, former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland turned back Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman in the Democratic primary, and she now heads into the fall in a strong position in her blue state. On the Republican side, former Rio Rancho Mayor Gregg Hull won his own three-way primary. But Hull enters the general election in a difficult financial position: Haaland reported entering the summer with roughly a 7-to-1 cash-on-hand advantage, and has outraised Hull by better than 2-to-1 even after clinching her own nomination. [ ... ] The New Mexico Republican Party has spent much of the year consumed by internal dysfunction, including the court-ordered removal of Chair Amy Barela and the arrest of treasurer Kimberly Skaggs. For a state party that is already contending with an electorate that usually leans towards the other party, devoting the summer to leadership disputes rather than campaign-building is hardly the recipe for flipping an open governor’s office.
With Trump in office for another 2+ years, we need Democratic governors who are willing to thwart him when possible.
In general, we need to devote much more attention to state politics – including state legislatures. Consider volunteering to help with the campaign of a Democratic candidate for governor or legislature. There is no such thing as an unimportant election.