Hotline’s 2016 Governor Race Rankings

Gov­ernor races across the coun­try of­fer an­oth­er re­mind­er that can­did­ate qual­ity mat­ters in de­term­in­ing down­bal­lot suc­cess, par­tic­u­larly in an un­pre­dict­able pres­id­en­tial cycle.

Nowhere is that more evid­ent than in West Vir­gin­ia, where the open seat ranked most likely to flip in April but now resides close to the bot­tom of this list of com­pet­it­ive races.

A dozen states are hold­ing gubernat­ori­al elec­tions in less than two months. Half are open-seat races. Demo­crats con­trol two-thirds of them, while Re­pub­lic­ans hope to bol­ster their already his­tor­ic dom­in­ance at the state level.

But as in West Vir­gin­ia, Demo­crats are run­ning mod­er­ate can­did­ates in their most dif­fi­cult races in hopes of out­per­form­ing Hil­lary Clin­ton. Mean­while, Re­pub­lic­ans also picked can­did­ates from the cen­ter in New Eng­land states such as Ver­mont to counter their own po­ten­tially tox­ic tick­et-top­per, Don­ald Trump.

Here is Hot­line‘s latest rank­ing of the gov­ernor races most likely to switch parties.

1. Missouri - Open (D) (Previous ranking: 2)

One of Demo­crats’ top re­cruits this cycle was Re­pub­lic­an-turned-Demo­crat­ic state At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Chris Koster, long ex­pec­ted to seek to suc­ceed term-lim­ited Gov. Jay Nix­on. But Re­pub­lic­an Eric Greit­ens’s nom­in­a­tion and the Re­pub­lic­an lean of the state make this a top pickup op­por­tun­ity for the GOP. Both can­did­ates boast fun­drais­ing prowess aided by un­lim­ited dir­ect cam­paign con­tri­bu­tions. So far, Koster is win­ning es­tab­lish­ment sup­port from both sides of the aisle and en­joys a head start in cash on hand, but Greit­ens is bank­ing on Trump’s coat­tails to take him over the top in the trend­ing-red state.

2. North Carolina - Pat McCrory (R) (3)

Gov. Pat Mc­Crory re­mains Amer­ica’s most en­dangered gov­ernor, and things are only get­ting worse. While Demo­crat­ic state At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Roy Cooper has built a cred­ible lead in pub­lic polling, TV ad­vert­ising, and fun­drais­ing, both sides stress this race is still a tos­sup. Mc­Crory’s party wor­ries his em­brace of an­ti­discrim­in­a­tion-pro­tec­tion le­gis­la­tion, known as House Bill 2, turns off in­de­pend­ents who backed him in 2012. The Re­pub­lic­an’s cam­paign and al­lies have in­creas­ingly tar­geted Cooper’s job per­form­ance as the state’s top law en­force­ment of­fi­cial.

3. New Hampshire - Open (D) (4)

The per­en­ni­al swing state just held its primar­ies last week, leav­ing little time for Re­pub­lic­an Chris Sununu and Demo­crat Colin Van Ostern, who both sit on the state’s five-mem­ber Ex­ec­ut­ive Coun­cil, to pivot to the gen­er­al. New Hamp­shire is defin­it­ively purple, and both can­did­ates re­main in part at the mercy of voters’ pref­er­ence in the pres­id­en­tial race and in a high-pro­file cam­paign between Sen. Kelly Ayotte and her chal­lenger, va­cat­ing Gov. Mag­gie Has­san.

4. Vermont - Open (D) (7)

Ver­mont doesn’t im­me­di­ately stand out as top pickup op­por­tun­ity giv­en its pre­dilec­tion for re­peatedly elect­ing lib­er­als, but Bernie Sanders’s home state also has a pen­chant for elect­ing mod­er­ate Re­pub­lic­an gov­ernors. Lt. Gov. Phil Scott’s nom­in­a­tion last month was cru­cial to the GOP’s hopes there. Demo­crats have been quick to tie Scott to the na­tion­al GOP’s can­did­ates and plat­form, but the Re­pub­lic­an Gov­ernors As­so­ci­ation has pushed out mul­tiple TV ads boost­ing the mod­er­ate busi­ness­man.

5. Indiana - Open (R) (5)

This race heated up when Mike Pence ac­cep­ted the vice pres­id­en­tial nom­in­a­tion. Pence’s newly ap­poin­ted lieu­ten­ant gov­ernor, long­time party op­er­at­ive Eric Hol­comb, has been slow to in­tro­duce him­self to voters and is han­di­capped by low name ID, lack of ac­cess to Pence’s prom­ised cam­paign cof­fers, and his ties to the po­lar­iz­ing vice pres­id­en­tial nom­in­ee. But Demo­crat John Gregg is sim­il­arly un­known, des­pite run­ning for gov­ernor in 2012. Gregg en­joys an early lead in head-to-head polling, and the com­pany of a re­in­vig­or­ated cam­paign to re­place Sen. Dan Coats, but In­di­ana is still Re­pub­lic­ans’ to lose.

6. West Virginia - Open (D) (1)

The race to re­place term-lim­ited Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin star­ted as Re­pub­lic­ans’ most prom­ising tar­get. It could still be, but Re­pub­lic­an Bill Cole has yet to prove he can cap­it­al­ize on the state’s fa­vor­it­ism for his party in the face of a new­found polit­ic­al jug­ger­naut, Demo­crat­ic coal mag­nate Jim Justice, who con­sist­ently leads in pub­lic polling and fun­drais­ing. Justice’s deep pock­ets, fa­vor­able cov­er­age dur­ing dev­ast­at­ing floods, and Joe Manchin-like mod­er­a­tion are not to be un­der­es­tim­ated.

7. Montana - Steve Bullock (D) (6)

A host of caveats ap­ply to this race, where there has been no cred­ible pub­lic polling. But Bul­lock is do­ing everything right to win a second term. He leads wealthy Re­pub­lic­an tech en­tre­pren­eur Greg Gi­an­forte in fun­drais­ing, though Gi­an­forte is keep­ing pace by self-fund­ing. Bul­lock and Gi­an­forte have mu­tu­ally agreed to keep the race di­vorced from na­tion­al trends, a boon for Bul­lock in red Montana.