And Governors Too?

Predicted change in Republican governors by different 2018 generic ballot results

Yesterday I covered Democratic prospects for taking back the House, which look fairly favorable. Today Alan Abramowitz released results from his governors seat change model, which also look pretty good for the Democrats. In brief, given an incumbent Republican President in a midterm election plus the Republicans' high seat exposure, they should lose governors seats in most circumstances, with particularly severe losses if the national political environment--as measured by the generic Congressional ballot--is unfavorable. As summarized by Abramowitz:

We are a long way from November 2018, so national conditions could change. Still, Republicans will have so many seats at risk in next year’s gubernatorial elections that they are almost guaranteed to suffer a net loss of seats. Of course, the quality of the respective party candidates and campaigns will be important as Republicans seek to limit potential Democratic gains. Still, based on recent generic ballot results, the GOP loss could be rather substantial. According to the FiveThirtyEight weighted average of recent polling results, Democrats currently hold a lead of about eight points on the generic ballot. A lead of that magnitude in early September 2018 would predict a net Democratic gain of around nine governorships with a two-thirds probability that the gain would be between six and 12 seats.

Early days, but still encouraging.