2018 gubernatorial races

This week, Morning Consult released extensive polling on the favorability of senators and governors across the country-- every single one of them.

Whether you see it as a blue wave or just as an ordinary cyclical anti-red wave, it looks like the current anti-Trump environment is going to lead to more Democratic governors after the midterms. Before we get into that, though, let me just mention that today is Republican primary runoff day in Georgia.

Do we need more like this in Congress?Georgia is lousy with white Trumpists-- especially outside the Atlanta Metro, where Hillary did even better than Obama had. Trump won the state's 16 electoral votes 2,089,104 (51.05%) to 1,877,963 (45.89%). Even during the Republican primary, Trump won every single one of Georgia's 159 counties except 4 in the Atlanta Metro plus Clarke County (Athens), all of which were won by Rubio.

Kris Kobach is one of the poster children for voter disenfranchisement and xenophobia. He's currently Kansas secretary of state running for governor.

The last attempt to fix some of Florida's severe gerrymandering problems created a new district up north, the fifth, that connects most of Tallahassee with most of Jacksonville and goes as far west into the panhandle as Chattahoochee. The PVI is D+12. Hillary eviscerated Trump here, 61.3% to 35.9%, Trump's worst performance in northern Florida.

Ohio is usually the last place to look for anything progressive happen-- except when it does. The Democratic Party passed away years ago and it's entirely up to individual candidates, like Sherrod Brown, to win elections.

In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, Señor Trumpanzee was up tweeting his love for neo-Nazi racist Corey Stewart, a crackpot he had fired as Virginia state campaign chair in 2016, who had just won the Republican nomination to face Tim Kaine in November. Stewart won with less than 50% in the 3-man race.

Tomorrow there are primaries in 5 states, Nevada, Maine, Virginia, North Dakota and South Carolina. We're watching Maine more closely than any of the other states. Blue America has only endorsed one federal candidate in any of the 5 states-- Jared Golden, who's running for Wall Street oriented Bruce Poliquin's seat in the sprawling non-Portland bulk of the state.

Blue America's thing has always been House races. Occasionally we stray a little and support people running for Senate, state legislatures and governor-- but not that often. This cycle, for example, we found 4 candidates-- at least so far-- running for governor who are right up our ally.

Hopelessly red. The last Democrat elected to the Senate was Gale McGee. That was in 1958, although he was reelected in 1964 and 1970, only to lose to Republican Malcolm Wallop in 1976. The only other Democrat from Wyoming in the U.S. Senate in recent times was John Hickey. And that was an interesting case.