Back in May, a lot of us Democratic bloggers took note, and heart, from the first in a series of tracking polls of all 50 Governors’ approval ratings by the polling outfit SurveyUSA.The latest SUSA tracking poll, as Chris Bowers of MyDD quickly noted, shows some significant changes, especially in the states affected directly and indirectly by Hurricane Katrina. Indeed, while Katrina has helped push George W. Bush’s approval ratings to their lowest levels ever, the disaster is helping several GOP governors.With the exception of Kathleen Blanco of Louisiana, virtually every Governor with a significant role in Katrina relief or recovery got a tangible bounce. In the following list, the first number is the governor’s approval/disapproval rating in the September 16-18 SUSA tracking, while the second (in parenthesis) is his ratio in the May poll.Haley Barbour (R-MS) 58/39 (37/55)Bob Riley (R-AL) 58/37 (36/52)Rick Perry (R-TX) 49/45 (38/48)Mike Huckabee (R-AR) 58/38 (51/41)Sonny Perdue (R-GA) 61-34 (47/40)Perdue’s Georgia wasn’t hit directly by Katrina, but did suffer some storm and tornado damage; he got a lot of ink for immediately calling the legislature into a special session to approve a gasoline price gougingbill.One Democratic Governor benefitted from an “Ophelia effect:” NC’s Mike Easley, whose approval ratio improved from 52/34 to 64/30.The “Katrina effect” helps three incumbent Republican Governors up in 2008 who were and may still be in some political peril, Rick Perry, Sonny Perdue and especially Bob Riley. The latter faces a primary challenge from “Ten Commandments” Judge Roy Moore, and a potentially tough general election opponent in Lt. Governor Lucy Baxley. (Riley got some more good news today when his predecessor, Don Siegelman, formally announced he was challenging Baxley for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, ensuring an expensive and possibly divisive primary).Barbour’s boost not only gets him out of the political woods in Mississippi (where he doesn’t face re-election until 2007), but also provides some fuel for the previously laughable boomlet of support for the ol’ rascal to run for president in 2008.All these effects are probably temporary, and all these Republican beneficiaries have lots of other problems. Perdue, for example, is presiding over a significant economic slide in a state that has known little but boomtimes for much of the last two decades. In Alabama, Roy Moore’s supporters are going to back him against Riley come hell or high water. And in both these states GOPers remain vulnerable to slow-developing fallout from the Jack Abramoff/Ralph Reed Indian Casino Shakedown Scandal.Outside the Katrina Region, the SUSA tracking polls don’t show a great deal of movement. Among Democrats, Ed Rendell (PA) and Phil Bredesen (TN) have slipped a bit, but both still look like solid bets for re-election. Mark Warner (VA) now has an approval/disapproval ratio well over two-to-one (66/29), which could help his designated successor, Tim Kaine, this November. Christine Gregoire of Washington has climbed from 34/58 in May to 45/49 in September.And the bottom five Governors are all Republicans: Blunt (MO), Fletcher (KY), Schwarzenegger (CA), Murkowski (AK) and Taft (OH). Ah-nold was already in trouble in May, with a ratio of 40/56; now he’s down to 32/65, in polling done about the time he announced his re-election bid.All in all, it’s a timely reminder that national issues cut differently in the states, and that whatever happens with Congress, there’s an enormously important series of pitched battles going on over governorships across the country.
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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January 16: Towards a 2028 Democratic Primary Calendar
Don’t look now, but it’s already time for the DNC and the states to figure out the 2028 Democratic presidential primary calendar, so I wrote an overview at New York:
The first 2028 presidential primaries are just two years away. And for the first time since 2016, both parties are expected to have serious competition for their nominations. While Vice-President J.D. Vance is likely to enter the cycle as a formidable front-runner for the GOP nod, recent history suggests there will be lots of other candidates. After all, Donald Trump drew 12 challengers in 2024. On the Democratic side, there is no one like Vance (or Hillary Clinton going into 2016 or Joe Biden going into 2020) who is likely to become the solid front-runner from the get-go, though Californians Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris lead all of the way too early polls.
But 2028 horse-race speculation really starts with the track itself, as the calendar for state contests still isn’t set. What some observers call the presidential-nominating “system” isn’t something the national parties control. In the case of primaries utilizing state-financed election machinery, state laws govern the timing and procedures. Caucuses (still abundant on the Republican side and rarer among Democrats) are usually run by state parties. National parties can vitally influence the calendar via carrots (bonus delegates at the national convention) or sticks (loss of delegates) and try to create “windows” for different kinds of states to hold their nominating contests to space things out and make the initial contests competitive and representative. But it’s sometimes hit or miss.
Until quite recently, the two parties tended to move in sync on such calendar and map decisions. But Democrats have exhibited a lot more interest in ensuring that the “early states” — the ones that kick off the nominating process and often determine the outcome — are representative of the party and the country as a whole and give candidates something like a level playing field. Prior to 2008, both parties agreed to do away with the traditional duopoly, in which the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary came first, by allowing early contests representing other regions (Nevada and South Carolina). And both parties tolerated the consolidation of other states seeking influence into a somewhat later “Super Tuesday” cluster of contests. But in 2024 Democrats tossed Iowa out of the early-state window altogether and placed South Carolina first (widely interpreted as Joe Biden’s thank-you to the Palmetto State for its crucial role in saving his campaign in 2020 after poor performances in other early states), with Nevada and New Hampshire voting the same day soon thereafter. Republicans stuck with the same old calendar with Trump more or less nailing down the nomination after Iowa and New Hampshire.
For 2028, Republicans will likely stand pat while Democrats reshuffle the deck (the 2024 calendar was explicitly a one-time-only proposition). The Democratic National Committee has set a January 16 deadline for states to apply for early-state status. And as the New York Times’ Shane Goldmacher explains, there is uncertainty about the identity of the early states and particularly their order:
“The debate has only just begun. But early whisper campaigns about the weaknesses of the various options already offer a revealing window into some of the party’s racial, regional and rural-urban divides, according to interviews with more than a dozen state party chairs, D.N.C. members and others involved in the selection process.
“Nevada is too far to travel. New Hampshire is too entitled and too white. South Carolina is too Republican. Iowa is also too white — and its time has passed.
“Why not a top battleground? Michigan entered the early window in 2024, but critics see it as too likely to bring attention to the party’s fractures over Israel. North Carolina or Georgia would need Republicans to change their election laws.”
Nevada and New Hampshire have been most aggressive about demanding a spot at the beginning of the calendar, and both will likely remain in the early-state window, representing their regions. The DNC could push South Carolina aside in favor of regional rivals Georgia or North Carolina. Michigan is close to a lock for an early midwestern primary, but its size, cost, and sizable Muslim population (which will press candidates on their attitude towards Israel’s recent conduct) would probably make it a dubious choice to go first. Recently excluded Iowa (already suspect because it’s very white and trending Republican, then bounced decisively after its caucus reporting system melted down in 2020) could stage a “beauty contest” that will attract candidates and media even if it doesn’t award delegates.
Even as the early-state drama unwinds, the rest of the Democratic nomination calendar is morphing as well. As many as 14 states are currently scheduled to hold contests on Super Tuesday, March 7. And a 15th state, New York, may soon join the parade. Before it’s all nailed down (likely just after the 2026 midterms), decisions on the calendar will begin to influence candidate strategies and vice versa. Some western candidates (e.g., Gavin Newsom or Ruben Gallego) could be heavily invested in Nevada, while Black proto-candidates like Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Wes Moore might pursue a southern primary. Progressive favorites like AOC or Ro Khanna may have their own favorite launching pads, while self-identified centrists like Josh Shapiro or Pete Buttigieg might have others. Having a home state in the early going is at best a mixed blessing: Losing your home-state primary is a candidate-killer, and winning it doesn’t prove a lot. And it’s also worth remembering that self-financed candidates like J.B. Pritzker may need less of a runway to stage a nationally viable campaign.
So sketching out the tracks for all those 2028 horses, particularly among Democrats, is a bit of a game of three-dimensional chess. We won’t know how well they’ll run here or there until it’s all over.