Ron DeSantis pulls out a victory in Florida’s race for governor.
Midwestern states front some of most controversial races
Democrat Andrew Gillum was defeated in his bid to become Florida’s first black governor in one of the nation’s most closely watched races Tuesday, but the party still picked up at least two governorships after strong performances by their candidates in some Midwestern states in early results.
Gillum, 39, conceded his race to Republican Ron DeSantis, who is closely associated with President Donald Trump.
“It is not about me. It is about all of us. It is about the collective. If we all do good, we can all do good,” Gillum said in his concession speech. “Even in defeat, I believe that to be true.”
Even as the nation fixates on the fight for control of Congress, Gillum’s loss and the 35 other gubernatorial races on the ballot offer some of the most dramatic examples of America’s cultural and ideological divides under Trump.
In Illinois, Democrat J.B. Pritzker easily defeated Gov. Bruce Rauner, R, after one of the nation’s most expensive governors elections. Democrats also won the governorship in Michigan, where Democrat Gretchen Whitmer, a former Michigan legislator, won her race to replace term-limited Gov Rick Snyder, R, in the Midwestern battleground state.
Another strong Republican ally of Trump, Gov. Kris Kobach of Kansas, was defeated by Laura Kelly, a Democratic member of the Kansas Senate, a surprise outcome in one of the most conservative states in the nation.
But Democrats were nervously watching results in several states, including Georgia.
Stacey Abrams, 44, was trailing in her bid for Georgia’s governorship and remake the face of leadership in the Deep South by becoming the nation’s first female African-American governor. Abrams is running against Secretary of State Brian Kemp, a conservative Republican whose office has been accused of trying to suppress voter turnout. Kemp opened a sizable lead in initial returns, but many urban counties had yet to report results, including Atlanta.
Racial tensions also surfaced in the Florida governor’s race, where Gillum is running against an acolyte of Trump, former congressman Ron DeSantis.
Gillum would have become Florida’s first black governor and the first Democrat to hold the office in two decades. But with most ballots counted, Gillum was trailing DeSantis by about 80,000 votes.
During the final days of the campaign, Trump frequently targeted Gillum with incendiary comments, including calling him a “thief.” Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee, has cast the race as an opportunity to reject Trump’s divisiveness and racially charged rhetoric.
Republicans currently hold 33 of the nation’s 50 governorships. Of the 36 gubernatorial races on the ballot Tuesday, Republicans are defending 26 of them.
The outcomes of those contests will have major implications for Democratic efforts to build a state-level firewall against some of Trump’s policies, including his effort to overturn the Affordable Care Act and gut environmental and labor laws. In most states, governors and state legislatures will be drawing new congressional boundaries after the 2020 Census.
Several of the most hotly contested gubernatorial races took place in Midwestern states that formed the linchpin of Trump’s 2016 victory. Democratic leaders in those states view those contests as a major test of whether the party can win back the white working-class voters who abandoned the party in droves that year.
In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf, D, has beat Republican Scott Wagner, a former state legislator, in a state Trump carried by 44,000 votes two years ago.