Governors’ posts, legislatures also in the election spotlight
Efforts to battle the coronavirus pandemic have put the nation’s governors in the spotlight while state legislatures are poised in the year ahead to determine redistricting, abortion, health care and other supercharged topics.
Both are on the ballot this year in races that have been overshadowed nationally by the presidential race but have drawn intense interest and massive spending in their states. Across the country, 11 states are electing governors and 35 are picking state lawmakers this year.
Missouri and Montana have the nation’s most interesting races for governor, while Democrats are hoping to gain control of more state legislative chambers after Republicans scored huge wins in 2010. That put them in charge of drawing congressional and state legislative maps after that year’s census, a process that kept them in control in most of those states throughout the decade.
In most states, legislatures and governors have a role in drawing congressional and legislative maps, a process that starts after the U.S. Census Bureau delivers its decennial count at the end of this year.
Control of governor’s offices and legislatures also will determine much of how coronavirus-related restrictions and recovery efforts go.
If an increasingly conservative U.S. Supreme Court throws out the right to an abortion or portions of the Affordable Care Act, the new policies could be set state-by-state.
Republicans are mostly in defensive mode, trying to keep offices they hold now. But there are exceptions.
In Montana, the Democratic and Republican governors associations and the campaigns themselves have
contributed more than $24 million to a governor’s race to fill the seat of Democrat Steve Bullock, who is running for U.S. Senate. U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte, a Republican, and Democratic Lt. Gov. Mike Cooney are vying for the position.
The best chance for Democrats to pick up a governor’s seat is in Missouri, where incumbent Republican Mike Parson is being challenged by Nicole Galloway, the state auditor. That race has some echoes of the race for president; Parson, who has resisted mandating mask usage, tested positive for the coronavirus in September as the state’s case total started to surge.
Galloway has made Parson’s response to the virus outbreak a core part of her campaign.
While Democrats have been chipping away at Republicans’ edge in state political offices, the GOP is still in control of the majority of state legislative and executive branches.
In both left- and rightleaning states the growing push to legalize marijuana was being put to another test Tuesday as voters also decided a variety of state ballot measures affecting their own voting rights in future elections.
A total of 120 proposed state laws and constitutional amendments were on
the ballot in 32 states.
The Democratic-led New Jersey Legislature decided last December to place a measure on the ballot asking voters whether they should legalize marijuana for adults age 21 and older. Citizens’ initiatives led to recreational marijuana measures on ballots in Arizona, Montana and South Dakota. Medical marijuana initiatives also are being decided in Mississippi and South Dakota.
In Mississippi, voters were deciding whether to approve a new state flag with a magnolia design after legislators in June ended the use of a flag bearing a Confederate battle emblem. In Rhode Island, whose official name is “Rhode Island and Providence Plantations,” voters were deciding whether to eliminate the final three words, which some say evoke a legacy of slavery.
Anti-abortion measures were on the ballot in two states. A Louisiana measure would assert there is no state constitutional right to abortion — a move that could come into play if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns its Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.
A Colorado measure would prohibit abortions after 22 weeks unless the pregnant woman’s life is endangered.