Election 2020: Gubernatorial contests

Democratic Governors	Republican Governors
Mean of 23 seats	Mean of 27 seats

There are not many gubernatorial contests this election cycle. I count only eleven. Still, the races we have hold importance in a census year, as Governors sometimes have a degree of control over the redistricting process. There is only polling for nine of these races, but the three states without polling (DE, ND, WV) seem unlikely to flip.

After 100000 simulated elections Democrats have a 0.0% probability of controlling a majority of gubernatorial seat and Republicans have a greater than 99.9% probability of controlling a majority of gubernatorial seats.

Of the nine polled races, the only state with a chance to flip is Montana. Governor Steve Bullock is term limited and running for a Senate seat. Republican Greg Gianforte has the upper hand over Democrat Mike Cooney, with an 87% to 13% probability of winning.

Here is the distribution of gubernatorial seats from the simulations:

• 5000 simulations: Democrats control a majority of seats 0.0%, Republicans control a majority of seats 99.9%.
• Average ( SE) seats for Democrats: 23.2 ( 0.4)
• Average (SE) seats for Republicans: 26.8 ( 0.4)
• Median (95% CI) seats for Democrats: 23 (23, 24)
• Median (95% CI) seats for Republicans: 27 (26, 27)

Expected outcomes:

• Democratic seats w/no election: 20
• Independent seats w/no election: none
• Republican seats w/no election: 19
• Contested Democratic seats likely to remain Democratic: three
• Contested Republican seats likely to remain Republican: seven
• Contested Democratic seats likely to switch: one
• Contested Republican seats likely to switch: none

This table shows the number of seats controlled for different criteria for the probability of winning a state: Safe>0.9999, Strong>90%, Leans>60%, Weak>50%:

Threshold	Safe	+ Strong	+ Leans	+ Weak
Safe Democrat	22
Strong Democrat	1	23
Leans Democrat	0	0	23
Weak Democrat	0	0	0	23
Weak Republican	0	0	0	27
Leans Republican	1	1	27
Strong Republican	2	26
Safe Republican	24

This table summarizes the results by state. Click on the poll number to see the individual polls included for a state.

		#	Sample	Percent	Percent	Democrat	Republican
State	@	polls	size	Democrat	Republican	% wins	% wins
DE		0	0			(100)	(0)
IN		1	682	45.5	54.5	4.4	95.6
MO		2	1469	44.6	55.4	0.3	99.7
MT		1	525	46.5	53.5	12.7	87.3
NH		2	2317	36.5	63.5	0.0	100.0
NC		11	7571	56.5	43.5	100.0	0.0
ND		0	0			(0)	(100)
UT		2	1086	26.6	73.4	0.0	100.0
VT		1	463	30.5	69.5	0.0	100.0
WA		1	451	59.0	41.0	99.6	0.4
WV		0	0			(0)	(100)

^@ Current party in office

Details of the methods are given in the FAQ.

The most recent analysis in this match-up can be found from this page.