The Gravitational Pull of Partisanship

It used to be that a candidate with some combination of personality, charm, a good story, hard work, and good fortune could win in a state with strong partisan leanings in the opposite direction. Now, that is harder and harder in gubernatorial elections and nearly impossible in Senate races. Federal races and the issues that naturally arise in them are easily nationalized, making it difficult to defy that gravitational pull of partisanship.

Nowadays, for statewide and presidential elections, the action is mostly limited to the almost universally accepted list of seven swing states—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump won six out of seven, all but Nevada. In 2020, Joe Biden won six out of seven, all but North Carolina. Apart from the seven, it's still worth keeping an eye on the half-dozen states that are politically adjacent to the swing states:Republicans seem always to be eyeing New Hampshire, New Jersey, Virginia, New Mexico, and Wisconsin. Democrats often, usually futilely, have dreams of flipping Florida and Texas.

Looking at the states ranked by President-elect Trump’s vote percentage in the 2024 election, with all 100 senators and 50 governors listed and color coded by party, underscores just how nationalized senatorial and gubernatorial races have gotten. Partisanship is increasingly becoming like the political equivalent of gravity—very difficult to defy if you are in the “wrong party” for that state or district.

The accompanying list shows how difficult it is for gubernatorial and especially Senate candidates to create a winning brand identity in states that have a strong partisan lean in the opposite direction.

Exceptions to the rule are much more likely to occur in gubernatorial races. Republican Phil Scott managed to win the Vermont governorship in the 2018 midterm elections, which were unfortunate for Republicans around the country. He was reelected to three more two-year terms in 2020, 2020, and 2024. Vermont was Trump’s worst state in the union; he won just 33 percent of the vote. TheNortheast has delivered quite a few moderate Republicans to their governors’ mansions. Scott inVermont, Charlie Baker in Massachusetts, and Larry Hogan in Maryland at one time were the three most popular governors in the country.

Now there are just three Republican governors in states Trump lost: Scott, Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin, and New Hampshire's Kelly Ayotte. The two Republican chief executives in states that Trump won narrowly are Georgia’s Brian Kemp and Nevada's Joe Lombardo.

The most prominent Democratic outlier is Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who was elected in 2019 and reelected in 2023 in a state where Trump received 65 percent of the vote. Six other Democratic governors are sitting in states the 45th (and soon to be 47th) president won last year—Laura Kelly in Kansas, Katie Hobbs in Arizona, Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, Josh Stein in North Carolina, and Tony Evers in Wisconsin.

Looking at the Senate contests in each of the three cycles, it is easy to see how few targets each party realistically has. With Senate Democrats last year losing two incumbents in extremely red states—Jon Tester in Montana and Sherrod Brown in Ohio—along with the open seat in West Virginia, the Senate is almost perfectly sorted out along party lines. Republican Susan Collins in Maine jumps out in the2026 cycle just as Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson does in the 2028 cycle. For Democrats in 2026, eyes immediately go to Georgia’s Jon Ossoff and Gary Peters in Michigan, although Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire), Tina Smith (Minnesota), and Mark Warner (Virginia) might want to check their six as well.

Democrats have won 12 of 16 Senate races held in the seven swing states since 2020, although in presidential contests, they have won just seven of the 21 contests. We might be able to chalk up the difference to Republicans’ increasing tendency to nominate potentially problematic candidates or those who were picked more for their net worth than their electoral track record.

Sen. Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania was notable in that he had the wealth to power his race but also possessed some political skills. Increasingly in purple swing states, the nominees emerging from primaries are people who might do perfectly well in a red or reddish state or district but are simply hard sells to independent voters in swing states.

Hang on to the adjacent list. It gives you the most critical piece of information as to where the parties stand in each state as they enter new election cycles.

This article was originally published for the National Journal on Jan. 13, 2025.