Inside the Top 5 Gubernatorial Races of 2026
Getting smart on funding priorities requires knowledge of the electoral terrain.
With 2026 now in full swing, a man can smell the primaries. The first three are on March 3, but early voting will take place well in advance of that date. Before you know it, we will be headlong into the 2026 cycle and all the moving parts that make forecasting both fun and difficult. You can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be refining my selections as we go, just as I did in 2024, and won’t be making any predictions on key races until I have as much information as possible.
There are 36 gubernatorial races this fall. Take a look at the map below:
As is the case with all of my models, I have a few rules for why the five in this article are the most important:
They are either up for grabs, or could flip in the right circumstances. Of course it’s important that Texas and Florida stay red, but the likelihood of a Democrat winning either is next to nothing. On the other side of the coin, no one is knocking Josh Shapiro out of Pennsylvania’s top spot, so the Keystone State doesn’t make the list.
Control of the state’s top office has significant political implications for that state and by extension, the country.
Dark horses are OK, but pipe dreams are not. I’m not playing the “What if California turns red?” game here. Read my review of their 2024 election to understand why (you can also extend the same logic to Minnesota, no matter how bad their Somali fraud crisis is, because the election laws are terrible and the powers that be forced Walz out).
Without further ado, here are the Top 5 Gubernatorial Races of 2026, in no particular order:
GEORGIA
Sure, retiring Governor Brian Kemp went from making viral videos about rounding up illegals in his truck to sitting on the fence when the state’s election was stolen in 2020, but do you have any idea how close Georgia was to being governed by this person?
Stacey Abrams’ 2018 midterm loss by just 54,723 votes was the canary in the coal mine that 2020 was going to be a problem. She wasn’t much of a threat in the re-run against the incumbent Kemp in 2022, but this year’s race has a freak show of Democrats, including former turncoat GOP Lieutenant Governor and avowed Trump hater Geoff Duncan, running for that party’s nomination against a boatload of RINOs, including current Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, doing the same for the GOP bid.
Georgia is the only Trump 2024 state I’m worried about in the next decade or so, especially if we don’t get the required fixes to elections made. Go too populist, and we can lose this race. Go too establishment, and the Trump base sits it out. This really finicky state needs a sharp executive to reel in the urban corruption that continues to belch out of metro Atlanta, or it may not even be winnable in 2028 for the GOP presidential nominee.
WISCONSIN
