States' Ailing Finances Change Forecasts for Governor's Races

BOISE, Idaho, July 13

Six months ago, Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack (D) seemed an almost sure bet for reelection to a second term. Today he is an embattled incumbent struggling to save his job -- Exhibit A in how the fiscal crunch enveloping the states this year has dramatically changed the political landscape.

Vilsack's job approval rating has plummeted 18 percentage points (to 48 percent) since the turn of the year as he struggled to plug ever-growing shortfalls in the state budget. The most recent Iowa Poll showed him with a statistically insignificant lead over his Republican opponent, Doug Gross.

"It's very much the budget," said J. Ann Selzer, who directs the poll for the Des Moines Register. "The leading issue that Iowans say the next governor needs to face is managing the budget, and among those who say that is the number one issue, Gross has an overpowering lead."

Vilsack acknowledged how quickly his fortunes have changed. "It's going to be a tough race, no question about it," he said by telephone during a brief vacation. "Governors in difficult times don't have the luxury of deficit spending."

As governors gather here this weekend for the summer meeting of the National Governors Association, they face a volatile political environment. The states' fiscal situation this year is the worst since the early 1990s, and the impact of those problems has prompted party strategists to recalibrate their forecasts for the November elections.

Those elections could produce the most significant turnover in state executives in a decade. Voters will choose governors in 36 states -- 23 held by the Republicans, 11 by the Democrats. Of the two independents, Gov. Jesse Ventura of Minnesota has said he will not run for reelection and Gov. Angus King of Maine is term-limited.

Republicans, who hold a total 27 governorships to 21 for the Democrats, have been bracing all year for potentially heavy losses in November, particularly in states where their popular incumbents face term limits or are retiring.

What has changed is that more Democratic seats appear in jeopardy, including four of five Democrats up for reelection this fall. Republicans still face the prospect of losing their gubernatorial majority because they are defending many more seats than the Democrats, but the parties might be more evenly balanced after the elections than previously predicted.

At this point, strategists in both parties count about two dozen of those 36 contests as competitive. By contrast, in the 435-member House of Representatives, there might be no more than three dozen competitive races this fall.

"There is a mood for change in terms of what's going on in the states," said Republican pollster Bill McInturff. "That change is not just pressure on Republican governors, it's also Democrat governors. It's just a very difficult time to be governor because of what's happened to state budgets and the political pressure that has caused."

B.J. Thornberry, executive director of the Democratic Governors' Association, said, "The budget deficits, not only individually but collectively, will keep [the races] more volatile than in a normal year. How these gaps get closed is going to have a huge impact on these races."

McInturff, whose Public Opinion Strategies firm has been polling in 14 governor's races, said there is "a sharply different mood in the states" this year compared with four years ago, when incumbents coasted to reelection. Then, about seven in 10 voters said their states were heading in the right direction. Today four in 10 feel that way.

McInturff said the more that voters know about budget problems in their states, the more likely they are to be open to electing somebody new.