What are the stakes of the 2022 races for the governor



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If Mr. Jones outperformed Mr. Kemp in the primaries (and if Ms. Abrams decided to run), he would stage a historic race: the first time in modern U.S. history, when the two main parties nominated a black candidate. as governor.

In 2018, Laura Kelly, a Democrat, won an unlikely victory in the blood-red state, thanks to the profound unpopularity of the cuts in education spending by former Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, and still unpopularity. deeper than his opponent, Kris. Kobach, the former Kansas secretary of state.

Ms Kelly had hoped to benefit from a difficult two-way Republican primary between Jeff Colyer, a former lieutenant governor who served as governor for a year after Brownback resigned to a post in the Trump administration, and Derek Schmidt, the state attorney general. . But Mr Colyer withdrew from racing last month after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Until Mr. Colyer stepped down, analysts viewed the race as a big blow, and Ms. Kelly still has several perks, not the least of which is the ever-painful memory of the Brownback years. But it’s a state Mr. Trump won by around 15 percentage points in 2020 – in fact, it’s the only race in 2022 where a Democrat is at risk of being re-elected into a Trump state.

Like Arizona, Pennsylvania was a focal point for bogus allegations of voter fraud after the 2020 election. This lingering right-wing obsession in turn colored the Republican primary to replace Democratic governor Tom Wolf with limited tenure. .

Eight Republicans have declared their candidacy, but no one has emerged as a favorite. All, to some extent, have embraced the pro-Trump cause, if not the specific claims of voter fraud. So far, Lou Barletta, a former congressman, has garnered considerable attention due to his hard-line stance on immigration and name recognition, but it’s the breed of anyone to this stage.

Only one Democrat, Josh Shapiro, the state attorney general, has entered the race, and it is very likely that he will remain so. With an open Senate seat catching the attention of Democrats, Mr Shapiro was able to assert a claim relatively early and convince his party that a rally around his candidacy allowed him to retain the governor’s mansion.

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