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Welcome to our Election Update for Wednesday, Oct. 31 – we are now less than one week from Election Day!
Our governors forecast continues to show Democrats in a position to make significant gains this year: The Classic version of the forecast has Democrats to govern 59 percent of the nation's population in 24 states, which is roughly what it was when we started two weeks ago . There are five toss-up breeds in our forecast, but with the most pollulous toss-up states – Georgia and Ohio – we thought we'd take a look at just how competitive they remain.
The Georgia race has attracted national attention because it is close, but also because Democracy Stacey Abrams is seeking to become African-American woman governor in U.S. history. Republican Brian Kemp has narrowly led Abrams in most recent polls of likely voters, but a new survey from OpinionSavvy found Abrams with a slight edge, 48 percent to 47 percent. Each version of our model views Kemp has a slim favorite – though all three consider it a toss-up – but with polls this tight, it's possible there will be an Abrams-Kemp runoff on Dec. 4. Georgia requires a candidate to win Major in a general election, so if Abrams and Kemp run together, Libertarian Ted Metz could win the vote. Metz is at 1.2% in our forecast share share, but he Could win slightly more than that. After all, Libertarian candidates averaged 3.1 percent of the vote in Georgia gubernatorial elections from 1990 to 2014.
Ohio, the classic bellwether swing state has a close race for governor, confirmed in the latest two polls. Emerson College found Democrat Richard Cordray with a slender lead over Republican Mike DeWine, 49 percent to 46 percent. Another academic pollster, Baldwin Wallace University found the horse-race question. In the head-to-head contest, respondents gave Cordray a 1-point edge, but with third-party options included, DeWine actually had a slight lead (half a percentage point) over Cordray. Unlike the Georgia race, where Kemp is a narrow favorite in each version of the forecast, the versions differ just a bit when it comes to Ohio. The Cordillera has 5 in 9 chance of winning, while the classic version, which adds to the polls, gives both candidates a chance to win. But the Deluxe version of the forecast, which adds in the views of experts to the polls and fundamentals, assigns DeWine to 5 in 9 chance of victory. So it's sort of a "Choose Your Own Buckeye Adventure," with all three versions pointing to a tight race.
These two states will receive a lot of attention because of their size and competitiveness because of their historical history – Georgia because of Abrams' history-making potential and Ohio because of its traditional status as a bellwether state.
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