The Current Longest Partisan Droughts in US Elections #7: Governors’ Races (Democrats)
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Every election, most attention is paid to the elections for offices where there is a chance of a close election and/or one that could flip to a different party than the current officeholder’s party. And that makes sense: We naturally want to know where the greatest competition is.
But what about those offices were one party or the other just can’t make a breakthrough?
In many contests at the federal, state, and local levels of governments, there is an unfortunate lack of competition. No matter what happens, one party is practically guaranteed to win that office. Or it can be occasionally competitive, but one party just can’t quite break through. Even so, studying where the lack of electoral competition is, and how it came to be, can be just as interesting as where the most competition is.
As I started writing an article about the longest partisan win streaks in US elections, it became apparent that my initial scope was far too large for a single article. Even if I simply divided it by the type of office (e.g. president, US Senate), it’s a lot to take in. So, this series is going to be broken up into multiple but frequent entries, by type of office and by party, shown in the list below. Each office will first look at Democratic droughts and then Republican droughts.
- Parts 1 and 2: States’ Electoral Votes for President
- Parts 3 and 4: US Senate Seats
- Parts 5 and 6: US House Congressional Delegations by State
- Parts 7 and 8: Governors’ Races
- Parts 9 and 10: State House Majorities
- Parts 11 and 12: State Senate Majorities
Each of these posts examines the states with the top five longest droughts each for Democrats, and then Republicans, in each post’s respective type of office (unless more states are tied for a spot in the top 5). Included are the primary and supplemental sources for the data I used to compile the information, political contexts surrounding the elections, other nuances specific to these elections, and a brief description of what other data is shown for these offices.
Primary Source(s) for Data
The primary source for my data comes from Congressional Quarterly’s (CQ) Guide to U.S. Elections, 3rd Edition. Some extra context comes from the following sources:
- The Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives’ official vote counts for federal elections from 1920 to the present
- Party Affiliations in the State Legislatures: A Year By Year Summary, 1796–2006 by Michael J. Dubin
- Ballotpedia pages on state legislative chambers’ election results from 2007 to the present
- The U.S. Elections Atlas compilation of various elections for the states
Longest Democratic Droughts
South Dakota (1974)
Here is the winning party and the margin of victory in South Dakota’s 1974 governor election and each of the preceding five elections.
- 1964: Republican (3.4 points)
- 1966: Republican (15.4 points)
- 1968: Republican (15.3 points)
- 1970: Democrat (9.7 points)
- 1972: Democrat (20.0 points)
- 1974: Democrat (7.2 points)
It’s been considerably rare for South Dakota to choose Democrats as governor. Since it became a state in 1889, South Dakota has had 56 gubernatorial elections, but 46 of them have been won by Republicans. Democrats have won only eight of those elections. (Andrew E. Lee won as a third-party candidate in 1896 and 1898.) Most of those Democratic victories have also only been within shorter stretches of time: They won four out of the five gubernatorial elections from 1926 to 1934 and the three elections from 1970 to 1974. Their other win came in the 1958 election.
Those 1970, 1972, and 1974 elections were all won by the same man: Richard Kneip. A dairy businessman and former state senator, Kneip has the claim to being the only South Dakota governor to win three consecutive terms (Republican Bill Janklow won four terms, but they were nonconsecutive streaks of two terms each time). He was also the governor of the state when the office shifted from two-year terms to four-year terms.
But Kneip resigned near the end of his last term to become the ambassador to Singapore. Lieutenant Governor Harvey Wollman took over the duties of governor, but lost in a close 1978 primary to Roger McKellips. Then McKellips would go on to lose in the general election by 13.2 points to Janklow. With Republican Kristi Noem’s reelection in 2022, it has now been 12 consecutive gubernatorial elections that Democrats have lost in South Dakota.
Utah (1980)
Here is the winning party and the margin of victory in Utah’s 1980 governor election and each of the preceding five elections.
- 1960: Republican (5.4 points)
- 1964: Democrat (14.0 points)
- 1968: Democrat (37.4 points)
- 1972: Democrat (39.4 points)
- 1976: Democrat (6.0 points)
- 1980: Democrat (10.8 points)
In several ways, the history of Utah’s gubernatorial elections resembles that of South Dakota. A sizable majority of said elections in both states, historically, have been won by Republicans — 22 out of 33 in Utah’s case. In the times that Democrats have won, it’s typically been in shorter stretches instead of spread out over time: Democratic candidates won six straight times from 1924 to 1944 and five straight times from 1964 to 1980. (The other win was in 1916.)
Calvin Rampton won three consecutive times from 1964 to 1968, the only Utah governor to do so. A Utah National Guard veteran and then a U.S. Army soldier in World War II, Rampton became a lawyer and the assistant attorney general of the state. Rampton was a very popular governor, even though the beginning of his political career was rather inauspicious. Scott Matheson followed up with two straight victories of his own for the Democratic Party, though by much smaller margins of victory than Rampton’s.
Perhaps Matheson could have also been a three-term governor but he declined to run again, and Republican Norman H. Bangerter won in 1984. The 1988 and 1992 governor elections might have been won by Democrats despite increasing Republican dominance in state and federal politics in Utah, but independent candidate Merrill Cook took 21.0% and 33.5% of the vote in those respective elections. It’s hard to definitively say whether he hindered Democratic chances, but for what it’s worth, Cook eventually served two terms as a Republican congressman.
North Dakota (1988)
Here is the winning party and the margin of victory in North Dakota’s 1988 governor election and each of the preceding five elections.
- 1968: Democrat (11.1 points)
- 1972: Democrat (2.0 points)
- 1976: Democrat (5.1 points)
- 1980: Republican (7.2 points)
- 1984: Democrat (10.6 points)
- 1988: Democrat (19.8 points)
Like its fellow Dakota, North Dakota has historically voted Republican often for governor. Out of its 54 total elections for that office, only 15 have been won by Democrats. (Independent candidates won in 1892, 1921, and 1936.) Also like South Dakota and Utah, the times North Dakota has chosen a Democrat have usually been in shorter stretches of time. The party won three straight times from 1906 to 1910, four out of five times from 1934 to 1942, six straight times from 1960 to 1976, and two straight times from 1984 to 1988.
The man that won the 1984 and 1988 elections was George Sinner. A U.S. Air Force veteran and a farmer by trade, Sinner had also served in both the state house and state senate and as a delegate to the 1972 state constitutional convention. Based on his gubernatorial election margins of victory of 10.6 and 19.8 points, respectively, he seemed to be a fairly popular figure.
Sinner, however, declined to run for a third term. (At the time, governors were not limited in the number of terms they could run. That changed with the passage of a state constitutional amendment in 2022.) Since then, eight straight elections for governor have been won by Republicans, with brief 2024 presidential candidate Doug Burgum doing so the last two times.
Idaho (1990)
Here is the winning party and the margin of victory in Idaho’s 1990 governor election and each of the preceding five elections.
- 1970: Democrat (4.4 points)
- 1974: Democrat (54.4 points)
- 1978: Democrat (19.2 points)
- 1982: Democrat (1.2 points)
- 1986: Democrat (0.9 points)
- 1990: Democrat (36.4 points)
The snapshot above may be surprising considering the definitive shade of red sported by The Gem State (no, Idaho is not just known for potatoes). It isn’t often that you find elected Democrats in Idaho anymore, but they found considerable success in governor’s races in the 1970s and 1980s. If you take away the six straight victories from 1970 to 1990, however, Democrats have only won 11 out of 42 gubernatorial elections in Idaho, while all but one of the other 31 elections have been won by Republicans.
The Democratic gubernatorial victories from 1970 to 1990 are more stark when you consider the otherwise dominant showing by Republicans in state and federal races there. In that span of time, Republicans won six of seven US Senate races, 17 of 22 US House contests, supermajorities in the state house every two years, and majorities in the state senate every two years except for 1990 (when there was an even split between Republicans and Democrats in that chamber).
Nevertheless, Democrats were able to hang their hat on winning the chief state executive office of Idaho in that particular timeframe. The man most responsible for that was Cecil Andrus. Andrus served four nonconsecutive terms as governor, winning in 1970, 1974, 1986, and 1990. (Between Andrus’ terms, John V. Evans won in 1978 and 1982.) Interestingly, Andrus lost his first bid for governor in 1966, when independent candidates took Perry Swisher and Philip Jungert took 12.2% and 9.2% of the vote, respectively — though it’s hard to say whether Andrus would’ve won if those two candidates were not in the race.
Also somewhat curious is the fact that Andrus’ victories were either pretty close (4.4 points in 1970 and 0.9 points in 1986) or complete blowouts (54.4 points in 1974 and 36.4 points in 1990). There was no between, where he won comfortably but didn’t shellack his general election opponent. In any case, he declined to seek another reelection, and Republican Philip Batt won the 1994 election by a somewhat comfortable margin. Republicans have now won eight straight gubernatorial elections in Idaho.
Texas (1990)
Here is the winning party and the margin of victory in Texas’ 1990 governor election and each of the preceding five elections.
- 1972: Democrat (2.9 points)
- 1974: Democrat (30.3 points)
- 1978: Republican (0.8 points)
- 1982: Democrat (7.3 points)
- 1986: Republican (6.6 points)
- 1990: Democrat (2.6 points)
Texas has a much different political history than the rest of the states on this list. Like the rest of the South, it was once a Democratic bastion. From the 1870s to the 1960s or so, it was quite rare to find an elected Republican. In the case of governor, Democrats won 51 straight elections from 1873 to 1974.¹ In most of those years, Texas Democrats also won all (or almost all) of the seats in the state legislature, the US House delegation, and US Senate.
The last of that string of Democratic governors of Texas (but not the last overall) was Dolph Briscoe. Briscoe was a rancher, a U.S. Army soldier in Asia in World War II, and a descendant of one of the signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence. Like Richard Kneip in South Dakota, he was the last governor of Texas to win a two-year term and the first to win a four-year term. Although Briscoe had a tough contest against Republican Hank Grover in 1972 (2.9 points), he left Republican Jim Granberry in the dust in the 1974 election (30.3 points).
Despite that blowout in 1974, when Briscoe ran for reelection, Democratic voters chose John Hill instead in the 1978 primary, and Republican William P. Clements won a tight race against Hill in the general election. That made Clements the first Republican win in a Texas gubernatorial race since Edmund J. Davis did so in 1869 — more than a century prior. Clements would lose to Democrat Mark White in 1982, but then defeated White in a rematch in 1986.
Democrats would manage to win one more election for governor in 1990, when Dorothy Ann Richards won a competitive contest against Republican Clayton Williams. The Texas transition toward becoming a red state continued, however. Polling suggested that her 1994 reelection bid would be much tighter than it turned out to be, though it wasn’t exactly a blowout, as Richards lost to the Republican candidate by 7.6 points. That candidate? Future US President George W. Bush. Republican candidates for Texas governor have now won eight straight times.
Could We See Any of These Partisan Streaks End in the Near Future?
It’s highly doubtful.
Only two of the states covered in this article are holding elections for governor this year: North Dakota and Utah. Most states have those contests in midterm elections (e.g., 2022, 2026). Major election forecasters who have made predictions about who will win gubernatorial contests have both of those contests as near certainties for the Republican Party.
Idaho, South Dakota, and Texas have their next gubernatorial elections in 2026, and Democrats are very unlikely to be competitive in those races as well.
- Idaho: Since the last time a Democrat won the governorship in Idaho (1990), almost every election since then has been a blowout in favor of Republicans. The state has also only become even more red with time: As of July 2, 2024, Republicans made up 59.71% of the electorate. The next largest group, unaffiliated voters, made up only 26.23% of the electorate.
- South Dakota: With exceptions in 1986 and 2018, Democrats have not come even close to winning the governorship in South Dakota. Even after Kristi Noem’s tough battle in 2018, she followed that up with a 26.8 drubbing of Democrat Jamie Smith in 2022. As of July 1, 2024, 50.65% of the electorate is Republican while 23.75% is Democratic, 14.61% is independent, and 10.35% are no-party affiliates (in South Dakota, independents and NPAs are counted separately).
- Texas: This would probably be the most likely state on this list to flip its governorship to Democrats, but even then it is very unlikely. Since George W. Bush became governor in Texas in 1994, Democrats haven’t even come close to winning it again, with one major exception. The closest contest was when Rick Perry won a second term in 2006 only by the skin of his teeth, as two independent candidates took just over 30% of the vote combined. Democrat Chris Bell lost by less than 0.3 points. Meanwhile, the Republican margins of victory in the other elections were 37.1 points (1998), 17.9 points (2002), 12.7 points (2010), 20.4 points (2014), 13.3 points (2018), and 10.9 points (2022).
In short, don’t expect any of these Republican streaks for governor to be broken anytime soon. It could happen, but it is a much safer bet to assume the partisan status quo will continue for those seats.
- In 1952, Allan Shivers had both the Democratic and Republican nominations, but in the other gubernatorial elections he won (1950, 1954), he ran as just a Democrat.
