Republican governors face the same challenge Democratic senators do.
Indubitably, the odds are against the Democrats retaining the majority in the Senate this year.
Democrats must defend all the seats they won in 2008. Seven of those seats are in states Mitt Romney won as he was getting squashed by the president. The GOP need only pick up six seats to take control of the upper house of Congress.
The Crystal Ball‘s Ryan Kondick has ranked the seats most likely to switch parties, you have to get to number 11 before Democrats have a chance to grab a seat in Georgia.
However, Democrats face a similar opportunity when it comes to winning back the governorships Republicans picked up in 2010.
GOP governors in Iowa, Florida, Maine, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin must win in states President Obama has picked up twice. Of these races only Iowa’s Terry Branstad seems a shoo-in for re-election.
Scott Walker won his recall in 2012 but a new poll shows him tied as it becomes clearer that his promise to create 250,000 jobs will never happen.
Pennsylvania’s Tom Corbett trails pretty much anyone you poll him against.
In Michigan, a recent poll showed Mark Schauer pulling ahead of Governor Snyder who has led the state to the fourth worst unemployment rate in the nation, badly lagging behind neighbor states.
The promise of Democrats winning back state houses should be a motivating factor to get the party excited about an election when the party that holds the White House traditionally gets trounced.
Sarah Palin is just beginning her effort to help Democrats keep the Senate by endorsing marginal candidates like this neo-Confederate sympathizer.
But even with the Tea Party’s help, 2014 is going to be a year that requires the left to mobilize the voters and volunteers who come out in a presidential year in a way that has not happened since 2006, when the nation turned against George W. Bush.
We know in Michigan how effective a Republican governor can be at punishing seniors and the poor, lowering wages and voiding the will of the voters.
Even if the House isn’t in play and the Senate is in doubt, Democrats will pick up governorships. The question is: How many?
[Photo of Mark Schauer volunteering on Martin Luther King Jr. Day by Anne C. Savage for the Michigan Democratic Party. See more images HERE]
