NEW @LarrySabato‘s Crystal Ball@kkondik has our initial gubernatorial ratings for 2026, with a focus on familiar battlegrounds but where open seats could lead to upsets pic.twitter.com/Q7pXR7ngrZ

— Center for Politics at UVA (@Center4Politics) May 1, 2025

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, once a Democrat, is now running for Michigan governor as an independent, complicating his former party’s efforts to hold the seat as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) exits.

Republicans are rallying behind Rep. John James (R-MI), while Democrats have multiple prominent names in the mix, including Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist (D-MI) and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. Duggan’s move to run as an independent adds a wildcard to an already competitive race.

“A Democrat has not succeeded another Democrat as Michigan governor since 1960, although these sorts of historical streaks are made to be broken—we once noted how Pennsylvania had a longstanding trend of alternating between eight years of one party followed by eight years of another,” Kyle Kondik wrote for Sabato’s Crystal Ball.

“That was true until it wasn’t: Democrats have now won three straight elections there and Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) is favored to win a fourth.”

In Arizona, the only incumbent starting in the toss-up category is Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ). In 2022, Hobbs had the advantage of running against a vulnerable Republican, Kari Lake, who later lost a Senate bid in 2024.

President Donald Trump has thrown his support behind two GOP challengers to Hobbs: Karrin Taylor Robson, a well-funded business executive who many believe could have defeated Hobbs had she made it past the 2022 primary against Lake at the time, and Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), a hard-line conservative whose candidacy would likely be more favorable for Democrats. So far, Hobbs has avoided a primary of her own after Secretary of State Adrian Fontes opted to run for reelection.

“Arizona lurched back to the right in 2024 after drifting toward Democrats in 2020—it was Trump’s best state among the seven key states last year—and while Hobbs has an OK approval rating, we think she could be in for a difficult reelection,” Kondik wrote.

VIRGINIA AND NEW JERSEY ‘LEAN DEMOCRATIC’ IN EARLY GUBERNATORIAL RATINGS

Several of the states that dominated headlines during last year’s presidential election are now shaping the landscape for the most hotly contested governor’s races. Six of the seven battlegrounds — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — will hold gubernatorial elections in 2026, and most of those contests are starting off in the “toss-up” or “leans” categories, according to Sabato’s Crystal Ball.

The Cook Political Report rated the Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin Georgia and Nevada gubernatorial races as “toss up.”