United States gubernatorial election 2019

Map of the governor's posts available for election; light red: Republican incumbent re-runs; dark red: Republican incumbent does not run again; light blue: democratic incumbent runs again.

light blue: Democrats held; light red: Republicans held; dark blue: Democrats gain.

The 2019 United States gubernatorial election will take place on November 5, 2019 , on General Election Day. In the three states of Kentucky , Louisiana and Mississippi , the governors are elected for a four-year term. In Louisiana, the main election was on October 12th and a runoff on November 16th.

In some states, state parliament elections were also held at the same time .

Starting position and candidates

In the three states in which the governor is elected as head of government of the state executive, gubernatorial elections were last held in 2015 on a generally four-year cycle. The 2019 elections will also determine the incumbents for the next four years. Although the Republican Party candidate usually receives a clear majority in nationwide elections in all three states, a close result was expected in all three states.

Kentucky Governors, Republican Matt Bevin , and Louisiana Governors , Democrat John Bel Edwards , had both re-elected in 2015. While Bevin received the lowest approval of all governors in a Morning Consult poll of 32 percent in the second quarter of 2019 and is closely aligned with President Trump , the values ​​for Bel Edwards are slightly positive, although he rules in a structurally republican-dominated state and is the only one Democratic governor in the Deep South and the only Democrat holding a state-wide office in Louisiana.

The previous governor of Mississippi, the Republican Phil Bryant , will not be allowed to run again in 2019 due to term limits; he was elected in 2011 and re-elected with a large majority in 2015.

The internal party primaries to determine the respective gubernatorial candidate took place on May 21, 2019 in Kentucky and on August 6 and 27, 2019 in Mississippi. In Kentucky the incumbent Bevin prevailed on the Republican side, while the former Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear , the son of the former Governor Steve Beshear , won the Democrats . In Mississippi, the former Vice Governor Tate Reeves on the Republican side and the longstanding Attorney General of the state, the Democrat Jim Hood , are among others .

There is a two-part election going on in Louisiana. The pre-election took place on October 12, 2019, in which several applicants from different parties competed against each other ( nonpartisan blanket primary or “jungle primary”). Since none of the candidates achieved an absolute majority of the votes in this pre-election, there will be a runoff election on November 16, 2019 for the top two. The Democratic incumbent Bel Edwards and the two Republicans, Congressman Ralph Abraham and Eddie Rispone, were considered promising in advance . Polls predicted a close race, on the one hand for Edwards for reaching 50 percent and on the other hand for the second runoff spot between the two Republicans, with Eddie Rispone replacing Ralph Abraham as the Republican front runner in the last polls. In the end, Edwards received 46.6 percent of the vote, Rispone 27.4 percent and Abraham 23.6 percent. So Edwards and Rispone ran against each other in the runoff. Incumbent Edwards won this with 51.3 percent of the vote.

In Kentucky incumbent Bevin was narrowly defeated by the Democrat Andy Beshear, who won the election by less than 10,000 votes. In Mississippi, however, the Republican Tate Reeves prevailed, with his result well below that of his predecessor Bryant.

Web links

• Gubernatorial elections, 2019. In: Ballotpedia (English)
• Kyle Kondik: Governors 2019-2020: Democrats try to hold the line in red-state battles. In: Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball , University of Virginia Center for Politics, December 6, 2018 (English)

supporting documents

1. ↑ Kyle Kondik: Governors 2019-2020: Democrats try to hold the line in red-state battles. In: Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball , University of Virginia Center for Politics, December 6, 2018.
2. ↑ Lesley Clark: Gov. Matt Bevin dismisses his low poll numbers, welcomes Trump's help. In: McClatchy DC , February 22, 2019; Steven Shepard: Governor follows Trump script in reelection brawl. In: Politico , August 4, 2019.
3. ↑ Kyle Kondik: Governors 2019-2020: Democrats try to hold the line in red-state battles. In: Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball , University of Virginia Center for Politics, December 6, 2018; Elizabeth Crisp: Gov. John Bel Edwards officially receives Louisiana Democratic Party endorsement for re-election. In: The Advocate , March 9, 2019.
4. ^ Daniel Desrochers: It's Beshear vs. Bevin. Beshear outlasts Adkins in Democratic primary for governor. In: The Lexington Herald Leader , May 21, 2019.
5. ↑ Luke Ramseth: Final stretch governor race poll: Reeves leads, but Waller, Foster Could force runoff. In: Mississippi Clarion Ledger , July 30, 2019; Daniel Strauss: Reeves wins GOP nod for Mississippi governor. In: Politico , August 27, 2019; Subject 2019 Gubernatorial Candidates. In: Mississippi Today.
6. ↑ Kyle Kondik: Governors 2019-2020: Democrats try to hold the line in red-state battles. In: Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball , University of Virginia Center for Politics, December 6, 2018; Elizabeth Crisp: Gov. John Bel Edwards officially receives Louisiana Democratic Party endorsement for re-election. In: The Advocate , March 9, 2019.
7. ↑ Official Results. Voteportal, accessed on November 6, 2019 (English). 
8. ↑ Official Results. Voteportal, accessed on August 16, 2020 (English). 
9. ↑ Live results: Kentucky General Election 2019. Politico, November 6, 2019, accessed November 6, 2019 . 
10. ↑ Mississippi Governor General Election Results 2019. November 6, 2019, accessed November 6, 2019 .