Believe it or not, the 2022 midterm election season is upon us.
While control of Congress has snatched up the majority of the headlines, there are other important races on the ballot this fall, including 36 contests for governor.
In the past two years, there has been increased attention on the races for state executive nationwide – and its often extraordinary power – thanks in large part to the pandemic politics at play nationwide.
Governors typically set the public health measures that impacted our lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. Experts say that has impacted voters’ political beliefs – not just about individual lawmakers, but asking fundamental questions about the powers that are given to their state’s leaders.
“This emergency, this crisis, is unlike any other,” said John Weingart of the Eagleton Center on the American Governor at Rutgers University. “It affects the entire country – there’s nothing about it that stops at one state’s borders.”
“The governor’s office does have great power in times of emergency,” Nathan Deal, a former governor of Georgia, said in an interview with Spectrum News.
This was especially true in the early days of the pandemic – when issues of life and death came so quickly and “so overwhelming in their scope that you don’t have time to legislate on these things,” he said.
“Therefore, the legislators are not really involved in the initial first-time, first-impression responses,” Deal added. “It falls on a governor. It falls on the state health agencies and other allied agencies who are working to deal with the pandemic’s effects.”
Not all governors used their power in the same way; Differing approaches quickly emerged on mask and vaccine mandates, for instance.
“The Constitution says all powers not specifically enumerated for the federal government belong to the states,” Janet Napolitano, the former governor of Arizona, said in an interview. “And so in the pandemic, you have California doing things very differently from Florida or South Dakota.”
Fierce debates played out at a very local level, and continue on the campaign trail – especially relating to schools. Education is always a combustible issue, and apart from remote schooling controversies, how race is taught – or the perception of how it’s taught – is also expected to remain an issue this year. It helped flip the Virginia governor’s office from Blue to Red last November.
Former President Donald Trump’s endorsement is also expected to factor in the 2022 elections. His clout is being tested in GOP primaries. In Georgia, Trump says the incumbent Brian Kemp – a Republican – should have done more to reverse his loss in the state.
Deal, a Republican who held office from 2011 to 2019, is supporting Kemp.
“I know that endorsements by powerful people such as President Trump do play a part,” he said. “But I do think that the responsibility of candidates who are currently running for office is to distinguish themselves as to what they will do.”
Being an incumbent comes with advantages this year.
States tax revenues are coming in much higher than a year ago – more than 25% higher in some places.
“I would have loved to have been in that kind of situation,” said Napolitano, a Democrat who held office from 2003 to 2009.
With Arizona and Georgia both holding elections for governor this year – and with both considered swing states that went narrowly for Joe Biden in 2020 – Spectrum News talked with both Napolitano and Deal about their advice for voters and candidates.
Napolitano, who went on to become President Obama’s Secretary of Homeland Security, reflected on being governor during the nation’s longest prison hostage crisis.
Her advice for voters: “Listen to what the candidates are saying. Look at who is supporting the candidates. And ask themselves hard questions: if there is a crisis, is this the type of person I want running my state?”
Deal entered office in a big ice storm amid a major recession. His advice for candidates may be surprising, considering how dog-eat-dog the world of politics can be.
“Be nice,” he said. “We sometimes have gotten into such violent and vicious partisanship that we can’t be nice to each other. Being mean to people doesn’t resolve problems.”
