November 2025 will feature likely competitive governor’s races that should indicate Trump’s popularity, or lack thereof, 10 months into his second White House stint. Local issues also will play major roles in the New Jersey and Virginia open-seat races. It will be similar a year later when 36 governorships are on the ballot. A handful of those at this point look likeliest to be the most competitive — Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Nevada, and New York.

Republicans now hold 27 governorships, to 23 for Democrats. These offices have taken on heightened importance for many voters since the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, effectively making abortion a state matter.

Moreover, just because Republicans in Washington, D.C., will have full government control doesn’t mean they’ll have an easy time governing. Republicans in the 119th Congress will only have a 2020-215 House majority, and late 2024 legislative efforts to pass a temporary federal budget extension and avoid a government showdown previewed the challenges GOP lawmakers and the Trump administration may face in enacting their legislative agenda.

Here are key points about those 2025 and 2026 governor races to watch for. With the eternal caveat that nothing in politics is permanent. Races that look like political dogfights now may end up as electoral romps for one side or the other. While plenty more competitive governors’ contests could very well still emerge.

2025

New Jersey

Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ) must leave office due to state term limits. New Jersey has been a blue state for years. Yet Murphy’s shockingly narrow escape in his 2021 reelection (51% to 48% over Republican rival Jack Ciattarelli), along with Trump’s major 2024 gains in the state this year, Democrats cannot take the race for granted.

Candidate fields for both parties were large even before the presidential election in New Jersey, when the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, beat Trump only 51.97% to 46.06%. Four years earlier, President Joe Biden beat Trump in New Jersey about 57% to 41%.

For Democrats, the gubernatorial lineup includes Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), as well as two mayors, Newark’s Rask Baraka and Jersey City’s Steven Fulop. Also running are former state Senate President Steve Sweeney and Sean Spiller, who heads the New Jersey Education Association, a powerful teachers union.

Republicans have a four-way battle, headlined by Ciattarelli, who is a former state assemblyman. He’ll face conservative radio host Bill Spadea, former state Sen. Ed Durr, and state Sen. Jon Bramnick, who has positioned himself as the GOP field’s relative centrist.

Virginia

Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) must leave office after the November 2025 election since Virginia doesn’t allow governors to run for consecutive terms. Both parties think they have a good chance of winning what will be one of the nation’s marquee contests of 2025.

Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears has the Republican gubernatorial nomination sewn up. Democrats have largely rallied around outgoing Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), whose political base is in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., and down to the state capital of Richmond, though Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) could be a late entry into the field. Scott, too, has a formidable political base, as a House member since 1993, representing the Central Hampton Roads 3rd Congressional District.

The Virginia governor’s race will show if Trump is a help, hindrance, or something in between for downballot Republican candidates. During the first year of Trump’s first term, in 2017, Ralph Northam won the governor’s race by 9 points, which was the strongest Democratic performance in decades.

In the 2024 presidential race, Harris beat Trump in Virginia 51.83% to 46.05%. That was closer than Trump’s 10-point loss to Biden in 2020 but larger than his 2016 Virginia defeat at the hands of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

2026

Arizona

Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) in 2022 beat Republican opponent Kari Lake by a super-slim 50.32% to 49.65%. Hobbs naturally is a top Republican gubernatorial target in the 2026 election cycle, especially after Trump’s nearly Arizona 6-point win in 2024, the largest of seven presidential race states that had been considered the most competitive.

Hobbs repeatedly spars with GOP state legislators, in control of both chambers, and her approval ratings are middling at best. Still, Republicans don’t have a candidate who at this early stage would seemingly have appeal to independent voters in what’s still a competitive state. After all, Lake in 2024 lost another statewide bid, running for Senate against Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ).

The potential candidate most vocal so far about making the race, MAGA activist and podcaster Charlie Kirk, doesn’t exactly ooze appeal to the politically unaffiliated in a state where 33.69% of Arizona registered voters list as “other” compared to 35.77% Republican and 29% Democratic, per October 2024 statistics from the secretary of state’s office. Other Republicans eyeing the race are more establishment figures — state Sen. Jake Hoffman and state Treasurer Kimberly Yee.

Michigan

With term-limited Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) leaving office in January 2027 after eight years, both parties are preparing for crowded primaries in one of the nation’s premier swing states. In 2024, Trump won Michigan, for the second time in three straight presidential races. And Republicans won a state House majority, ending full Democratic control of Michigan government after two years. Democrats, though, still hold all statewide offices and have shown strength downballot in local races.

On the Democratic side, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist both look likely to run. Many others are also eyeing the contest as Democrats aim to win their third gubernatorial race in a row. One unknown political factor is Biden administration Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a former South Bend, Indiana, mayor who sought the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Buttigieg in 2022 changed his residence to Michigan, his husband’s home state. He’s recently met with Michigan Democratic leaders about a possible gubernatorial bid but seems more likely to run for president in 2028 in an open-seat White House race.

The Republican side also remains undefined. Conservative commentator Tudor Dixon, who lost to Whitmer in a 54%-44% drubbing in 2022, has shown interest in a second bid. Rep. John James (R-MI), who is one of the state GOP’s biggest stars, has also attracted attention, though he’s yet to say anything about his plans.

A 2026 wild card is Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, who was elected to lead the Motor City as a Democrat but is now running for governor in an independent candidacy.

Minnesota

Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), the 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee, is eligible to run for a third term. Whether he does or not after a bruising vice presidential campaign as the understudy to Democratic nominee Harris is an open question.

The gubernatorial field may not develop much until a decision comes from Walz, a House member for 12 years representing southern Minnesota before his successful 2018 statewide bid. Yet his current job is likely to be less fun than before. Democrats in 2024 lost full control over the legislature, which complicated his next two years in office.

If Walz stands down from a reelection bid, expect a crowded gubernatorial field on both sides since the state can be competitive between the parties in statewide contests. Republicans in particular are buoyed by their capture of a state House majority in 2024. At the same time, Harris won Minnesota by about 51% to 47%, which was considerably tighter than Biden’s victory there four years earlier.

Nevada

Gov. Joe Lombardo (R-NV) is a rare Republican gubernatorial success story from the 2022 midterm elections. That year, midway through what turned out to be President Joe Biden’s single White House term, Lombardo was the lone Republican to flip a governorship, with a very narrow victory over the Democratic incumbent, Steve Sisolak.

Lombardo has some reasons for optimism in his 2026 reelection bid. Nevada went for Trump, its first backing of a Republican presidential nominee since 2004. However, Democrats control other statewide offices and have majorities in both legislative chambers.

One likely 2026 Democratic gubernatorial candidate is state Attorney General Aaron Ford. He would be Nevada’s first black governor — and only the fifth in the nation since Reconstruction.

New Mexico

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM) will leave office after the 2026 elections due to term limits, making for a wide-open race in the Land of Enchantment. Democrats have won New Mexico’s presidential electoral votes from 2008 on, yet gubernatorial races often are competitive.

Both parties start with wide-open primaries in a state that Harris won 52%-46%. Democrats control every statewide office, all three House seats, and both chambers of the legislature, which gives them a massive bench to choose from.

Republicans, however, held the governorship for two consecutive terms just before Lujan Grisham’s ascension. And the state’s blue lean is a soft one at best.

New York

New York has experienced a sharp shift to the right in recent years. Harris beat Trump there 55% to 43%, which was the best by a Republican candidate for president since 1988. And Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) survived a harrowing scare in the 2022 midterm elections, winning by a closer-than-expected 53%-47% margin.

Republicans are optimistic that they can win their first statewide race since 2002. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) appears poised to run. Lawler is a political giant-slayer of sorts from his 2022 win over then-Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, who headed the House Democratic campaign arm at the time. Two years later, Lawler, a cable television fixture, convincingly won reelection in the Lower Hudson Valley 17th District.

Hochul also may face Democratic primary challengers. Her sometimes gaffe-prone public persona, and flip-flops over a plan for congestion pricing for traffic in New York City, have possible Democratic rivals circling. One is her lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado, and Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), from the Central Bronx 15th District. Each in their own way has amped up implicit and implied criticism of incumbent Hochul. She’s already at a disadvantage since her Buffalo political base is smaller than many successful statewide candidates, who represent parts of the more populous New York City area.