U.S. governors races carry high stakes for abortion, elections
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[November 07, 2022]
By Daniel Trotta
(Reuters) - Competitive governors contests
are on the ballot in about a dozen states in Tuesday's U.S. midterm
elections, with outcomes that hold far-reaching consequences on issues
such as abortion, voting rights and guns.
The high stakes have brought increased money and attention to the
state-level races, which typically get overshadowed in midterm elections
by the fight for control of Congress.
President Joe Biden and former presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump,
who have campaigned in recent weeks for governor candidates across the
country, all spent part of the final weekend before Election Day
rallying with their party's nominees in the pivotal state of
Pennsylvania.
Democrats are fighting to keep control of the state's governorship -
along with those in Wisconsin and Michigan - to maintain the power to
veto any legislation by the three states' Republican-controlled
legislatures that might curb abortion rights and voting access.
At Saturday's rallies in Pennsylvania, Democrat Josh Shapiro and his
Republican rival, Doug Mastriano, each highlighted the impact of their
race on the state's future.
"It's your rights, it's your future that's on the line," Shapiro said in
Philadelphia.
Mastriano told supporters in Latrobe that "a vote for Josh Shapiro is a
vote to destroy Pennsylvania's future."
Republican victories in presidential battleground states including
Arizona could have implications for the 2024 White House election. The
party's nominees in several such states have embraced Trump's false
claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
In all, 36 of the country's 50 states will elect governors on Tuesday,
with the majority safely in either Democratic or Republican hands.
Republicans hold 28 governor seats nationally, compared to 22 Democratic
governorships.
In Florida, polls show Republican incumbent Ron DeSantis poised to
defeat Democratic challenger Charlie Crist ahead of DeSantis' widely
expected run for the presidency in 2024.
In Texas, Republican Governor Greg Abbott is expected to win a third
term despite a lively campaign by his Democratic opponent, former U.S.
congressman Beto O'Rourke. Georgia's Republican governor, Brian Kemp,
also looks likely to prevail against Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams
in a rematch of their 2018 race.
Democrats are expected to flip Republican-held governorships in the
states of Maryland and Massachusetts, but they face tough battles in a
couple of other Democratic states.
A three-way race in Oregon could result in a Republican winning the
state's governorship for the first time in 40 years.
Democrat Tina Kotek and Republican Christine Drazan are locked in a
close battle for the open seat, and independent candidate Betsy Johnson,
a former Democrat, could potentially siphon votes from Kotek.
Biden campaigned on Sunday in New York, where Democratic Governor Kathy
Hochul's lead in the polls over Republican challenger Lee Zeldin has
shrunk to single digits as Zeldin has hammered away on the crime issue.
No Republican has won statewide office in New York in 20 years.
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Democratic candidate for Governor of
Arizona, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, running in the 2022
U.S. midterm elections, addresses the members of Arizona's Electoral
College prior to them casting their votes in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.
December 14, 2020. Ross D. Franklin/Pool via REUTERS//File Photo
ABORTION RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY
As with congressional races across the country, Democratic
candidates for governor have warned of the threats Republicans could
pose to abortion rights and elections should they win on Tuesday.
Republicans have focused largely on crime and the economy, blaming
inflation on Democratic policies.
Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer has made abortion a focal point
of her re-election campaign in Michigan, where voters also will
consider a ballot measure that would safeguard abortion rights in
the state's constitution.
Her Republican opponent, Trump-backed conservative commentator Tudor
Dixon, supports a near-total ban on abortion but says the topic is
not an issue in the governor's race because of the ballot question.
Wisconsin's Democratic incumbent Tony Evers faces a strong challenge
from Republican construction magnate Tim Michels, who has promised
to enforce a 19th-century abortion ban that Evers is challenging in
court.
Michels has raised concerns about how he would handle future
elections, telling supporters at a recent campaign event that
"Republicans will never lose another election in Wisconsin after I'm
elected governor."
In Pennsylvania, the governor appoints the secretary of state, who
oversees election administration.
Mastriano has echoed Trump's false claims of voter fraud and was
present at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to protest the outcome
of the 2020 presidential election.
Shapiro, the state's attorney general who is leading in opinion
polls for the open seat, has cast Mastriano as too extreme for
Pennsylvania.
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, has echoed that
sentiment in her race against Republican Kari Lake, a former news
anchor, in one of the country's closest gubernatorial races.
Hobbs rose to national prominence in 2020 when she defended
Arizona's election results against Trump's false claims of fraud.
Trump-backed Lake has repeated his claims and said she would not
have certified Biden's victory in Arizona. She has vowed to ban
mail-in voting if she wins.
"It's a fraught moment," said Clarence Lusane, who chairs the
political science department at Howard University. "If someone like
Kari Lake or some of the others actually get some real power, they
have made it pretty clear what they're going to attempt to do, and
that is tip the scale unfairly."
(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw
in Latrobe, Pennsylvania; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Daniel
Wallis)
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