A string of stunning Democratic upsets in governors races across the country will put Democrats in charge of deep-red states where they have not held the top jobs in decades.
Democrats flipped five governors’ seats, all in states that President Trump won in 2024, sometimes by double digits. The victories gave them a total of 29 governorships and control of a majority of American governorships for the first time in a generation.
A race for the Republican-held governor’s seat in Alaska had still not been called by Wednesday morning.
Their wins could expand the state-level resistance to Mr. Trump’s policies on tariffs and immigration, while also putting new Democratic-run states into play as potential swing states in the 2028 presidential election.
Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, celebrated the wins as the product of years of work, chiseling away at Republicans’ longtime dominance of governors’ mansions.
“Tonight, we delivered a Democratic governor in every swing state from the past several elections, and we expanded the map,” Mr. Beshear said in an interview on Tuesday. “There will be some 2028 candidates who can compete in a place like Iowa or Ohio.”
Mr. Beshear said the Democrats won with campaigns that were “laser focused on the lives of our people, and not just fealty to Donald Trump.”
In Texas, Gina Hinojosa unseated Gov. Greg Abbott to become the state’s first Latina governor as well as its first Democratic governor in more than 30 years. She has criticized Mr. Trump’s moves to expand the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and could become a new opponent to his immigration enforcement efforts in a state with one of the largest Latino populations.
Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, flipped a Republican-held governor’s seat in Georgia, to become the country’s first Black woman governor and Georgia’s first Democratic leader since 2003.
In the Midwest, Amy Acton was elected Ohio’s first Democratic governor in 20 years after a bruising, bitterly personal campaign, and Rob Sand became the first Democrat Iowa has elected since 2006.
Voters in the swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin also elected new Democrats to replace their outgoing Democratic governors.
The race in Kansas to succeed Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, was still too close to call on Wednesday morning, but the Democratic candidate, State Senator Cindy Holscher, was narrowly leading.
Their wins were a remarkable turnaround from eight years ago, when Democrats held just 16 of the country’s 50 governorships. They steadily gained ground to hold 24 governor’s seats going into the midterm elections.
After Tuesday’s elections, about 75 percent of Americans will live in a state with a Democratic governor, according to the Democratic Governors Association.
No Republicans flipped a Democratic-held governor’s seat this year.
Even in states where Republican governor candidates prevailed, some won by surprisingly slim margins. In Florida, Representative Byron Donalds, a Republican, won the race to succeed Governor Ron DeSantis by fewer than 2 percentage points — a race Republicans won by nearly 20 points four years earlier.
One unlikely bright spot for Republicans was New England. There, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Phil Scott of Vermont — both considered moderate Republicans — easily won re-election.
But nearly everywhere else, Democrats won by tapping into national anger over high prices, the war in Iran and Mr. Trump, in general.
They also tailored their appeals to their state’s specific anxieties.
Mr. Sand, who flipped a governor’s seat in Iowa, focused on cancer rates in farm country. Ms. Lance Bottoms highlighted the erosion of Black voting rights in Georgia. Ms. Hinojosa campaigned on the proliferation of data centers in Texas.
In Nevada, the state’s Democratic attorney general, Aaron Ford, campaigned on worries over a slowdown in Las Vegas’s tourism economy to unseat the incumbent Republican governor, Joe Lombardo.
But fundamentally, they all tapped into a pervasive feeling among voters that Americans’ lives were getting worse and that leaders in Washington and state capitols were not listening.
It is unclear whether the new Democratic governors in Texas, Iowa, Ohio and Georgia will actually be able to do much about that.
Many are expected to face Republican-run state legislatures unlikely to grant Democratic wish lists by undoing abortion bans, raising minimum wages or expanding union protections. Republicans still appeared to have majorities in those state legislatures early on Wednesday, though Democrats in Texas were in a close race to take the Texas House of Representatives.
Still, the Democratic governors will be able to reshape their states by appointing their own agency heads, signing executive orders and vetoing Republican bills they don’t like.
They may also be a new barrier to any Republican efforts to redraw legislative districts ahead of the next presidential election.
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