2024 Elections Daily Gubernatorial Ratings: The Final Update

Ratings Change

• New Hampshire: Tossup to Leans Republican

Our only ratings change in our final gubernatorial ratings update is in New Hampshire, where we now expect Republican Kelly Ayotte to win. While we don’t expect New Hampshire to be particularly competitive at the presidential level, the state has a firm and clear tendency to elect Republicans downballot.

In the race to succeed retiring Republican Chris Sununu, former Senator Ayotte has out-raised and outspent Democrat Joyce Craig by a 3:1 margin. In opinion polls, Ayotte has a clear lead. Democrat Joyce Craig hasn’t led a poll since early October, and has only led a handful all cycle. In the most recent UNH poll, Ayotte leads by four. All things considered, we think Ayotte is the clear favorite here.

There are two other races worth mentioning. The first is Indiana, where it’s presumed that Libertarian candidate Donald Rainwater will take some chunk of the Republican vote. However, polling simply isn’t backing this up; excluding questionable polls from ActiVote, Democrat Jennifer McCormick’s best vote share came from a DGA internal that had her at 41%. This race may be numerically closer than usual for Indiana, but the Democrat isn’t pulling the numbers needed to win. There’s simply not enough evidence for us to move this race.

The other race in question is Utah, where Republican primary runner-up Phil Lyman is running a sore-loser write-in campaign. Polling shows him taking potentially double-digits. But this is Utah; incumbent Governor Spencer Cox is broadly popular, and Democratic candidate Brian King is mired in the 20s in most polls.