Five Things We Learned From the 2024 Gubernatorial Elections

With one particularly stark exception, this year’s 11 gubernatorial races largely flew under the radar. It was the first presidential cycle in history in which no governorships changed partisan hands, reflecting an increasingly polarized landscape that only recently began to take a serious toll on the productivity of state governments.

Despite the relative lack of attention, eight new governors-elect are scheduled to take office in January. They’ll spend the next four years debating tax rates and abortion rights, responding to emergencies and crafting budgets that are likely to receive fewer federal dollars than anytime in recent memory. As transformative legislation has become rarer in the nation’s capital, governors are increasingly some of the parties’ best hopes for demonstrating that change is possible beyond the marble walls of Congress. Several are rising stars with impressive resumes, ideal for the wide-open presidential contest in 2028.

There may not have been much partisan turnover in 2024’s state-level contests, but there are still a few big takeaways that could be instructive as a dauntingly large 2026 gubernatorial map looms. Here are some important —