First Person is a series of quick videos from the Cook Political Report editors exclusively for our premium members.

2026 will be a big year for Governors' races, with five races starting out in our Toss Up column. Jessica explains what to watch.

Transcript:

Hi there. I'm Jessica Taylor. I'm the senate and governors editor here at the Cook Political Report. And today, we released our inaugural twenty twenty six gubernatorial ratings. Now the midterms are a really big year for governors. We've already talked about how we have two races in twenty twenty five in Virginia and New Jersey. Those can alter the partisan makeup of the fifty states, which right now, Republicans have an edge with twenty seven races twenty they hold twenty seven governorships, to twenty three for Democrats.But these thirty six races are really going to feature a lot of incredibly important key contests. So in our initial ratings of these thirty six races up in twenty twenty six, we rate five as toss ups. Three of those are Democratic held seats. The most

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