Forget who controls Congress, consider how the nation’s gubernatorial election cycle over the next 16 months will be chock-full of significant implications for the country’s political future.
There will be at least nine tightly contested elections, starting with sprints in New Jersey and Virignia this fall, that will either strengthen or weaken President Donald Trump's agenda, and show if the Democratic Party has gotten its groove back with voters.
Plenty of potential 2028 presidential contenders, such as JB Pritzker of Illinois and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, are looking to secure new terms that will keep their national profiles high. Similarly outgoing governors with White House aspirations − think Florida's Ron DeSantis − who will need their party to hold power less their own presidential narratives be crushed.
And then there’s the potential return of Kamala Harris, who could end up controlling the globe's fourth-largest economy while on a collision course with her 2024 rival.
From California to Wisconsin to Virginia to Arizona, more than three-dozen states will choose governors who are going to be at the frontlines of a divided nation amid Trump's controversial upheaval in Washington that has touched various economic, cultural and institutional nerves since January.
Whether that's absorbing the fallout of the “one, big beautiful bill" and its changes to Medicaid or other assistance programs, resisting or assisting the Trump administration's expanding immigration crackdown that has seen tense, sometimes violent clashes in the streets or dealing with the massive federal worker layoffs, here are the governor races worth watching − and why.