… Should a Republican win in Virginia — where polls have been inconsistent but show only a 3 or 4-percentage-point lead for Democrat Ralph Northam, on average — be cause for Democratic panic? Should Democrats get any credit for a double-digit win in New Jersey (as seems likely based on polls there), or would that just be par for the course? …
Let’s look at some data to see how gubernatorial races have behaved historically. I’ve compiled a database of all gubernatorial races since 2001 in which there was no incumbent running (both Virginia and New Jersey are open-seat races this year), excluding races where a third-party candidate finished first or second, or when multiple candidates from the same party appeared on the ballot together. This works out to a total of 90 elections. CONT.
Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight