Gov. Democrat: the gubernatorial races are looking bad for the repubs.(ELECTION '06 II)

REPUBLICANS are playing defense on both the federal and the state levels this election season. Along with the Senate and House, they also hold a majority of governorships. While the fate of the GOP's congressional majorities may be in doubt, it's a sure bet that Republicans will lose their 28-22 gubernatorial majority in November.

The Republicans are up against some bad math this year. Democrats hold only 14 of the 36 governorships on November ballots, and Republicans hold nine of the ten without an incumbent seeking reelection. Noting that "the math is terrible for us," Gov. Mitt Romney, chairman of the Republican Governors Association, would regard a net loss of four Republican governorships as "a dream come true." As head of the Republicans' campaign arm, Romney has set a record for fundraising, with $20 million in campaign cash this year compared with $14 million raised on behalf of Democratic candidates. But this year Republicans face an electoral map that money can't alter.

Romney's own blue state is expected to revert to a blue governor when former Clinton Justice Department official Deval Patrick beats Massachusetts lieutenant governor Kerry Healey. In New York, attorney general Eliot Spitzer leads his Republican opponent by 50 points. Neither race appears to be a referendum on the incumbent. Mitt Romney and George Pataki governed differently--the first as a conservative, the second as a liberal--but the vacancies in these overwhelmingly Democratic states provide the opportunity for Democrats to claim the top job.

There is no vacancy in the solidly blue state of Maryland, but incumbent Bob Ehrlich, who beat Kathleen Kennedy Townsend four years ago, trails in the polls against Baltimore mayor Martin O'Malley. Ehrlich has repeatedly had his sensible vetoes overridden by a hostile Democratic legislature, and has recently wondered aloud about whether he is a "historical accident" in a state that Gore and Kerry comfortably carried.

In red states with open GOP governorships, things also look blue. Democratic candidates in Arkansas, Ohio, and Colorado all enjoy double-digit leads. In Arkansas, attorney general Mike Beebe is favored to win over former congressman and Bush Homeland Security official Asa Hutchinson. Conservative critics rightly fault the term-limited Gov. Mike Huckabee for damaging the Republican brand by supporting the largest tax increase in Arkansas history. But at the state level the parties' brand labels typically don't represent the stark policy differences of Nancy Pelosi and George W. Bush.

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Since 1994, Democrats have been winning governorships in the South, where Democratic congressional and presidential candidates fare poorly. Democrats who have won gubernatorial contests in Virginia, North Carolina, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Oklahoma have set their own agendas on local issues. They don't face charges of being weak on national security or backing amnesty for illegal immigrants. John Hood--president of the John Locke Foundation, a conservative think tank in North Carolina--points out that southern Democratic governors are often indistinguishable from moderately conservative Republicans. The GOP had trouble finding a candidate to run against Tennessee governor Phil Bredesen, who holds the only statewide office not in Republican hands. The moderate Bredesen, in a state Bush carried with 57 percent of the vote in 2004, leads his Republican challenger by a margin of nearly three to one. In Oklahoma, Democratic governor Brad Henry has cut spending and taxes and backed a ban on adoption by same-sex couples. He has allowed local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration laws and leads his Republican challenger, Rep. Ernest Istook, by over 20 points.