I might do multiple posts on the 2021 elections as more information becomes available with them as time goes on. But I’m going to mention what I know thus far about this year’s and I might do a round two about this sometime after the primaries for some happen and other dates for other elections become known.
The Virginia governor race has no incumbents in the race due to the dumb laws that the state has. There are no gubernatorial term limits, but incumbents can’t run for reelection. Does that make sense? I might talk about this some, but am considering myself disinterested in this for now. Maybe I’ll change my mind later.
The Virginia attorney general race has Democrat Mark Herring running for reelection. He has had some scandal, I think, involving blackface. I think that he apologized for it. There are others in the race including a primary challenge that Mark will have to face. Mark is one of the attorney generals helping with the good side of the Obamacare case. I hope to hear the results of that at some point in the future. I don’t know why I’ve heard about more recent cases, but not that one. It can make one feel anxious.
The New Jersey governor race has Democrat Phil Murphy running for reelection. Obviously, there are others in the race right now. But I’m not keeping track of them as I don’t care about the others in the race. I think that you should support Phil Murphy.
It is interesting to note the patterns between the regular governor elections of this cycle typically. At some point, Virginia started electing the party opposite the one just elected president the previous year. This meant that a Democratic president elected one year would get a Republican elected governor of Virginia the next. New Jersey joined in this thread as well. This continued until 2013 when Virginia elected a Democratic governor after Obama won reelection. This might have been in reaction to the scandals that the previous Republican one had.
There is also a California governor recall election with incumbent Democrat Gavin Newsom facing recall over his successful handling of the coronavirus response due to some thinking that he took things too far. Obviously, you know by just my phrasing of this paragraph how I feel about him and how he should stay in office. I urge any California’s to vote no on recall. Here are some quick links about it.
There’s another group of people worth mentioning. There is a group of governors that I’m now calling the election integrity governors. This link should include more information about it. I am talking about it since some of the governors up for reelection (or recall) are part of this group.
This group features governors J B Pritzker of Illinois, Jay Inslee of Washington state, Kate Brown of Oregon, Gavin Newsom of California, Phil Murphy of New Jersey, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Tony Evers of Wisconsin, Tim Walz of Minnesota, Ralph Northam of Virginia, John Carney of Delaware, Steve Sisolak of Nevada, and Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, all of whom are Democrats.
Something else worth noting is that there is a possible Alaska governor recall that could be on the ballot as well. I’d have to see why that would be in the future. I doubt that such a thing would be the only thing like it as more governors might be in danger of losing their seats when they will be up for reelection due to the pandemic than we ever would have seen before. I just hope that those that actually had a good response will get to stay in office or at least not be replaced by horrible people in the end. I also hope that the pandemic will be over by November and that at least Virginia will have its first governor since the pandemic ended.
There isn’t much else to say in this post so I will end it with a calendar of things to come. If you are able to vote in each state that has an election (even if I’m not telling you about it, as I’m only covering the statewide races with no other special elections), then here are the important dates that are known right now. The known dates are on Tuesdays.
Calendar
June 8, 2021 (New Jersey primary, Democratic Virginia primary with Republican convention taking place instead of primary)
Unknown September 2021 (potential deadlines/voting with California recall)
November 2, 2021 (general election)
Unknown
November 2021 (California recall)
