1OCT

Sabato moves three races for governor

2 min read

15:11UTC

Sabato's Crystal Ball moved Florida toward the Democrats, Michigan toward the Democrats and New Mexico out of contention on 23 July, for three unrelated reasons.

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Key takeaway

Each rating change turns on local candidates and money, not on a shift in the national environment.

J. Miles Coleman, an analyst at Sabato's Crystal Ball, moved Florida's governor's race from Safe Republican to Likely Republican on 23 July, after a University of North Florida poll put Byron Donalds five points clear of David Jolly, 46% to 41%⁠¹. Coleman set his own limit on the reading in the same piece, writing that "we would not call Florida truly competitive". Neither party defends an incumbent governor in Florida this November, and open seats tighten as polling day nears.

Michigan went from Toss-up to Leans Democratic. Mike Duggan, the Democrat turned independent whose candidacy had split the anti-Republican vote, left the race, and the straight two-way contest that remains favours Jocelyn Benson, the secretary of state and Democratic nominee⁠². New Mexico moved to Safe Democratic, where Deb Haaland holds roughly a seven-to-one cash advantage over her Republican opponent and the state Republican Party is fighting itself.

Ratings services relabelling their own categories is not news in the way a court ruling is, and one university poll is thin evidence. What makes the release worth reading is that the three rationales share nothing: a poll, a withdrawal, a bank balance. Sabato's Crystal Ball moved six House seats toward the Democrats in May while calling the national map close, and these three moves do not extend that. Florida's 24R-4D congressional map stands where the Florida Supreme Court left it in June, untouched by anything in the governor's numbers. Who is running, and how well a state party has organised behind them, is doing the work here.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Election forecasters like Sabato's Crystal Ball sort races into categories such as Safe, Likely or Toss-up, based on how confident they are about who will win. On 23 July, the Crystal Ball moved three governor's races: Florida became slightly less safe for Republicans, Michigan became slightly more likely for Democrats, and New Mexico became very safe for Democrats. None of these three races has an incumbent running for re-election, which is why they can move more easily than a race where a sitting governor is on the ballot.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

A ratings category like Safe, Likely or Toss-up measures a forecaster's confidence in the eventual winner, not a poll number by itself. Florida moved one notch because a single data point, the Donalds-Jolly poll, arrived alongside a change in candidate behaviour that forecasters read as informative.

Michigan and New Mexico moved for a different structural reason entirely: an open seat with no incumbent is inherently more volatile than one where an incumbent's approval rating anchors the outcome, so a single exit, Mike Duggan's, or a single fundraising gap, Deb Haaland's, can shift an open-seat rating in a way that would barely move an incumbent's.

What could happen next?

Meaning
None of the three rating moves turns on the national political environment; each turns on candidate-specific factors, which is why they should not be read as evidence of a broader national swing.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Consensus view: Sabato's Crystal Ball, at the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, builds its ratings from a mix of fundamentals, fundraising and district history, which is why analyst J. Miles Coleman paired a single University of North Florida poll with a behavioural signal, Byron Donalds challenging David Jolly to a series of debates, something a comfortable front-runner rarely does.

Counter-view: Nate Silver's Silver Bulletin, which this cycle has tracked the generic congressional ballot on a poll-weighted rather than fundamentals-weighted model, has cautioned that a single university poll inside the margin of error is a thin basis for a full ratings-category move, and that state-level races often lag or lead the national environment for reasons that have nothing to do with the eventual result.

Key tension: Whether a ratings move built on one poll and a candidate's own behaviour anticipates a real shift in the race, or whether it is reading too much into a single data point.

Sources:Sabato's Crystal Ball, UVA Center for Politics

Mentions:J. Miles Coleman →Sabato's Crystal Ball →University of North Florida →Mike Duggan →Jocelyn Benson →Florida Supreme Court →Michigan →Virginia →Nate Silver →Nate Silver's Silver Bulletin →Florida →New Mexico →Supreme Court of the United States →Deb Haaland →Byron Donalds →David Jolly →

First Reported In

Update #14 · 0-for-17 in court, and the map that held

Sabato's Crystal Ball, UVA Center for Politics· 26 Jul 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Florida locks its map for November

Florida's congressional map, left standing by the state Supreme Court in June, is unaffected by this governor's-race rating change.

Occurred 10 Jun 2026

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Sabato moves six House seats toward Democrats

Sabato's May House-seat shift toward Democrats and this month's three governor's-race moves are separate exercises, turning on local rather than national dynamics.

Occurred 21 May 2026

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This Event

Sabato moves three races for governor

Three ratings moved in one release and none of them turns on the national environment, which is the point worth noticing.

Led to

Sabato and Cook widen Democrats' map

Sabato had already moved Florida's governor's race in July; this update's batch extends that earlier movement.

Occurred 23 Sept 2026

Read story →

Different Perspectives

Judge Mary Geiger Lewis, US District Court for the District of South Carolina

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Judge Victoria Marie Calvert, US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia

Calvert dismissed the Justice Department's suit for Georgia's unredacted voter list on 30 September, holding that the 1960 Civil Rights Act does not override state privacy law. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger need not hand over birth dates, Social Security numbers or licence numbers.

Chad Bianco, Riverside County Sheriff

Bianco, ordered by the state supreme court on 24 September to return about 650,000 Proposition 50 ballots, called his seizure a lawful investigation. He told CalMatters he would appeal to the federal courts.

Fairshake network, through Defend American Jobs

Fairshake, the crypto-industry super PAC, has said it will spend $30 million against Sherrod Brown, and Defend American Jobs, which the Washington Times places in its network, filed $11.46 million in Ohio. The Washington Times reports that the ads do not mention cryptocurrency.

Texas PAC

The super PAC reported $61.41 million of new spending on 30 September, its two largest lines opposing James Talarico and supporting Ken Paxton. Its race total of $131.53 million is the largest outside effort in any Senate contest this week, with donors undisclosed until 15 October.

Sabato's Crystal Ball

Sabato moved three Virginia seats on 29 September, putting Jen Kiggans's 2nd District at Leans Democratic and the 1st at Toss-up. It wrote that a Democratic win in the 5th, now Leans Republican, would fit a 2006-style wave.