Examining the Senator-to-Governor Trend

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL)

It is widely-expected this week that Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R), a first-term senator from Alabama who won his seat in 2020 by ousting incumbent-Sen. Doug Jones (D), will announce a run for governor at the age of 70.  Tuberville, most noted prior to his time in politics for a successful run as football coach at Auburn University, has been an atypical senator.  His most notable feats in office has been in denying a number of members of the armed forces promotions (as retribution for the Biden administration's position on abortion, though he eventually caved on this despite the Biden administration not changing their position on abortion), and a series of verbal gaffes that would rival Donald Trump in terms of their suspension from reality (he could not identify all three branches of government in an interview, for example).  Why Tuberville is trying to run for a much more strenuous job (governor, by-and-large, is a tougher job than US Senator in terms of sheer workload) at his age is beyond me, and speaks to perhaps the toxicity of the modern Senate...because he's not alone.

Tuberville has already been joined in his quest to leave the Senate for a governor's mansion by Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), who is running for the open Senate seat in the Centennial State.  It also appears increasingly probable that Bennet & Tuberville will add a third senator to their list of 2026 gubernatorial candidates when Marsha Blackburn, who has spent months telegraphing her interest in running in Tennessee, will get into the race (and if she doesn't, I would expect the state's junior senator Bill Hagerty to enter the contest).  Unlike Tuberville, who is up for reelection in 2026, both Bennet & Blackburn would not have to give up their seats if they lost (Hagerty would) since they just won reelection in 2022 & 2024, respectively, but like Tuberville, they would be heavy favorites in both the primary and the general election, so they would probably give up the seat regardless.

This is a pretty big number.  Despite every state having had at least 6 gubernatorial elections this century so far, only 10 US Senators (either sitting or former) have run for Governor of their state, and if you limit yourself to just sitting senators (which Tuberville, Bennet, Blackburn, & Hagerty all are), that number moves down to just 6 senators.  We'll talk about this in a second, but generally senator is a job that you lean into more in your old age, and one that is seen as the second act.  Just looking at the current US Senate, there are 12 former governors alone in the upper chamber, much less considerably more if you look at the past 25 years (or the fact that many incumbents like Steve Daines, Angela Alsobrooks, & Blackburn herself initially beat governors to get their jobs).  Admittedly there are more senators than governors (though senators always have longer terms, so it evens out), but by-and-large: governor-to-senator is a much more historically predictable path than senator-to-governor.

That being said, when you are a senator running for governor...your odds are pretty darn good that you're going to win.  Senators come with a wealth of fundraising options nationally (people still want to contribute to a US Senators campaign, especially if they're an incumbent), universal name recognition, and most of these races were won by the running senator.  Of the 10 senators who have run for governor this century (Frank Murkowski, Jon Corzine, Sam Brownback, Mark Dayton, Lincoln Chafee, David Vitter, Mark Begich, Mike DeWine, Kelly Ayotte, & Mike Braun), just two lost those races (Vitter & Begich).  Vitter's campaign is one of those ones that was really fun to follow at the time as he started out the heavy frontrunner-it was a Republican state, Obama was still in office, and he'd easily survive the 2007 prostitution scandal when he ran for reelection in 2010 (against a sitting incumbent member of the House, so hardly a gadfly opponent).  But Vitter struggled against attacks that actually stuck about the prostitution scandal that cycle, barely got through the first round of the jungle primary, and lost to a previously unknown (nationally) House Minority Leader John Bel Edwards.  Begich, on the other hand, had already lost a Senate race in 2014 when he ran for Governor in 2018, so he was going in with a limping hand before he lost again.

The rest, though, all won.  Not all of these governorships were successful, mind you-Murkowski & Corzine would both lose their reelection bids, and Chafee didn't run in 2014 because it was apparent to pretty much everyone that he would lose either in the general or a Democratic primary (he then went on to run one of the most idiosyncratic presidential primary races I've ever seen, but that's a story for another day).  But all of these candidates won, including former senators.  I would largely expect that trend to continue in 2026-I don't see a reason why Bennet, Blackburn, & Tuberville would lose their races (I don't even know which would be the most vulnerable...maybe Blackburn in a primary, but even that's a stretch).  Senator-to-Governor is a rare path, but it's one that's largely paved in gold in modern politics.

Before we close, I just want to note that Governor-to-Senator, the more common path, has not had anyone attempt to forge it this year (yet).  Govs. Brian Kemp, Laura Kelly, & Chris Sununu all turned down the chance to run as a challenger for their party for the Senate next year (Kelly is less surprising than the other two given her age, but all three were courted), while Tim Walz & Gretchen Whitmer saw open seat opportunities come-and-go in their state (opportunities they could've taken on a glide path if they'd so chose).  Democrats are still hopeful that they'll score a couple of challengers from the governor's mansion before this is done-Roy Cooper is seen as the #1 Senate recruit of the cycle (much of Kirsten Gillibrand's job is trying to get him to run in North Carolina...that she hasn't yet is why many, like me, think she's falling behind as DSCC Chair right now), and it appears that the door for Gov. Janet Mills (ME) to run against Susan Collins is cracking open again, as Mills looks to be open to the idea (a reader pointed this out to me on Twitter, but Mills could run for just one term and have her successor run to replace her in the Senate as well given they'd be a second term incumbent by then).  And it's worth noting that John Bel Edwards has been taking calls from Chuck Schumer about the Louisiana race.  But (to date) this cycle looks to be changing the tides on the Senate-to-Governor/Governor-to-Senate trends of the past century.