Extremely Early 2021-2022 Gubernatorial Ratings

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Y'all may wanna be a bit more cautious about South Dakota. Kristi Noem only won by 3.4% in 2018, and with her highly controversial covid response plus her approval rating of 39%, and with the possibility of a strong democratic challenger, I wonder if South Dakota has the possibility of being a sleeper flip for the democrats.

I have it as lean R at the moment. Definitely can and will change as it gets closer, but don't overestimate Noem.

Source?

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(literally sane, normal, pays attention to trends, knows his state well)

[VAR]

*snip*

(literally sane, normal, pays attention to trends, knows his state well)

I agree with most of this, but I’m curious why you (and others) think OR is a better pick-up opportunity for the GOP than MN. I agree that MN is an uphill battle for the party, but everything working against the party in MN seems to be working against them in OR as well, if not even more so (metro areas and non-largest-metro/capital and non-capital urban counties moving to the left, rural population/R gains not sufficiently large to offset that, recreation and D transplants halting the R trend in some R areas, strong presence of college-educated and liberal whites, D trends among affluent voters, etc.). Is it the divergence in the COVID response and approval numbers of both governors? I get that Brown seems to be a little more unpopular than Walz (although I’m not sure I trust those polling numbers entirely), but I could at least see a short-term R winning coalition on the state level in MN which accelerates current R trends (Democrats still have room to fall in many red parts of the state + certainly in the Iron Range), relies on record turnout in rural/small-town MN, and recovers some lost ground in the suburbs/exurbs of MSP (where you could argue that Trump's exceptionally abysmal performance was something of an anomaly even if the long-term trend is clear). I don’t see a similar coalition in OR right now, honestly. Although gubernatorial elections can be a little less predictable than federal ones, I’d be extremely surprised if the Democrats' winning streak in OR (which is of course the longest in the country) ended in 2022. I’d be a little less surprised if they lost MN.

I think this is a reasonable argument but would like to note that Trump’s performance in the Portland metro area was also unnaturally bad for a Republican - Merkley and Schrader, both of whom are considered strong incumbents, underperformed Biden in the suburban portions of the state, which is similar to what we saw in MN. As for Brown’s approval rating, she was underwater by 9% in the same poll that showed Biden up by 12 points, so yeah, she is still unpopular. Walz doesn’t seem to be unpopular though.