While some of their statehouse colleagues struggle for survival, more than a dozen governors are sitting on huge leads in their campaigns for re-election.
The champion of the field appears to be Ohio Republican Gov. George Voinovich, who drew 73 percent of likely voters in a poll this week. Democrat Rob Burch was at 16 percent.Other races are less lopsided, but not by much.
Massachusetts Gov. William Weld is well on his way to being the first Republican governor re-elected in his state in 28 years. Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, another Republican and already the longest serving governor in Wisconsin history, is a shoo-in for an unprecedented third term.
Democrat Roy Romer is likely to win a third term to be the last Colorado governor to serve that long; a new term limit law kicks in when he leaves office. In Nebraska, Gov. Ben Nelson's Republican opponent has virtually conceded in advance.
An AP review found six Democrats and seven Republicans coasting to re-election. They have a number of things in common.
Their states are rebounding from the recession. Unemployment is down and job creation is up. Many inherited sizable budget deficits when they took over and closed those gaps without raising taxes or cutting too deeply into state services. They have strong records on other issues people care about, such as crime, welfare reform and health-care reform.
Some of them have the additional advantage of weak opponents this cycle. And their double-digit leads have made it difficult for even potentially strong challengers to excite voters and raise money.
Still, the governors are not treating their leads lightly.
Practically all are behaving like underdogs, maintaining grueling daily schedules that mix official duties with debates and campaign appearances for themselves and state legislative and congressional candidates.
"The schedule is filled from beginning to end every day," said Sonny Foster, campaign manager for Nelson of Nebraska. "We're taking the approach that we're five points behind and that's the way we're running it."
The safe Republicans are a New England contingent of Weld and New Hampshire Gov. Steve Mer-rill, and five incumbents in politically important Midwestern states.
In Wisconsin, Democratic state Sen. Chuck Chvala is promising $3 billion in property tax cuts. But he suffers from low name identification and trails Thompson, a nationally known welfare reformer, by 40 points.
Burch, a state senator, is the Democrats' sacrificial lamb against the hugely popular and relatively moderate Voinovich in Ohio. Jim Edgar of Illinois is running against a Democrat, state Comptroller Dawn Clark Netsch, whose campaign has fizzled under a barrage of attack ads on crime and taxes.
Minnesota Gov. Arne Carlson survived rejection by religious-right Republicans at the party convention to win the GOP primary nomination and widespread support. And the only thing that might derail the Michigan race would be a sudden revelation that Republican Gov. John Engler "had been a KGB agent," said political scientist Dave Rohde of Michigan State University.
The last Republican governor to win re-election in Massachusetts was John Volpe in 1966. Weld's unconventional mix of social liberalism and fiscal conservatism has proved extremely popular in the state. Polls this year show him with a 2-to-1 lead over Democratic state lawmaker Mark Roosevelt, a great-grandson of Theodore Roosevelt.
The secure Democrats this year are Nelson, Romer, Bob Miller of Nevada, Jim Guy Tucker of Arkansas, Jim Folsom of Alabama and Howard Dean of Vermont.
Romer is a former chairman of the National Governors' Association and one of the few candidates to be endorsed this year by Ross Perot. His re-election bid once was threatened by his friendship with President Clinton and problems with Denver's unopened new airport, but he now leads a troubled Republican opponent by more than 20 points.
Wealthy oilman and former Colorado GOP Chairman Bruce Benson has been dogged by details of his messy divorce, prior arrests for drunken driving and his decision to cancel eight televised debates with Romer.
Nelson of Nebraska is also benefiting from Republican businessman Gene Spence's troubles. After polls showed him losing big, Spence put his chances of winning at 100 to one. "I was a poor candidate," he said, as if the election had already been held. "It's not the party's fault. I think it's me."
Democrats are at a loss to explain their severe difficulties in the five Midwestern states with invulnerable GOP incumbents. "We're obviously having troubles making a dent in a lot of those races," admitted Don Sweitzer, political director of the Democratic National Committee. "There is a national bad mood. Not everyone is a victim of the bad mood."