Losses by Neil Abercrombie and Pat Quinn would be embarrassing for the White House. | AP Photos Obama's home-state govs in jeopardy

The Democratic governors running President Barack Obama’s adopted state and childhood home could be headed for embarrassing electoral defeats this year, despite increasingly active assistance from the White House.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn trails Republican businessman Bruce Rauner in recent polls, while Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie is being crushed in sparse polling ahead of this Saturday’s Democratic primary against a little-known state senator, David Ige. And even if Abercrombie wins on Saturday, he starts the race behind Republican Duke Aiona, thanks in part to a third candidate on the ballot.


Both incumbents could still win reelection, but experts say the fact that they’re struggling — and even trailing — is, in part, a sign of Obama’s waning political influence in his home and native states and proof that presidential endorsements only go so far.

A loss by Quinn, in particular, would be historic. No incumbent governor from the president’s home state and party has lost reelection since 1892 — when livestock breeder Claude Matthews, an Indiana Democrat, won the governorship during the Republican presidency of Benjamin Harrison — according to Eric Ostermeier, a University of Minnesota political researcher. In 16 chances since then, the incumbent has prevailed.

( Full primary results here)

To reverse the momentum, the White House has stepped up on behalf of Quinn and Abercrombie in recent weeks. Obama recorded an unusually personal radio ad for Abercrombie — a lifelong friend — describing the governor as “ohana,” the Hawaiian word for “family.” And at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser in Chicago last month, first lady Michelle Obama plugged Quinn, saying, “We’re going to do everything in our power to make sure he gets over the finish line,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

The president — who’s still popular in both states despite lagging ratings nationally — plans to be even more actively involved in both races in the “near future,” according to a source familiar with Obama’s political operation.

Ige, Abercrombie’s vastly outfunded primary opponent — the incumbent outspent him 7-to-1 from July 1-25 — said he’s not sweating the presidential intervention because Obama’s influence in Hawaii has faded.

“I’m disappointed that he chose to [get involved in a competitive primary],” he said. “But I think he gave up his right to vote in Hawaii. He’s not a resident in our community and he doesn’t get a vote in our primary.”

( Also on POLITICO: The latest race ratings)

In a state as small as Hawaii, Ige said, face-to-face contact is more valuable than “an endorsement from someone out of state, even the president of the United States.”

That puts Ige on the same page as Aiona, the likely Republican nominee in Hawaii, who led either Democrat and a third candidate, former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann, in a recent poll.

“Even though the president may still be popular with a lot of people in Hawaii … his policy issues got a lot of pushback,” Aiona, a former lieutenant governor under GOP Gov. Linda Lingle, said in a phone interview. “It’s not as unconditional as it was two, three, four years ago.”

Likewise, in the Land of Lincoln, Rauner aides have been buoyed by recent polls showing their candidate up double digits against Quinn, although Quinn has pointed to other surveys showing a narrower contest.

( All the polls, all in one place)

Jim Edgar, a former Republican governor, said Obama can help Quinn fundraise and drive up the African-American turnout — two critical elements of Quinn’s path to victory — but that his influence in the large state is limited.

“I don’t think Obama’s standing has as much impact on Illinois as other states just because of the nature of Illinois,” he said. Noting Obama’s meteoric rise from the state Senate to the U.S. Senate to the presidency, Edgar said Obama never had much time to build a political machine in his home state.

“It’s not like he was governor and he had his own organization put together or anything,” he said.

But in both Hawaii and Illinois, the incumbents are embracing the help from Obama and are convinced it will pay dividends where it matters — at the polls.

“The people of Illinois love and support our president. That will certainly be helpful for us,” said Brooke Anderson, communications director for Quinn’s campaign. “Having the support of President Obama is really helpful and appreciated.”

Although Quinn and Obama don’t share the same personal roots the president has with Abercrombie, Quinn aides point out that they both began as community organizers and have known each other for decades. They expect Obama to be involved in the race — whether in public appearances or fundraisers on Quinn’s behalf — heading into the fall. That could be particularly potent in the counties around Chicago, where Obama’s support runs deep and helped propel Quinn to a narrow victory in 2010.

Quinn backers are also hoping to turn the race into a reprise of the 2012 presidential campaign, taking pains to compare Rauner, a wealthy private equity investor, to Obama’s vanquished opponent, Mitt Romney — a comparison that Rauner and his team reject. Obama’s presence could help advance the parallels.

In Hawaii, Abercrombie has touted the backing of the president in radio and television spots in the final weeks of the primary campaign.

Pollster Matthew Fitch, executive director of the Merriman River Group, said Hawaii voters are notoriously difficult to gauge but that Ige has held a “a surprising advantage” in a string of recent polls, including one he conducted for Civil Beat, a Hawaii news outlet. The numbers, he said, suggest that voters are rejecting Abercrombie rather than embracing Ige.

“More people said they were voting for Ige than had an opinion of him,” he said.

Although Fitch noted that Hawaii voters have “an incredible tradition of keeping their incumbents” — and polls have had hit-or-miss accuracy in recent elections — early voting has already begun, so some of the polling trends could solidify. The race could be further scrambled by a pair of tropical storms, including Hurricane Iselle, which began affecting the islands on Thursday.

“What he’s doing defies Hawaii’s political history,” Fitch said of Ige. Fitch also noted that Abercrombie’s woes have little to do with Obama, who’s maintained consistently high approval ratings in the Aloha State.

Sabato argues that diminishing influence even at home is typical of a president’s final years in office — and Obama, in particular, never built the political machine in Illinois that has helped predecessors maintain a firm hold at home.

“Obama had significant coattails in 2008, negative coattails in 2010, and very modest coattails in 2012,” Sabato said. “As his presidency moves into its full lame-duck phase, it looks like we’re back to negative coattails in 2014 in red states and very little if any positive coattails in blue states.”

The Democratic Governors Association is convinced that voters will ultimately stick with the party in the deep-blue states, the outcome of Hawaii’s primary notwithstanding. “Because these are the president’s home states and he’s incredibly popular in those states, it’s virtually impossible to imagine that voters would vote against the president’s candidate and for the very same failed, top-down economic policies that the president ran against in 2012,” said Danny Kanner, a DGA spokesman.

“These are true-blue Democratic states that, with a engaged and energized Democratic electorate, should result in Democratic victories,” he added.

Although it’s been more than a century since an incumbent governor of the same party was toppled in the president’s home state, it’s slightly less rare for a statehouse to switch sides when the governor’s chair is vacant. It’s happened twice in the past 50 years, Ostermeier, the Minnesota researcher, found, most recently when Republican Mike Huckabee won the 1998 Arkansas governor’s race during Bill Clinton’s presidency.

“I would say there is certainly symbolic significance at a minimum and, generally, it can be seen as a sign of waning influence,” Ostermeier said in an email.