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KEY POINTS Governors elected this fall will preside over congressional redistricting following the 2020 census.

Of the seats up for grabs, 26 are held by Republicans, 19 by Democrats, and one is held by an Independent.

Republicans dominate state governments nationwide, but that also means they have the most to lose.

In this midterm election year, the battle for control of Congress is getting most of the attention. But it is not all that is at stake. Voters in 36 states will choose governors this year, and more than 80 percent of state legislative seats are up for grabs. “The most important work done in the country in public policy is done in the states by governors and state legislatures,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Virginia Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner is locked in a tight battle to retain GOP control of the Illinois governorship after angering unions with his support of the Janus v. ASCFME case. The Supreme Court recently ruled in favor of the plaintiff, a huge blow to public-sector unions' ability to raise funds. Anthony Souffle | Chicago Tribune | Getty Images

Often, Sabato said, state officials work on matters that more directly affect people’s lives than members of Congress do. Governors are typically the public face of state efforts to attract business and jobs. Plus, the politicians elected this fall will be in place in 2021, when states redraw their congressional maps following the 2020 decennial U.S. census. “The governors and the legislatures in most of the states that have partisan forms of redistricting will redistrict every single U.S. House seat except in those states that have only one representative, and will also redistrict all of the state Senate seats and State House of Representative seats,” Sabato said. “This has tremendous potential for party gains on both sides.” Republicans overwhelmingly control U.S. statehouses. The GOP holds 33 governor’s seats, compared to 16 for the Democrats (Alaska’s Bill Walker is an Independent). And Republicans had outright control of 24 state legislatures at the start of 2018, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Democrats control just seven. In 18 states each party controls one house (Nebraska’s legislature is nonpartisan). Sabato said that means Republicans have the most to lose at the state level, especially because they hold 26 of the 36 governorships up for grabs. “This gives Democrats a tremendous opportunity to make up ground that they lost over the last 10 years,” Sabato said.

Five tight governor races to watch