Sept. 2, 2026Methodology v3.0 · State metrics: 12 source systems, data through 2023–2025 by metric
Political Grades
government — just the stats

The Governors Index

38 of 50 Governors, Graded on Where Their State Stands — and Which Way It’s Moving.

Not promises. Not party. 16 verified categories — jobs, schools, health, safety and more — each scored against every other state: 60% on where the state stands today, 40% on which way it moved on that governor’s watch. Being good counts, and so does improving.

ALAKAZARCACOCTDEFLGAHIIDILINIAKSKYLAMEMDMAMIMNMSMOMTNENVNHNJNMNYNCNDOHOKORPARISCSDTNTXUTVTVAWAWVWIWY
Trailing peers−1σabout even+1σBeating peersNot yet scored● most categories thin (under 3 data points)

Governors colored by overall score (OVR): a citizen-weighted average of their domain scores — health, economy, education and the rest — minus any transparency deduction, in standard deviations. Each category inside a domain is itself 60% where the state stands against the other 49 states and 40% which way it moved. Every operand is printed on the state page. Tap any state. Sources: BLS, CDC, NAEP and the agencies listed per category — each category’s data ends in a different year (2023–2025), shown on its row.

The rules can’t see party. 19 Democrats and 19 Republicans hold overall ratings; the gap between party averages is 0.039σ. In 69% of 10,000 random party-label shuffles, the gap came out at least this large (p = 0.69) — indistinguishable from noise. See the full audit →

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All 50 Governors — 29 Ranked

Overall rating on up to 16 verified categories — the basket isn’t uniform. The Cats. column prints each governor’s own count, so no one is ranked on a category they don’t have.

How to read the overall score (OVR): each category score is 60% where the state stands against the other 49 and 40% its trend over that governor’s own window vs. the peer median, in σ. Categories average within a domain; the domains are then combined using citizen weights from Pew Research Center — Americans' Top Policy Priorities (Fielded Jan 16-21, 2024; published Feb 29, 2024), and any data-transparency deduction is subtracted. 0 = moved with the peers; positive beats them, negative trails. An OVR needs at least 3 scored categories.

Swipe the table sideways for more →

No.GovernorOVR (σ)Graded onUnemployment 201025*In office sincePercentile (of 38)Compare
1Ned Lamont (D)Connecticut+0.3016 of 16Jan. 201996
2Jared Polis (D)Colorado+0.3016 of 16Jan. 201993
3Kathy Hochul (D)New York+0.2912 of 16Aug. 202191
4Tony Evers (D)Wisconsin+0.2316 of 16Jan. 201988
5Tim Walz (D)Minnesota+0.2116 of 16Jan. 201986
6Greg Gianforte (R)Montana+0.1714 of 16Jan. 202180
7Phil Scott (R)Vermont+0.1516 of 16Jan. 201778
8Mike DeWine (R)Ohio+0.1116 of 16Jan. 201975
9Kim Reynolds (R)Iowa+0.0416 of 16May 201772
10Dan McKee (D)Rhode Island+0.0312 of 16March 202170
11Kevin Stitt (R)Oklahoma+0.0316 of 16Jan. 201967
12Brad Little (R)Idaho+0.0116 of 16Jan. 201965
13Mark Gordon (R)Wyoming−0.0116 of 16Jan. 201962
14JB Pritzker (D)Illinois−0.0316 of 16Jan. 201959
15Gretchen Whitmer (D)Michigan−0.0416 of 16Jan. 201957
16Laura Kelly (D)Kansas−0.0716 of 16Jan. 201954
17Ron DeSantis (R)Florida−0.0816 of 16Jan. 201951
18Spencer Cox (R)Utah−0.1014 of 16Jan. 202149
19Tate Reeves (R)Mississippi−0.1116 of 16Jan. 202046
20Gavin Newsom (D)California−0.1216 of 16Jan. 201943
21Janet Mills (D)Maine−0.1216 of 16Jan. 201941
22Greg Abbott (R)Texas−0.1216 of 16Jan. 201538
23Henry McMaster (R)South Carolina−0.1716 of 16Jan. 201733
24Bill Lee (R)Tennessee−0.2116 of 16Jan. 201930
25Brian Kemp (R)Georgia−0.2716 of 16Jan. 201922
26Kay Ivey (R)Alabama−0.2816 of 16April 201715
27Andy Beshear (D)Kentucky−0.3616 of 16Dec. 201912
28Mike Dunleavy (R)Alaska−0.6216 of 16Dec. 20187
29Michelle Lujan Grisham (D)New Mexico−0.9616 of 16Jan. 20191
Early reads — every scored category still thin; unranked until the data thickens
Josh Green (D)Hawaii+0.573 of 16Dec. 2022
Jim Pillen (R)Nebraska+0.183 of 16Jan. 2023
Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R)Arkansas−0.163 of 16Jan. 2023
Tina Kotek (D)Oregon−0.243 of 16Jan. 2023
Wes Moore (D)Maryland−0.263 of 16Jan. 2023
Katie Hobbs (D)Arizona−0.273 of 16Jan. 2023
Maura Healey (D)Massachusetts−0.273 of 16Jan. 2023
Josh Shapiro (D)Pennsylvania−0.533 of 16Jan. 2023
Joe Lombardo (R)Nevada−0.643 of 16Jan. 2023
Not yet scored — inside the attribution lag
Matt Meyer (D)DelawareToo earlyJan. 2025
Mike Braun (R)IndianaToo earlyJan. 2025
Jeff Landry (R)LouisianaToo earlyJan. 2024
Mike Kehoe (R)MissouriToo earlyJan. 2025
Kelly Ayotte (R)New HampshireToo earlyJan. 2025
Mikie Sherrill (D)New JerseyToo earlyJan. 2026
Josh Stein (D)North CarolinaToo earlyJan. 2025
Kelly Armstrong (R)North DakotaToo earlyDec. 2024
Larry Rhoden (R)South DakotaToo earlyJan. 2025
Abigail Spanberger (D)VirginiaToo earlyJan. 2026
Bob Ferguson (D)WashingtonToo earlyJan. 2025
Patrick Morrisey (R)West VirginiaToo earlyJan. 2025

Reading the board — every category score blends standing (60%) with the trend over that governor’s own window vs. the other states with comparable data (40%):49 where every state reports, fewer wherever a state-year is missing — small-count suppression is one reason, not the only one. The OVR combines the categories a governor has (Cats. column) by domain, weighted. Zero is an external anchor (the peer median), not the average governor. Percentile is across all 38 governors with an OVR; the rank is across the 29 with enough data to rank. Sparkline shows the unemployment rate, the headline economic series, its scored window dark. *2025 is an 11-month average — October 2025 was never collected (federal shutdown).

Ranks & ties — ordinal ranks skip governors whose every category is thin (2-point windows). Neighboring ranks are often a few hundredths of a σ apart — read near-ties as ties. All scores are provisional while terms run. Sources: BLS, CDC, NAEP, and the agencies on each category — every series linked on state pages.

The Compare boxes on the board build a side-by-side of up to four governors — or open the comparison desk directly.

The Top, the Bottom, and the Not-Yet-Rated

38 of the nation’s 50 governors have enough verified data for an overall rating under Political Grades’ methodology — the rules, including each category’s direction and lag, are published before they are applied and changed only in public, every change versioned in the changelog. 12 governors aren’t rated yet. All 12 of them have no scored category at all: 10 took office in 2025 or 2026, inside the attribution lag; Louisiana and North Dakota took office in 2024 and still have no category with enough post-lag data to score.

The top of the board belongs to Ned Lamont of Connecticut, in office since Jan. 2019, at +0.30σ across 16 scored categories. At the other end, Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico trails the ranked field at −0.96σ across 16 categories. Click either card for every number behind the rating.

Every number on this page can be reproduced from public data — open any governor’s card for the exact series, windows and math, or download the governor dataset. 4 of the card’s 20 categories carry no score: 2 awaiting a defensible scoring rule, 1 deliberately not scored (Honesty — see the Integrity Record), and 1 published as context — School shootings ships a raw count with its own year, never folded into the rating. Adding a category never retroactively rewrites a published methodology version.