America’s most popular governors are also the most powerless

MONTPELIER, Vermont — Four-term Vermont Gov. Phil Scott has never been more popular. He’s also never had less say over what happens in his state.

The Republican, who boasts the highest approval rating of any governor in the nation, has grown exasperated with the Democrats who run the state Legislature. Tensions boiled over last month after lawmakers overrode a record six of Scott’s vetoes in a dramatic closing session, ignoring his objections to bills hiking property taxes, building a safe drug injection site and establishing a renewable energy goal.

Even Scott acknowledged his powerlessness.

“The legislature proved, once again, they don’t need to consider my perspective or proposals,” the typically mild-mannered executive said at a subsequent press conference.

Scott shares this confounding political dynamic with four Democratic governors dealing with Republican supermajorities. These state leaders — Kansas’ Laura Kelly, North Carolina’s Roy Cooper, Kentucky’s Andy Beshear and Wisconsin's Tony Evers — have been relegated to the passenger seat as the lawmaking process largely happens without them, save the occasional bipartisan compromise.

Yet these overmatched — and seemingly ineffectual — governors are all proving to be among the most popular in the country. By picking and choosing their battles, they position themselves to voters as moderate, rational checks in the political center of statehouses otherwise veering to the extreme of either party. That posturing often frustrates the lawmakers on the other side, who see these governors as unwilling to engage in the legislative trenches, allowing them to remain largely immune from policy risks.

“There’s no question, if you're a Democrat in a blue state, you really just don't have to listen to anyone,” former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican who served two terms with a heavily Democratic legislature and is now running for the state’s open Senate seat, said in an interview. “If you're a Republican in a red state, you just do whatever the typical Republican does. In a state like Maryland, we could not get anything done unless we found bipartisan cooperation. And so our whole focus was doing that. It also turns out to be really popular.”

The rise of supermajorities throughout the U.S. — and the accompanying paralyzation of certain governors — has motivated down-ballot political groups and PACs to try to crack that power by flipping seats in state legislatures this fall. Today, there are 29 veto-proof supermajorities , up from 21 in 2019.

Democratic governors in Kansas, Kentucky and North Carolina are battling deep-red legislatures that have flexed their muscles as GOP gains in those statehouses have exploded over the last decade . It was only eight years ago, for instance, that Democrats had a majority in the state House in Frankfort. Now, they hold just 27 out of 138 seats in the Kentucky Legislature.

In those states and Vermont — the only one with a Republican governor with a Democratic supermajority — governors are regularly pushed to the sidelines, forced to take small wins on the margins. These legislatures embrace bold action: North Carolina Republicans overrode Cooper’s veto of a 12-week abortion ban last year, Vermont Democrats enacted a nearly 14 percent property tax hike this year over Scott’s objections , and Kentucky lawmakers overrode Beshear’s veto of a bill that criminalizes homelessness .

But the back-and-forth isn’t contained to major policy areas like taxes, education and energy. Kentucky lawmakers overrode Beshear’s veto earlier this year of a law that cuts out the governor from filling U.S. Senate vacancies, shifting instead to a special election.

“That’s business as usual,” said Republican House Majority Leader Steven Rudy. “We’re overriding vetoes, and that’s not really newsworthy anymore. It’s now just a regular Wednesday. The one thing that unites us all Republicans is ‘no’ to the governor. By golly, we’re going to be setting policy.”

In North Carolina, Cooper’s tenure has been characterized by clashes with the GOP — but those tensions didn’t fully escalate until Republicans won supermajorities in both chambers in 2023. They proceeded to override his vetoes a whopping 13 times last year, bypassing Cooper to approve laws on hot button issues like abortion restrictions, voting access and gun rights.

Ford Porter, a spokesperson for Cooper, said in a statement that the governor has found areas of common ground with Republicans on Medicaid expansion, emission reduction goals for the power sector and bringing in new jobs. But, Porter said, Cooper is “working to stop” Republicans in the Legislature and at the ballot box because of GOP priorities like private school vouchers and “divisive culture wars.”

But there are glimmers of bipartisanship. In Kansas, Kelly and Republican leadership struck compromises just last month on several high-profile pieces of legislation, including a tax incentive package worth hundreds of millions to lure the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals from Missouri.

In Louisiana, John Bel Edwards won two terms as a Democrat in a state legislature dominated by Republicans. There, state Republicans flashed their partisan colors and welcomed Edwards to his new job in 2016 by rejecting his choice for House speaker , a rare move in Baton Rouge that prompted the first roll call vote for the position in more than three decades.

Hogan in Maryland and Charlie Baker in Massachusetts did the inverse, winning as Republican governors in states boasting a massive Democratic advantage in the Legislature and far more registered Democratic voters, using former President Donald Trump as a foil . Hogan in particular called himself the “biggest anti-Trump critic in the entire Republican Party” at his Maryland campaign stop and highlighted his moderate bona fides by serving as co-chair of No Labels and chair of the National Governors Association.

Surprisingly, the twisted politics in these states seems to endear their embattled governors to voters. In 2022, the last year all six were in office, Baker, Scott, Hogan, Beshear, Kelly and Edwards were the country's most popular governors , according to FiveThirtyEight — far outpacing governors whose politics more closely resembles their state.

But after Hogan, Baker and Edwards left office, all have since been replaced by governors of the supermajority legislature’s party as voters reversed course and ushered in new states of one-party control.

Political observers point to Vermont Democrats winning a supermajority in the 2022 midterms as the moment that changed the relationship between Scott and the Legislature, compromising any goodwill that had been built up over the years.

Democrats dismiss Scott’s complaints as merely fodder for Republican voters — and say he’s rarely willing to work with them during the session.

“Honestly, Scott has no one to blame but himself, for not engaging when he had the upper hand, and for continuing a high-handed style now that he doesn't,” said Senate Pro Tempore Philip Baruth, in a statement.

Despite the drubbing that Scott has taken from Democrats in Montpelier, he’s not ready to give up the job. Scott will be on the ballot in November as he seeks a fifth two-year term. And he’s running unopposed.

“There’s a reason Gov. Scott is arguably the most popular governor in the country,” said GOP consultant Jim Barnett. “It's because he strikes the right tone, he strikes the right balance, that is more representative of the state as a whole than the progressive left supermajority in the legislature.”

Serving as governor in a split state requires a certain kind of temperament that voters gravitate toward, said Baker, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts who worked with a Democratic-led Legislature.

“You have to be willing to ignore a lot of the stuff people will do to try to create noise and tension,” said Baker, who is now president of the National Collegiate Athletics Association, in an interview. “You have to be willing to push back in a polite and sort of respectful way against the more aggressive voices in both parties. You have to be willing to be kind of boring.”