These members of Congress are heading to the governor's mansion

Savannah Behrmann, CQ-Roll Call on Nov 4, 2026

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WASHINGTON — The number of governors who once served in Congress is set to grow next year after several lawmakers won gubernatorial races across the country.

The incoming governors include members who’ve served in Congress for decades and some with relatively short stints in Congress. But several Republican lawmakers were unsuccessful in their attempts to become the top executives of their home states on what was largely a poor night for the GOP.

Here are the lawmakers who won their governor’s races on election night:

Alabama

It was a blast from the (recent) past in Alabama, where Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville was elected governor after defeating Democrat Doug Jones, his Senate predecessor whom he defeated in 2020.

Despite the defeat, Jones — who won a 2017 special election to become the first Democrat to win a Senate race in Alabama in more than two decades — lost by a closer-than-anticipated margin to Tuberville, a staunch ally of President Donald Trump and the former head football coach at Auburn. With 99 percent of votes counted, according to The Associated Press, Tuberville was leading Jones 52 percent to 48 percent — the narrowest gubernatorial race in the Yellowhammer State since 2002.

Florida

The governor’s mansion in the Sunshine State will remain in GOP hands, with Rep. Byron Donalds narrowly defeating former Rep. David Jolly to become Florida’s first Black governor.

Donalds, who was first elected to Congress in 2020, will succeed term-limited Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, himself a former congressman.

Jolly is a former Republican lawmaker who left the party during Trump’s first term and joined Democrats last year. He was vying to become the first Democratic elected governor in Florida since Lawton Chiles won reelection in 1994. Jolly’s running mate was also a onetime House colleague — former Rep. Gwen Graham, the daughter of former Florida Gov. and Sen. Bob Graham.

Tennessee

The Volunteer State also made history on election night, electing its first female governor in Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn. Despite Tennessee’s deep-red lean, Blackburn only scraped by Democrat Jerri Green, a Memphis City councilwoman, with a self-funding independent pulling in a portion of the conservative vote.

Before her election to the Senate in 2018, Blackburn served in the Tennessee Senate and nearly two decades in the House. She is expected to be able to pick her Senate successor after she is sworn in as governor.

Minnesota

Democratic-Farmer-Labor Sen. Amy Klobuchar was another history-maker in Minnesota, becoming the first female governor of the North Star State. She defeated Republican state House Speaker Lisa DeMuth in the race to succeed retiring Gov. Tim Walz, the 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee.

Like Blackburn, Klobuchar was also the first woman to represent her state in the Senate, where she has served since 2007. She is also expected to appoint her successor in the chamber.

U.S. Virgin Islands

Unofficial returns from the U.S. Virgin Islands showed Democrat Stacey Plaskett prevailing in the open governor’s race with more than 50 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff and become the island territory’s first female governor.

Plaskett was first elected to Congress in 2014 as the Virgin Islands’ nonvoting delegate and served as a House impeachment manager during Trump’s second impeachment trial. She faced controversy last year over her correspondence with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, but narrowly avoided being censured and stripped of her position on the House Intelligence Committee.

Former members also win

Two former members of Congress who later served in Joe Biden’s Cabinet are also heading for their states’ governor’s mansions.

In California, Democratic former Rep. Xavier Becerra easily defeated Republican Steve Hilton to succeed outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom. Since leaving Congress in 2017, Becerra has served as California attorney general and as Biden’s secretary of Health and Human Services.

And in New Mexico, former Rep. Deb Haaland easily kept the governorship in Democratic hands with her win over Republican Gregg Hull, the former Rio Rancho mayor. She succeeds another former House member, term-limited Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.

Coming up short

Not all members of Congress were successful in governor’s races this year. A trio of Republican congressmen lost gubernatorial bids: Wisconsin’s Tom Tiffany, Arizona’s Andy Biggs and Michigan’s John James.

They join Republican colleagues who lost gubernatorial primaries this year, including David Schweikert of Arizona, Randy Feenstra of Iowa, Dusty Johnson of South Dakota, John W. Rose of Tennessee and Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman of South Carolina.

Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat from Colorado, lost a gubernatorial primary in June to state Attorney General Phil Weiser, who was easily elected Tuesday. Bennet, however, will continue to serve in the Senate as he isn’t up for reelection until 2028.

—Andrew Menezes, Daniela Altimari, Mary Ellen McIntire and Nick Eskow contributed to this report.