2018 Midterm Elections: Governors in Moratorium States Re-Elected, Controversial California D.A. Ousted

The results of the November 6, 2018 mid-term elec­tions reflect­ed America’s deeply divid­ed views on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, as vot­ers elect­ed gov­er­nors who pledged not to resume exe­cu­tions in the three states with death-penal­ty mora­to­ri­ums, defeat­ed an incum­bent who tried to bring back cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in a non-death-penal­ty state (click on graph­ic to enlarge), and re-elect­ed gov­er­nors who had vetoed leg­is­la­tion abol­ish­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in two oth­er states. Continuing a nation­al trend, vot­ers in Orange County, California oust­ed their scan­dal-plagued top pros­e­cu­tor, mark­ing the ninth time since 2015 that local vot­ers have replaced pros­e­cu­tors in juris­dic­tions with the nation’s largest coun­ty death rows.

In the three states with Governor-imposed death-penal­ty mora­to­ri­ums, can­di­dates who said they would con­tin­ue exe­cu­tion bans or work to elim­i­nate the state’s death penal­ty won eas­i­ly. Tom Wolf, the Democratic gov­er­nor of Pennsylvania who imposed the state’s mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in 2015, was re-elect­ed by with 57.6% of the vote. His chal­lenger, Scott Wagner, who had promised to resume exe­cu­tions and had advo­cat­ed a manda­to­ry death penal­ty for school shoot­ings, trailed bad­ly with 40.8% of the vote. Oregon’s incum­bent Democratic gov­er­nor Kate Brown, who con­tin­ued the state’s death-penal­ty mora­to­ri­um insti­tut­ed in 2011 by then-gov­er­nor John Kitzhaber, won re-elec­tion in a six can­di­date field with 49.4% of the vote, five per­cent­age points high­er than her Republican chal­lenger Knute Buehler. In Colorado, Democratic con­gress­man Jared Polis, who cam­paigned on the repeal of the state’s death penal­ty, won the gov­er­nor­ship with 51.6% of the vote, out­pac­ing Republican state trea­sur­er Walker Stapleton, who received 44.7% of the vote. 

Democrats also took con­trol of both hous­es of the Colorado leg­is­la­ture, increas­ing the like­li­hood that leg­is­la­tion to abol­ish the death penal­ty will be con­sid­ered in the upcom­ing legislative session. 

Illinois Republican Governor Bruce Rauner suf­fered an over­whelm­ing elec­tion defeat at the hands of ven­ture-cap­i­tal­ist J.B. Pritzker. Trailing bad­ly in the polls, Rauner tried in May 2018 to con­di­tion pas­sage of gun con­trol leg­is­la­tion on rein­state­ment of the state’s death penal­ty. Pritzker out­polled Rauner by 54.0% to 39.3%.

On the oth­er hand, two gov­er­nors who pre­vent­ed death-penal­ty repeal bills from going into effect in their states also won re-elec­tion. Nebraska’s Republican Governor Pete Ricketts, who vetoed a bipar­ti­san bill to abol­ish the state’s death penal­ty in 2015 and then, after the leg­is­la­ture over­rode his veto, per­son­al­ly bankrolled a suc­cess­ful state-wide ref­er­en­dum in 2016 to block the repeal, cruised to re-elec­tion with 59.4% of the vote. New Hampshire Republican Governor Chris Sununu, who vetoed the state’s death-penal­ty repeal bill in March 2018, won re-elec­tion with 52.4% of the vote. 

In Florida, Republican Ron DeSantis won the gov­er­nor­ship against Democratic can­di­date Andrew Gillum, who had pledged, if elect­ed, to sus­pend exe­cu­tions in Florida until he was sure the death-penal­ty sys­tem was nondiscriminatorily applied.

Local vot­ers in Orange County, California replaced District Attorney Tony Rackauckas with a polit­i­cal rival, coun­ty super­vi­sor Todd Spitzer. Rackauckas has been embroiled in a scan­dal involv­ing the secret use of prison infor­mants to obtain or man­u­fac­ture con­fes­sions from sus­pects and then stonewalling inves­ti­ga­tion of the mul­ti-decade ille­gal prac­tice. As of January 2013, Orange County had the sev­enth largest death row of any coun­ty in the U.S., and since then, it has imposed the fourth most death sen­tences of any county. 

Voters in Florida and Louisiana also vot­ed on crim­i­nal jus­tice reforms that erad­i­cat­ed prac­tices adopt­ed in the Jim Crow era. Florida vot­ers approved a ref­er­en­dum that end­ed Florida’s life­time ter­mi­na­tion of vot­ing rights for any­one with a pri­or felony con­vic­tion, which passed with 64% of the vote. Louisiana, with the country’s sec­ond-high­est incar­cer­a­tion rate, abol­ished a post-slav­ery law that per­mit­ted felony con­vic­tions for crimes oth­er than cap­i­tal mur­der based on non-unan­i­mous 10 – 2 or 11 – 1 jury votes. The vote leaves Oregon as the only state that per­mits con­vic­tions by non-unan­i­mous jury votes, and Alabama as the only state to per­mit judges to impose the death penal­ty based upon a non-unan­i­mous jury rec­om­men­da­tion for death.