According to the Associated Press, the Democrats have picked up the Missouri Governorship, bringing their lead among Governorships to 29 to 21 (assuming no other flips tonight). Congratulations to Jay Nixon, Missouri's Governor-elect.

Update [2008-11-4 22:30:10 by Jonathan Singer]: Bev Perdue has also won the North Carolina Governorship in a tough, close race, holding the seats for the Democrats.

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Earlier this week, SurveyUSA released polling on the Missouri Governor's race, which will feature Democratic Attorney General Jay Nixon and one of two potential GOP nominees seeking to succeed incumbent Matt Blunt, whose extremely poor ratings have prohibited him from running for a second term. The numbers look good. Real good.

Congressman Kenny Hulshof (R): 33 percent
Attorney General Jay Nixon (D): 57 percent

State Treasurer Sarah Steelman (R): 33 percent
Attorney General Jay Nixon (D): 58 percent

Lest you think these numbers are too bullish on Nixon's chances this fall (after all, while Nixon has won four statewide elections as AG, he has lost two for the Senate in the past), Rasmussen Reports polling released earlier in the month showed Nixon leading either Steelman (whose husband Nixon beat in 1992) and Hulshof by 16 points -- not too far off from the margin found by SUSA. So all in all, while the prognosticators may call this one a tossup, it sure looks like Nixon has a great chance at becoming Missouri's next governor (potentially opening up the possibility of Barack Obama putting Claire McCaskill on the ticket?).

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Via Daily Kos, the Associated Press reports that Missouri's Republican Governor Matt Blunt will not be running for reelection.

Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt will not run for re-election this year.

In a stunning announcement Tuesday, Blunt said he had decided not to seek a second term because he had accomplished virtually everything he set out to do when he ran for governor four years ago.

Blunt already had raised millions of dollars for a potential re-election campaign. But he has trailed in the polls to Democratic Attorney General Jay Nixon, who has been campaigning against Blunt for several years already.

First, let me just note something very important: Blunt sounds almost exactly like the parody of George H.W. Bush explaining off his loss to Bill Clinton in an episode from the seventh season of The Simpsons.

Blunt: "What we set-out to achieve four years ago has been accomplished."

Bush: "And since I'd achieved all my goals as President in one term, there was no need for a second. The end."

Uncanny, no?But more to the point, as alluded to in the AP article, Blunt was trailing fairly badly in the polling. On average Blunt faced a 7 1/2-point deficit against his Democratic challenger, state Attorney General Jay Nixon. Even more problematically for Blunt, he was trailing Nixon by more than 25 points among independents in the state, according to the latest polling. This came even after Blunt's reelection campaign began running ads.

And just why was Blunt faring so poorly with Missouri voters, and independents in the state in particular? Much of the Governor's problems centered on a massive scandal involving the destruction of public records. You can learn more about those scandals on Fired Up! Missouri. His extreme right brand of conservatism didn't help his standing much, either.

The Republicans aren't entirely out of luck in the state, with a moderately deep base of potential candidates to replace Blunt on the ticket. Specifically, Chris Cillizza mentions Rep. Kenny Hulshof, Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, former senator Jim Talent and state treasurer Sarah Steelman as potential replacements. That said, Nixon is very popular, having won four statewide elections in the past. What's more, he's been running a strong campaign, as evidenced by his sizable lead against an incumbent (even if a somewhat tarnished one). So as of right now, one would have to continue to conclude that the Democrats have at least somewhat of an advantage in this race.

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What happens when you have a Republican Governor running for reelection whose approval spread is 40 percent positive/58 percent negative and a favorable spread of 43 percent positive/53 percent negative? In the case of Matt Blunt in Missouri, you've got an incumbent in a lot of trouble. Take a look at the results from the latest Research 2000 poll out of the Show Me State commissioned by The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and KMOV-TV:

Blunt (R)Nixon (D)Research 2000
11/12-15/074251Rasmussen Reports
10/10/074443Rasmussen Reports
8/23/074346SurveyUSA
7/24-25/0738575-Mo. Ave
7/24-11/15/0741.849.3

The numbers we're seeing out of this race seem to generally gibe jibe with voters sentiments around the country. Looking at the breakdown of the race between Blunt and longtime Democratic state Attorney General Jay Nixon, the latter leads by a remarkable 59 percent to 32 percent margin among Independent voters. While the margin of error for this subgroup is higher than the overall 3.5 percent margin of error for the entire poll (as it is for other subgroups), this massive Democratic lead among Independent voters is nonetheless noteworthy. Nixon's lead here is not too dissimilar to the Democrats' 57 percent share of the nationwide Independent vote in House elections in 2006, and it is quite a bit better than Democrat Claire McCaskill's 51 percent to 43 percent win over Republican Jim Talent among Missouri's Independents during her win in the state's 2006 Senate election.

If Democrats nationally can do as well among Independents as Nixon is doing in Missouri -- and a recent Pew poll suggests Independents are indeed more likely to lean towards the Democrats than towards the Republicans nationally -- then 2008 is going to be a very good cycle for the party.

The latest polling from the 2008 Missouri Governor race is now out, and once again it shows that incumbent Republican Governor Matt Blunt is having a very tough time against Democrat Jay Nixon, the state's long time attorney general. Take a look:

Blunt (R)Nixon (D)Rasmussen Reports
10/10/074443Rasmussen Reports
8/23/074346SurveyUSA
7/24-25/0738574-Mo. Ave
7/24-10/10/0741.748.7

Today also brought some other new numbers out of this race, these ones related to fundraising. From the Nixon campaign:

In the first campaign finance report since the Supreme Court reinstated contribution limits and leveled the playing field, Jay Nixon's campaign netted $155,182.62 more than Matt Blunt in the third quarter. When considering the over-limit contributions Blunt accepted, which must be returned, Nixon netted $474,690.25 more than Blunt during the third quarter.

While Jay Nixon received more than 1,500 contributions of $100 or less, Blunt has very little grassroots support -- receiving just 125 low-dollar contributions.

Expect this race to be about as close as these things come in politics. Missouri is a slightly Republican state that nonetheless has a history of electing Democrats and which doesn't particularly like its current Republican Governor. A number of the most recent major statewide elections in recent years -- the Mel Carnahan/John Ashcroft Senate contest in 2000, the Jean Carnahan/Jim Talent Senate campaign in 2002, the Claire McCaskill/Blunt Governor election in 2004 and the McCaskill/Talent Senate race in 2006 -- have been remarkably close, with no candidate in any of these races garnering more than 51 percent of the vote. And though there have also been less close races, like the 2004 Senate election, the fact that this race is already engaged and seems likely to remain engaged for the next 12-plus months leads me to believe it will be a barnburner -- though one that I think the Democrats have a very good shot at winning.