Most of the attention this election season is fixed on Congress and which party will control the House and Senate come January. Sometimes lost in the fog of polls and punditry is the fact that 36 states are also holding gubernatorial elections and at least 19 will have a new governor by early next year.
That kind of turnover creates an opportunity for a new generation of governors that look less to Washington for money and permission, allowing them to chart policy agendas that better meet the demands of the electorate.
Regardless of party, incoming governors can take lessons from outgoing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Governors should be willing to challenge Washington when the interests of the state or fiscal realities demand it, even if that means bucking national leaders in their own party. For example, DeSantis recently criticized President Donald Trump’s proposal for $5,000 dividend checks, pointing out that it would simply mean “more debt and more inflation” at a time when cost-of-living pressures are already squeezing Americans.
DeSantis has applied that same pushback to federal funds flowing into Florida, where money from Washington makes up 34 percent of the state’s revenue. In a 2025 executive order on government efficiency, he directed state agencies to identify federal grants that were inconsistent with Florida’s policy aims and could be returned to taxpayers rather than merely engaging in passive acceptance of money.
That is a small but important break from the usual political incentive to treat every federal grant as “free money.” Governors serious about rebuilding state independence and promoting fiscal responsibility must be willing to ask what accepting federal money costs their states in compliance and long-term dependence from a Congress addicted to reckless spending.
There is recent historical precedent for more energetic leadership from governors. The Hoover Institution described the 1990s as a “great gubernatorial revival,” when governors across the country were not simply administering programs handed down from Washington but setting ambitious policy agendas in their states. Several states became ground zero for major reforms to welfare, education and tackling crime, with reforms spreading well beyond the states where they began.
Republican Govs. Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin and John Engler in Michigan helped pioneer welfare reforms before Congress enacted national welfare reform in 1996. In North Carolina in 1993, Democratic Gov. Jim Hunt launched Smart Start, a locally driven early-childhood initiative that became a national model. Governors in New Jersey, Texas, Virginia and elsewhere likewise pushed major changes in criminal sentencing to improve public safety during the same period.
That is what the idea of the states as “laboratories of democracy” is meant to look like. Governors can test policies, learn from one another and act with a speed that Congress, too often consumed by partisan conflict and infected by members more focused on building their online brand than governing, may be incapable of.
The point is not to replicate the reforms that swept through governors’ offices and statehouses in the 1990s, but, like Gov. DeSantis, to set a robust agenda that is skeptical of Washington while removing their state further from that orbit of dysfunction.
“While we ought to glory in the Union and remember that it is the source from which the States derive their chief title to fame,” declared Calvin Coolidge, “we must also recognize that the national administration is not and cannot be adjusted to the needs of local government.”
The opportunity now is for governors to recover that resolve and remind Americans that the best political leadership and reforms do not begin in Washington. In fact, the impetus for any newfound sense of fiscal responsibility on the part of Congress is most likely to come from the states, with governors leading the way.
Ray Nothstine is a senior writer and editor and a Future of Freedom Fellow at the State Policy Network. He manages and edits American Habits, an online publication focused on federalism and self-government.
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