A Romney Victory Could Mean a Re-Election Loss for Governor Corbett in 2014

Pennsylvania voters have inadvertently adhered to an eight-year political cycle for the past 60 years. Every eight years, Republican and Democratic parties swap control of the Governor’s mansion in the Keystone state. Each governor since 1954 has served two four-year terms before relinquishing the digs to the opposing party. The odds of that pattern actually being just a fluke are astounding.

Statistics indicate persuasively that the eight-year cycle is not a fluke. The probability that this string of fifteen gubernatorial elections is just a random occurrence is less than 0.000141 percent. That’s about equivalent to shooting a hole-in-one, being struck by lightning or earth being in a catastrophic collision with an asteroid in the next century. It could happen, but it won’t.

But, in 1982, the cycle was nearly broken when an incumbent governor of the president’s party was up for re-election.

That election was the closest contest involving an incumbent governor in modern times. It was such a nail-biter that a major network first called it for Thornburgh’s opponent, only reversing its call late on election night.

So, as Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett stumps for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, he might be making things harder on himself in 2014. [Politics PA]