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Gubernatorial races 2026

The 72-hour transition

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5 minute read 19 Oct 2026
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Government & Public Sector

From campaign to governing enterprise: the morning after the election changes the job.

In brief
  • The organization that spent months trying to win an election now has 72 hours to begin operating like the team that will govern a state.
  • The team needs to know what it can decide, what needs to be escalated and which decisions actually require the governor-elect.
  • Transition Control Tower lays out what activates when the election is called, who owns what and how the operation moves from Election Night through Day 10.

By now, hopefully all serious gubernatorial candidates have either determined their Transition Director or named them publicly. If not, the morning after is the time to release that name. It is also the time to put into motion a huge pivot, from campaign mode into the bridge period that precedes governing. And it’s not easy. After a campaign win, the bond with the campaign team may feel incredibly strong and morale is at an all-time high. After all, this is the team that just went to war together and spent months in the trenches. It is tempting to want to take all of these wonderful people into the next chapter. It takes real mental clarity to recognize, much less say out loud, that some of the people who were instrumental to the campaign’s success may not have the skills required for the work that comes next.

How EY can help

Successful campaigns evoke attention, emotion, enthusiasm and passion. They reward speed, message discipline, persuasion and competitive instincts. Successful administrations, including those in transition, must convey stability, consistency, competence and maybe even “business as usual.”

 

Some campaign capabilities transfer directly, but the transition requires operating discipline, analytical depth, intergovernmental coordination, process management and the ability to work constructively with career government officials and an outgoing administration. Some of these skills might not exist in the campaign, or might not be robust enough for the task of transition.

 

Given the difference in skill set, it doesn’t mean the campaign team is discarded on Wednesday morning. Many people and capabilities will transfer; others will not. The communications staff who wrote eye-popping texts or stump speeches may or may not be best suited to draft a State of the State address. However, someone who developed complex policy briefs may transition naturally into the next phase.

 

It is important to assess people against the work that now needs to be done, rather than assume that campaign success automatically translates into transition readiness. Ultimately, the work shifts, and the governor-elect has to decide who has the skills to be part of the next chapter and who may not — all while conveying enormous gratitude for their work that got the campaign to this point.

... then there’s the machinery

As the people change, the machinery has to change with them. The transition will need to quickly establish a working relationship with the outgoing administration. That means having named points of contact on both sides and a clear process for requesting information, setting up interviews, and raising issues. Without that structure, it is easy to imagine dozens of people across the transition independently reaching out to agencies, asking different questions, and getting different answers.

The transition will also need a project charter that serves as the roadmap between Election Day and inauguration — with clear goals, milestones, deadlines and owners. The transition will want interviews with current agency leaders and a standardized set of data requests covering the budget, workforce, major contracts and initiatives, pending decisions and other information needed to understand the government the governor-elect is about to inherit. Together, this becomes the base of facts that will later inform policy and budget decisions.

Then, there is the question of how the transition itself will make decisions. Suddenly, everything will be happening at once, and the governor-elect cannot be the person everyone comes to for an answer. The governor-elect will need visibility into what is happening across the transition, but only the decisions that actually require that level of judgment or authority should make their way up. Transition directors and workstream leads need to know what they can decide on their own, what needs to be discussed with other parts of the transition, and what needs to be escalated. A steering committee or similar governance structure can help resolve those issues and make sure the governor-elect is weighing in at the moments when that input really matters.

Think of it as a control tower

Think about how an air traffic control tower works: the people in the tower aren’t flying the planes; they know what is in the air, what is taking off and landing, where there may be conflicts, and when someone needs to intervene. Roles are clear, communication channels are established, and everyone is working from a common set of data. A well-run control tower shouldn’t feel chaotic — even though many things are unfolding at the same time.

A transition needs to operate in much the same way. The goal isn’t to route every decision through the governor-elect. It is to make sure the right people have the information and authority to make decisions, while giving transition leadership visibility across the whole operation. When something does need to move up, everyone should know where it goes and who makes the call.

This is the idea behind the Transition Control Tower. It gives the transition team one view of what needs to happen on Election Night, in the first 72 hours and over the following week — along with who owns the work and where decisions need to be escalated. The governor-elect’s view should be simpler still: Which decisions require my attention? What is at risk? Which milestones are coming next? And where is my time actually needed?

Activation, not design

Wednesday, November 4 is not the day to be thinking about any of this for the first time. By then, the plan should be ready to activate: a transition director ready to step forward, people who know their roles, a process for engaging the outgoing administration, initial information requests ready to go and clear rules for how decisions will be made.

This is the second article in our multi-part gubernatorial transition series. Our first, “Ready to lead with the rolling start readiness score,” focused on what candidates can prepare before Election Day while preserving the decisions that properly belong to the governor-elect. Next, we’ll look at “Building the team that will run the state,” — looking at how to design the leadership system the administration will need to execute its priorities.

Jon Hughes, Ernst & Young LLP; and Nita Bhat, Ernst & Young LLP also contributed to this article.

Learn more about the Transition Control Tower

Maintain control of the transition without becoming the bottleneck

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Summary 

There will be plenty the transition team cannot know before Election Day and plenty it should not decide. However, the basic machinery of the transition can be designed in advance. When November 4 arrives, the team should be activating that machinery, not designing it for the first time.

About this article

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Related topics
Government & Public Sector

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