Declaring Emergencies and Banning ‘Latinx’: First Acts for 9 New Governors

After a midterm election year in which statewide races were almost entirely wrapped up in national issues — abortion and democracy — the nation’s newly elected governors are showing their ambitions with a mix of virtue-signaling on national issues, currying favor with their political bases and, for some, reaching out to broader constituencies.

With the direct responsibility of running their states, governors must also quickly produce detailed budgets that put their priorities in full view. Elected last year, nine new governors have been busy in their first weeks in office.

In Arkansas, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a Republican who served as a press secretary in the Trump White House, took swipes at the left, on critical race theory and “Latinx.”

In Massachusetts, Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat, announced an essay contest for students to decide which former governor would get a portrait to be hung in her office. (John Hancock or Samuel Adams? Michael Dukakis or Mitt Romney?)

From the symbolic to the substantive, here is a look at some of what the nation’s new governors have done in their first weeks in office.