Who Is the Governor of Your State Now? Civics Question 61

Your answer is the governor of the state where you live now.

Question 61 asks who your governor is. There is no single correct answer, because it depends on your state and because governors change with elections. Residents of the District of Columbia answer that D.C. does not have a governor. This is a starred question, so it can also appear on the shorter test for applicants who are 65 or older and have been permanent residents for 20 years or more.

Which State Counts

The state that matters is the one you live in now, the address on your naturalization application. Where you were born, where you first arrived, and where your family lives do not change the answer.

If you moved between states during your case, the governor of your current state is the one to learn.

How to Find Your Governor’s Name

Search for “governor of” followed by your state name. Every state government runs a website ending in .gov, and the governor’s name is on the front page of it.

Two rules make the lookup reliable:

• Trust official state sites and usa.gov over study guides, which go stale between printings.
• Check again after any election in your state, and check once more in the week before your interview.

Write the name down, then say it out loud until the pronunciation is easy. An officer needs to hear the name clearly.

The District of Columbia and the Territories

Residents of the District of Columbia answer that D.C. does not have a governor. D.C. is not a state, and its accepted answer is that no governor exists to name.

Residents of a U.S. territory name the governor of their territory. Territories do have governors, so the lookup works the same way it does for a state.

How to Remember Your Governor

This answer is a lookup, not a fact to memorize once and keep forever. Build the habit instead of the memory: one search, one official page, close to your interview date.

Look up question 62 in the same sitting. Your state capital appears on the same government website as your governor, so one visit answers both.

What to Say on Test Day

Say the name you found. Just the name, first and last.

You do not need the title, the party, or how long the person has been in office. If you live in D.C., say “D.C. does not have a governor,” then stop.