Democrats are once again challenging more GOP legislative seats than vice-versa
With the nation's primary elections finally concluding last week, we're pleased to announce that the 2020 edition of the Daily Kos Elections State Legislative Open Seat Tracker is now complete. Overall, Democrats are contesting more Republican-held seats at the legislative level than the reverse, and fewer of the party's incumbents have opted to retire, suggesting continued optimism about Team Blue's chances across the country.
This year, 5,876 seats are on the ballot across 86 legislative chambers in 44 states nationwide. We've counted 361 Republican and 298 Democratic incumbents who are calling it quits this fall, while an additional 113 Republicans and 82 Democrats are term-limited and will not be on their states' respective ballots this November.
Finally, a further 90 Republican and 60 Democratic incumbents were defeated in primary elections. A detailed seat-by-seat look at each open seat and their underlying partisan lean (as measured by 2016 and 2012 presidential election results, where available) is listed on the second tab of the chart.
As part of our tracking, we've also kept tabs on the number of seats held by each party that are being left uncontested in the November elections. We've tallied 1,047 seats held by Democrats with no Republican opposition, or roughly 38% of Democratic seats on the ballot this year. At the same time, 1,013 Republican-held seats, or 33% of the GOP's total, have no Democratic challengers.
Put another way, Democrats are fielding 2,035 candidates for seats held by Republicans, while the GOP has only put up 1,709 candidates for seats held by Democrats.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/9/24/1980121/-Morning-Digest-Democrats-are-once-again-running-more-candidates-for-state-legislatures-than-the-GOP
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