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State legislative elections without a Democratic or Republican candidate, 2023

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Ballotpedia tracked state legislative races without a Democratic or Republican candidate in the 2023 elections. In 2023, there were 194 state legislative races without a Democratic candidate and 112 state legislative races without a Republican candidate.

Click here for historical information comparing state legislative races with only one major party candidate in even-year elections.

In the 50 states, there are 99 state legislative chambers altogether. Eight of those chambers held legislative elections in 2023. General elections in Mississippi, New Jersey, and Virginia took place on November 7, 2023. General elections in Louisiana took place on November 18, 2023.

  • Click here for the list of races without a Democratic candidate
  • Click here for the list of races without a Republican candidate

Races without Democratic candidates

Districts 1, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, & 38
Districts 1, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 41, 42, 46, 47, 49, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 59, 64, 65, 66, 69, 71, 73, 74, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 84, 86, 88, 89, 90, 92, 94, 95, & 104
Districts 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20, 23, 25, 30, 31, 33, 35, 36, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, & 52
Districts 1, 2, 4, 8, 10, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 28, 33, 34, 35, 37, 39, 43, 44, 46, 48, 53, 54, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 64, 73, 74, 75, 77, 78, 79, 81, 83, 84, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92, 93, 95, 96, 99, 100, 101, 102, 104, 106, 107, 108, 109, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 120, & 122
District 6
Districts 35, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 49, 56, 63, & 68

Races without Republican candidates

Districts 3, 4, 5, 7, 14, 15, 24, & 29
Districts 2, 3, 4, 11, 16, 17, 21, 23, 26, 29, 34, 40, 44, 58, 60, 61, 62, 67, 72, 87, 91, 93, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, & 102
Districts 11, 12, 13, 16, 21, 26, 27, 28, 32, 34, 37, & 38
Districts 5, 11, 16, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 36, 38, 41, 42, 47, 49, 50, 51, 55, 57, 63, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 80, 82, 85, 94, 96, 98, 103, 110, & 119
Districts 28 & 33
Districts 33 & 35
Districts 14, 21, & 23
Districts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 12, 13, 16, 19, 24, 38, 54, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 85, & 95

Democratic and Republican races without major party opposition

Totals over time

Change over time
Date Number of filing deadlines passed Races without a Democratic candidate Races without a Republican candidate
September 27, 2023 4 194 112
August 17, 2023 4[1] 194 112
May 18, 2023 3[2] 117 95
April 10, 2023 3[3] 100 56
February 8, 2023 1 99 48

Historical context

Races with and without major party opposition: 2010 - 2022 (even years)

The table below shows state legislative races with and without major party opposition for even-year races between 2010 and 2022. Even-year elections have significantly more state legislative seats up for election than odd-year elections do, making direct comparisons between years like 2021 and 2022 uninformative when it comes to races with and without major party opposition.

Races with and without major party opposition: 2010 - 2022 (even years)
Year Total races Races without major party opposition Races with major party opposition
2022 6,278 2,560 (40.8 percent) 3,718 (59.2 percent)
2020 5,875 2,048 (34.9 percent) 3,827 (65.1 percent)
2018 6,073 2,017 (33.2 percent) 4,056 (66.8 percent)
2016 5,923 2,477 (41.8 percent) 3,446 (58.2 percent)
2014 6,057 2,606 (43.0 percent) 3,451 (56.9 percent)
2012 6,015 2,307 (38.3 percent) 3,708 (61.7 percent)
2010 6,125 2,000 (32.7 percent) 4,125 (67.3 percent)

Methodology

There are several methodological choices that Ballotpedia made in calculating the number of races without a Democratic or Republican candidate on this page:

  • State legislative districts can be either single-member districts (only one seat is up for election in a single district) or multi-member districts (more than one seat is up for election in a single district). Regardless of district type, this page counted races without a Democratic or Republican candidate, not seats. This means that if a multi-member district race with three seats up for election in a single year had a Democratic or Republican candidate file for any one of those seats, the race was counted as having a Democratic or Republican candidate and was not factored into the numbers reported on this page.
  • Write-in candidates were not counted as candidates for the purpose of races without a Democratic or Republican candidate. However, if a write-in candidate advanced from a primary to a general election and became a regular candidate on the general election ballot, the race was counted as having a major party candidate.
  • Candidates who unofficially withdrew from a race but still appeared on the ballot were counted as candidates for the purpose of this analysis. This meant that a race did not count as a race without a Democratic or Republican candidate if an unofficially withdrawn candidate still appeared on the ballot.
  • In California and Washington state, which have top-two primary systems, a race was counted as not having a Democratic or Republican candidate if no candidate from a major party advanced from the primary election to the general election.
  • The analysis does not include special elections for state legislative seats. It also does not include regular elections for legislative offices in the U.S. territories.
  • This analysis only included races in states where the candidate filing deadline had passed. However, Ballotpedia's 2022 analysis of U.S. House races without a major party candidate also included elections in states whose filing deadlines had not passed.

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Note: At the time of this update, the candidate list from Louisiana had not been finalized.
  2. ↑ Note: At the time of this update, the candidate list from Virginia had not been finalized.
  3. ↑ Note: At the time of this update, the candidate list from Virginia had not been finalized.
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