Since 1920, 14.4% of all U.S. House elections had only one major party candidate
Every two years, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for election, and each cycle, there are candidates with no major party opposition. But how often does that happen? Ballotpedia found out.
From 1920 to 2018, there were 2,434 U.S. House races that did not have a Republican candidate in the general election and 707 races that lacked a Democratic candidate. Thus, 14.4% of regularly scheduled U.S. House of Representatives elections featured only one major party candidate.
In 2018, 41 U.S. House races (9.4%) had only a Democratic or Republican candidate, but not both, in the general election. Three of the 41 races did not have a Democratic candidate and the remaining 38 did not have a Republican candidate. In comparison, there were 61 such races in 2016 and 76 in 2014.
The election years that had the most races without major-party opposition were 1930 (99), 1998 (95), 1942 (89), 1958 (89), and 1934 (83). The election years with the fewest such races were 1996 (21), 2010 (29), 1992 (31), 1932 (35), and 2018 (41). The number of U.S. House races that featured only one major-party candidate in 2018 was the fifth-fewest in the last 100 years.
During this period, the average number of U.S. House races in a given year with only one major party candidate in the general election was 62.8. In the 10 election cycles from 2000 to 2018, the average was 57.4 races.
Since 1920, only six states had both a Democratic and Republican candidate in every general election—Alaska, Delaware, Idaho, Montana, New Hampshire, and Wyoming.
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