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Uncontested State
Legislative Races 2002-2004
October 2004
This analysis demonstrates that a large number of state legislative
elections were uncontested* by Democrats and Republicans in 2002 and
2004. Using data from Ballot Access News on
state legislative seats up for
election in 2002 and 2004 and the party affiliation of the
candidates, we determined the number of races with only one major party
candidate. Third party candidates and independents contest some races, but
relatively few and have very limited electoral success in our winner-take-all
system. 2002: 36.9% of state legislative races in 2002
were not contested by the two major parties. In many states, more
than half of the state legislative seats were uncontested. 2004:
38.7% of state legislative races in 2004 were not contested by the
two major parties. The ten states with the highest percentage of
seats uncontested by a major party in 2002 and 2004 are shown below.
Arkansas, Florida, New Mexico, South Carolina and Texas appear on both lists:
| 2002 |
| South Carolina |
71.8% |
| Massachusetts |
68.8% |
| Arkansas |
67.0% |
| Kentucky |
67.0% |
| Florida |
65.0% |
| New Mexico |
57.1% |
| Kansas |
56.0% |
| Rhode Island |
56.0% |
| Texas |
55.3% |
| Alaska |
55.0% |
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2004 |
| Arkansas |
74.6% |
| Florida |
72.5% |
| South Carolina |
70.0% |
| New Mexico |
61.6% |
| Texas |
61.2% |
| Georgia |
58.9% |
| Wyoming |
57.9% |
| Arizona |
54.4% |
| Illinois |
52.5% |
| North Carolina |
52.4% |
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For more information on specific
states, download the data in Microsoft Excel format for 2002
and 2004. * ���Uncontested��� for the purposes of this
study refers to a race that lacks either a Democratic or Republican
candidate. In this summary state house and state senate races are combined
into a single category.
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