2025 Governors and Legislatures (Projected)
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Key Takeaways:

  • Although 5,821 state legislative seats were up for election this year, not many of those were actually in play.
  • Before a single vote had even been cast, one of the two major political parties had already gained simple majorities in 19 state legislative chambers across 14 states because the other party failed to recruit a candidate to even run in those districts. In fact, a third of legislative seats went uncontested this year.
  • Why do these seats go uncontested? Largely because they’re not competitive. State election forecasters expected only 19% of the seats up for election in 2024 to be at least somewhat competitive.
  • How did 80% of the seats become uncompetitive? Well, most districts are still drawn by the lawmakers who represent those districts, and lawmakers prefer to draw themselves into safe seats (gerrymandering). Additionally, the demographic makeup of the political parties poses its own difficulties in creating competitive districts when Democrats tend to huddle into urban areas with Republicans making up a majority of rural areas in a state.


We recently took a detailed look at how exactly the individual state legislative seats shifted post-election. All in all, Republicans are expected to only shift their majorities in the nationwide count of state legislative seats by about 60 additional seats (out of 7,386) — a shift of 0.81%. 

So why so little shift in state legislative seats in what was arguably a wave-type election for Republicans at the top of the ticket (flipping the White House and Senate while retaining the House)? The short answer is that although 5,821 state legislative seats were up for election this year, not many of those were actually in play. 

Before a single vote had even been cast, one of the two major political parties had already gained simple majorities in 19 state legislative chambers across 14 states because the other party failed to recruit a candidate to even run in those districts. In fact, a third of legislative seats went uncontested this year. That’s 1,938 (33.3%) of the 5,821 seats up for election. And those numbers are on par with past election cycles. 

Why do these seats go uncontested? Largely because they’re not competitive. (Although that’s not always the case, sometimes it's just bad recruiting by a political party). This year, our favorite elections forecaster, Chaz Nuttycombe at cnanalysis.com, expected only 1,116 (19%) of the seats up for election in 2024 to be at least somewhat competitive. That leaves the remaining 4,705 seats either completely uncontested or rated “safe” seats (99% chance of victory for one candidate). And this isn’t only a state legislative issue; the Cook Political Report rated a similar number of U.S. House seats — 362 of 435 (83%) — this year as “solid” (i.e., “these seats are not considered competitive”).

How did 80% of the seats become uncompetitive? Well, most districts are still drawn by the lawmakers who represent those districts, and lawmakers prefer to draw themselves into safe seats. But dreaded gerrymandering is not the only cause here. The demographic makeup of the political parties poses its own difficulties in creating competitive districts when Democrats tend to huddle into urban areas with Republicans making up a majority of rural areas in a state. So even with some movement over the past few cycles toward bi-partisan or independent redistricting commissions, competitive districts will still remain an issue. 


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This article appeared in our Morning MultiState newsletter on November 26, 2024. For more timely insights like this, be sure to sign up for our Morning MultiState weekly morning tipsheet. We created Morning MultiState with state government affairs professionals in mind — sign up to receive the latest from our experts in your inbox every Tuesday morning. Click here to sign up.