Annual State Legislative Competitiveness Report: Vol. 3, 2013
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A total of 220 seats of the country's 7,383 state legislative seats were up for election in the November 5, 2013, state legislative elections. With 93% of incumbents running for re-election, 24 faced a primary challenger.
This is an overview of our analysis of the degree of competitiveness in 2013's state legislative elections. The analysis utilizes the 3-factor "Competitiveness Index".
This report is organized into four sections. They are:
Competitiveness overview
Competitiveness refers to the presence of choice throughout the election cycle. A greater level of competitiveness means voters have the ability to make more decisions. A lower level of competitiveness equals fewer choices.
Ballotpedia uses three factors to determine state legislative competitiveness:
- Open seats, those where no incumbents filed to run;
- Incumbents in contested primaries, those who could potentially lose to challengers; and,
- Major party competition — where Democrats and Republicans meet head-to-head in the general election.
These percentages are averaged to produce a State Legislative Competitiveness Index, which can range from zero (least competitive) to 100 (most competitive).
The table below shows the Competitiveness Indices from 2011 to 2013 as well as the three factors used to calculate the indices. Click here to read more about Ballotpedia's methodology used when calculating Competitiveness Indices.
State legislative Competitiveness Indices, 2011-2013 | ||||||||
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2011 | 2013 | AVERAGE | ||||||
Competitiveness Index | 28.1 | 30.3 | 29.2 | |||||
Open seats | 17.0% | 6.8% | 11.9% | |||||
Inc. in contested primaries | 21.4% | 11.7% | 16.6% | |||||
Seats with major party competition | 46.0% | 72.3% | 59.2% |
Open seats
There were 180 state legislative districts up for election nationwide, creating 360 possible primaries. Of that total, there were 32 contested primaries, meaning 9% of all primaries were contested. This represented a decrease from 2011 when 22% of primaries were contested.
In 2013:
Contested state legislative primaries, 2013 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Chamber | Districts | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Democratic | Republican | Top-two/four | Total | |||||||||||||||||||||
# | % | # | % | # | % | # | % | |||||||||||||||||
House | 140 | 8 | 5.7% | 14 | 10.0% | 0 | - | 22 | 7.9% | |||||||||||||||
Senate | 40 | 4 | 10.0% | 6 | 15.0% | 0 | - | 10 | 12.5% | |||||||||||||||
Total | 180 | 12 | 6.7% | 20 | 11.1% | 0 | N/A | 32 | 8.9% |
Historical comparison
The chart below shows a breakdown of contested primaries between 2011 and 2013.
See also
- State legislative elections, 2013
- Impact of term limits on state legislative elections in 2013
- Open seats in state legislative elections, 2013
- Contested state legislative primaries, 2013
- State legislative incumbents in contested primaries, 2013
- Major party competition in state legislative elections, 2013
- Incumbents defeated in state legislative elections, 2013
- Primary election competitiveness in state government, 2013
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- ↑ Totals may include minor party or independent officeholders.