So far, in 2024, Ballotpedia has processed candidate filing information for congressional offices in 23 states. We also have data for 27 state legislative chambers across 14 states. We’ve looked at 2,614 total races so far — about 44% of the ~6,000 races we anticipate covering in 2024.

Looking at retirements across the state legislatures, three of 14 states — Idaho, Illinois, and Pennsylvania — have the fewest incumbent retirements since 2010 when we first began gathering this data.

Of the 2,614 races we’ve analyzed, 21.1% of all primaries had more than one candidate. In 2020, the last cycle where similar offices were up for election, 20.5% of all primaries had more than one candidate. In the recent midterm elections, that figure was 24.3%.

Looking closer at contested primaries, we see that Democrats faced fewer than Republicans from 2020 to 2024. In 2020, there were 1,092 contested Democratic and 1,147 contested Republican primaries, followed by 1,100 and 1,780 of the same in 2022. So far in 2024, there are 309 contested Democratic primaries and 615 contested Republican primaries.

We regularly update these figures and more as candidate filing deadlines happen throughout the spring and summer. To see the latest numbers and how they compare to our historical data, click the link below.