In 215 contests across 15 states, 438 candidates running for office this year share the same last name. Every single one of these contests is for a local election. Of these contests, all but one are nonpartisan elections. One contest, District 20 of the New York City Council, was a partisan contest where Allen Wang (Conservative Party) and Steven Wang (Patriot Party Party) shared a last name.

The state with the most contests where candidates share the same last name was Ohio, where 100 different races featured at least two candidates sharing the same last name. The next most common state was Iowa, with 57 elections where this was the case. North Carolina was home to the third largest number, with 26 elections. Every other state had fewer than ten contests like this. Additionally, Iowa had the most elections where three candidates shared a last name, with four such elections.

 The most common last name shared was Miller, which 12 candidates, all in Ohio, shared. The next most common name was Smith (eight candidates), followed by Johnson, Martin, and Graham (each with six candidates).

The number of elections and candidates meeting this criteria was higher in 2025 than in 2024, when 414 candidates across 206 elections in 22 states faced candidates with the same last name. Ten of these states also had an election in 2025: California, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Michigan, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Washington. In 2024, the state with the most of these elections was Michigan, with 56, followed by Kentucky (49) and Minnesota (20). Iowa, the state with the second-highest number of elections in 2025, had the fifth-highest number of elections in 2024, with 17. The most common surname at the time was Smith, which appeared in five races.