In November, 6,066 state legislative seats are up for grabs, and more candidates — particularly on the Democratic side — are running for state legislative seats than have in decades. Sixteen states have published an official list of 2018 state House candidates. The above figure shows the percentage of state House districts that had at least one Democratic (blue line) or Republican (red line) state House candidate in these states since the 1980s. The decreasing black line shows that, as a president becomes more popular, his state legislative co-partisans face fewer challengers. Steven Rogers is an assistant professor at Saint Louis University whose research and teaching focus on American politics, with special attention to state legislative elections.

Source: Washington Post March 21, 2018 09:00 UTC