NYT On the Decline of Competitive Congressional Districts

The NYT has a long story by @miwine and @NYTnickc about the decline of competitive districts in the 2024 elections. A key point from an experienced member of Congress comes at the end of the story: “As competitive districts dwindle, so do incentives to compromise,” said Steve Israel, a former Democratic congressman from New York and the former chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

For my similar views on the decline of competitive districts as a contributing factor in the rise of polarization and the difficulty of legislative compromise, see this essay. Here’s some of the data from the NYT story:

Competition is an endangered species in legislative elections.

A New York Times analysis of the nearly 6,000 congressional and state legislative elections in November shows just how few races were true races. Nearly all either were dominated by an incumbent or played out in a district drawn to favor one party overwhelmingly. The result was a blizzard of blowouts, even in a country that is narrowly divided on politics.

Just 8 percent of congressional races (36 of 435) and 7 percent of state legislative races (400 of 5,465) were decided by fewer than five percentage points, according to The Times’s analysis.

Consequences from the death of competition are readily apparent. Roughly 90 percent of races are now decided not by general-election voters in November but by the partisans who tend to vote in primaries months earlier. That favors candidates who appeal to ideological voters and lawmakers who are less likely to compromise. It exacerbates the polarization that has led to deadlock in Congress and in statehouses.

The Times story also reflects the decline of competitive districts in state legislatures:

There are 181 state legislative seats in Texas, with 31 senators and 150 representatives. In 2024, just four of those elections — three in the Statehouse and one in the State Senate — were decided by five points or fewer, according to The Times’s analysis….

In Georgia, just five of the 236 state legislative seats, or 2 percent, were decided by five points or fewer, and more than half of the races were uncontested. In Florida, 10 of the 160 state legislative races were within a five-point margin.

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