Democrats have more House candidates on ballot than any party in U.S. history

[GeorgiaModerate]

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[The Mikado]

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Um...Dems do not have a candidate in NC-03, right?

[GeorgiaModerate]

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Um...Dems do not have a candidate in NC-03, right?

Hmm....you're right, ballot-access.org is wrong.

[nerd73]

Still, running candidates in 432/435 districts is unheard of for a party.

[CookieDamage]

Still, running candidates in 432/435 districts is unheard of for a party.

[Senator Incitatus]

What about as a percentage of seats?

[Kyle Rittenhouse is a Political Prisoner]

It might very well be 435/435 in 2020.

[Former President tack50]

Still 3 less than what they should have. Same goes for Republicans. Why don't they run candidates in all 435 districts?

How expensive can it be to just pay the filing fees for all districts? They don't have to give candidates in safe districts any money, just having them on the ballot is better than nothing.

Looking at other countries that use single member districts:

In the UK (excluding the speaker and Northern Ireland), Labour and the Conservatives ran in all seats, and the Lib Dems in all but 2.

In Canada the Liberals, the Conservatives and the NDP ran in all 338 seats. Even the Greens managed to run in all but 2 seats!

So why don't the Democrats and Republicans put a candidate in all 435 districts? Even in the safest of safe seats there's still probably at least 1 person who would be ok with their name being in the ballot.

The only explanation I could see is if an independent is running as the "de facto" Democrat/Republican in that seat, so adding a "real" democrat/republican would just split the vote. But that doesn't seem to be happening anywhere other than Vermont and Maine for the Senate (and in Maine there's a "real democrat" in the ballot anyways) and nowhere for the House.

[Adam Griffin]

Still 3 less than what they should have. Same goes for Republicans. Why don't they run candidates in all 435 districts?

How expensive can it be to just pay the filing fees for all districts? They don't have to give candidates in safe districts any money, just having them on the ballot is better than nothing.

$2.3 million. Presumably (given the relevant aspects of American culture and politics compared to other countries), it's much more expensive to run for federal office here than most other places.

Furthermore, that figure is assuming one candidate per district: in plenty of districts, there are going to be primaries, and since the qualifying fee is paid at qualifying (i.e. before the primary), the party would be tasked with either paying the fees are all candidates in each district (which can add several million dollars to that initial total real fast) or merely offer a reimbursement to whoever wins the primary (which might not be as an effective of a carrot as you might think - districts where candidates aren't running by default are districts where raising $5k for paperwork alone may not be feasible for somebody who is likely a political neophyte with no common sense).

[DPKdebator]

Still 3 less than what they should have. Same goes for Republicans. Why don't they run candidates in all 435 districts?

How expensive can it be to just pay the filing fees for all districts? They don't have to give candidates in safe districts any money, just having them on the ballot is better than nothing.

$2.3 million. Presumably (given the relevant aspects of American culture and politics compared to other countries), it's much more expensive to run for federal office here than most other places.

Furthermore, that figure is assuming one candidate per district: in plenty of districts, there are going to be primaries, and since the qualifying fee is paid at qualifying (i.e. before the primary), the party would be tasked with either paying the fees are all candidates in each district (which can add several million dollars to that initial total real fast) or merely offer a reimbursement to whoever wins the primary (which might not be as an effective of a carrot as you might think - districts where candidates aren't running by default are districts where raising $5k for paperwork alone may not be feasible for somebody who is likely a political neophyte with no common sense).

In a lot of solidly Democratic and Republican districts, it probably boils down to whether or not there's someone actually interested in running. My rep (Stephen Lynch) is unopposed in the GE this year, and in 2016 he won 72-28 against a guy named William Burke (who I had to look up to get his name).

[Orser67]

It means nothing if they don't take back the House, but still, nice job Dems