In 2023, Missouri started letting voters choose a party on the voter registration forms. The voter’s choice has no effect on how that voter is treated. Missouri continues to be an open primary state, in which any voter is free to choose any party’s primary ballot. Therefore, only 4% of voters have indicated a choice so far.

Missouri tallies registration for parties that have polled 2% of the vote at one of the two preceding elections for any statewide race. Therefore, currently there is a tally only for the Republican, Democratic and Libertarian Parties. Thanks to Jeff Coleman for this information.

The American Solidarity Party has been putting most of its resources into presidential campaigns, for the last three presidential elections. To the extent that it runs for other offices, they are usually offices like Congress and Governor.

But in April 2025, the party is running a full slate of candidates for the Lombard, Illinois library board. The elections are non-partisan and are held April 1. Lombard is in DuPage County, a suburban county near Chicago.

LEAST VOTER CHOICE FOR U.S. HOUSE SINCE 1990
AND LEAST CHOICE FOR LEGISLATIVE RACES SINCE AT LEAST 1986

At the November 5, 2024 election, voters nationwide will see fewer candidates for U.S. House on their ballots than at any time since 1990.

The situation is even worse for state legislative races.  There are fewer candidates for legislature on the ballot than at any time since 1986, and possibly even before that.  Data on the number of legislative candidates for years before 1988 is not readily available.

The reason for fewer candidates for both types of office is that there are fewer minor party and independent candidates.  The number of Democratic and Republican candidates this year is fairly ordinary.  For U.S. House, this year there are 419 seats with a Republican, and 416 seats with a Democrat.  There are 436 seats, counting Delegate from the District of Columbia.   Each of the major parties always contests at least 380 seats.

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