A Look Back at 2025 State Primary Election Competitiveness

• The 2025 state primary elections had the lowest share of open seats since 2011.
• Contested primaries were below historical averages at 17.6% in 2025.
• Three Democratic incumbents were defeated in New Jersey’s legislative primaries.
• No incumbents lost in state executive primary elections this year.
• 172 state legislative incumbents ran for re-election in New Jersey and Virginia.

Competitiveness and Seat Contests in 2025 Primaries

A Brief Overview of the 2025 State Primaries’ Development In the recent state primary elections of 2025, there were noticeably fewer open seats compared to previous years. Specifically, only 5.9% of the seats were open, marking the lowest proportion since 2011. Compiling data from Ballotpedia, this article focuses on competitiveness and incumbency insights from three significant states: New Jersey, Virginia, and Wisconsin, known for their annual legislative activities as part of the odd-year election cycle.

Incumbency Challenges in State Legislative Elections

A Snapshot of Contested Primaries and Uncontested Races Despite the potential for lively competition, the contested primary percentage stood at 17.6%, notably under the historical average of 19.7%. Additionally, 22.4% of incumbents faced challengers, which is slightly above the average of 21.8% observed in the last seven election cycles. In this election cycle, New Jersey hosted primaries for both governor and the General Assembly, while Virginia ran contests for multiple statewide offices including governor and lieutenant governor. Strikingly, the results showed no incumbents losing their positions in state executive primary elections, although three incumbents from the state legislative races fell short, all from New Jersey, indicating a rather static landscape for incumbents this year.

A Look at Historic Trends in Incumbent Retention

Recent Trends in Incumbent Defeats Reflecting on incumbency dynamics reveals that New Jersey’s legislative primaries were particularly tough for Democratic incumbents, with three of them not securing their re-election. This accounts for just 1.7% of all incumbents in the race, but represents a higher 7.9% when examining only those in contested primaries. Among the 172 incumbents who ran across New Jersey and Virginia, this year’s statistic marks the third lowest in terms of incumbents defeated during odd-year cycles since 2011, trailing behind the remarkable zero defeats in 2017 and two in 2013, painting a picture of cautious re-election campaigns rather than aggressive battles for legislative control.

The 2025 state primary elections demonstrated marked stability in incumbency, with fewer open seats and a low percentage of contested primaries. Notably, while certain incumbents faced challenges, the overall rate of defeats remained low, suggesting a level of predictability in the political landscape. New Jersey’s unique situation, where incumbents battled but not many lost, encapsulates the general theme of limited electoral turnover this year.