An increasing number of seats in state legislatures across the country are going uncontested by both Republicans or Democrats, and one political scientist warned a lack of competition hurts democracy.

Across the country, between 30% and 50% of state legislature seats were uncontested by one of the two major parties in the past three elections.

Charles Hunt, associate professor of political science at Boise State University, said gerrymandering is not the main culprit, though it is a factor. He explained a common strategy when gerrymandering is to spread out voters of a certain party to make a seat safe without overdoing it.

Hunt pointed to a trend over the last 50 years called partisan sorting, where people of like-minded politics have moved closer to one another.

"That is what I think is probably most responsible for the difficulty in drawing districts that are truly competitive, including at the state legislative level," Hunt stressed. "One of the reasons that you're seeing more uncontested races is that there are just fewer competitive seats between the parties than there used to be."

In 2022, more than half of all races for the Maryland House of Delegates and Senate went uncontested. Democrats ran unopposed in more than a third of seats.

Hunt added it takes a lot of resources to run a campaign, especially if there is little to no chance of winning, and uncompetitive seats struggle to recruit candidates from the minority party.

"You often have to quit your job or take a leave of absence. It's tough on your family," Hunt observed. "You're not going to do that if you stand no chance of winning, usually. It's not difficult to see why well-qualified candidates decide not to run for these seats: the power of partisanship, that voters are really attached to their parties."

Maryland still does better at fielding candidates than other states. In 2024, Wyoming, Massachusetts and Oklahoma saw more than 65% of state legislature races uncontested, according to BallotReady.