2020 United States House of Representatives election

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Resignations by constituency, as of October 25, 2019 (gray: vacancy; bold red: Republican incumbent does not stand for re-election; bold blue: Democratic incumbent does not stand for re-election)

The election for the United States House of Representatives is due to take place on November 3, 2020 . All 435 members of the US House of Representatives will be elected that day . The elections coincide with the 2020 US Senate and 2020 presidential elections , in which US President Donald Trump is standing for re-election. This is the last regular election using the current constituencies (based on the 2010 census).

The Democrats hold since the election to the United States House of Representatives in 2018 after eight years in the minority again, the majority in the House. They currently hold 233 MPs, while the Republicans have 197 seats. There is also the non-party Justin Amash , who left the Republican Party in July 2019 after disagreements with President Trump.

Election process and date

The United States is divided into 435 congressional electoral districts, each supposed to have roughly the same number of residents (an average of 710,767 according to the 2010 census ). In contrast to the other Congress Chamber , the Senate of the United States , the number of seats is different for each state and ranges from one (in 7 states) to 53 in California. The size of the constituencies ranges from 27 km² (part of New York City ) to to 1,481,354 km² ( Alaska at-large). In 47 states, mandates are awarded for each congressional electoral district based on a relative majority vote . An absolute majority is required in two states (Louisiana and Georgia) . In Maine, people have been voting with instant run-off voting since 2018 .

There are individual applicants, no party lists, to choose from, usually the most promising candidates from the two large parties, the Republicans and Democrats , but also independents and applicants from smaller parties (such as the Libertarian , the Green Party and the Constitution Party ), who are usually named apply without a chance. The selection of applicants within the party takes place by means of area codes , in which either only those registered for the party (closed area code) or all eligible voters in the congress electoral district (open area code) are allowed to vote. In Washington and California, non-partisan primaries are held in which the two first-placed candidates qualify for the main election regardless of an absolute majority.

The election for all mandates takes place every two years on United States General Election Day , the Tuesday after the first Monday of November, in 2020 on November 3rd.

Starting position

Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi
Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy

The Republicans have had a majority in the House of Representatives since the 2010 election and were last able to defend it in 2016 when they received votes of 49.1 percent to 48 percent for the Democrats, losing six seats to them, but with 241 seats a majority of 23 seats retained over the absolute majority (218 out of 435 total seats). In 2018 that majority was lost to the Democrats when they won 235 seats, while the GOP only had 199 MPs. As a result, the Speaker of the House of Representatives has since been provided by the Democrats. Nancy Pelosi ( California -8) has been the Speaker of the House of Representatives since January 3, 2019 . The group leader (English "Minority Leader") of the Republicans is Kevin McCarthy (California-23).

So far (as of October 25, 2019) seven members of the Democratic Party have announced that they will no longer apply for re-election.

In the ranks of the Republicans, 19 incumbents announced that they would not run for re-election.

Structural conditions

Structurally, the Republicans have an advantage due to gerrymandering and the unequal distribution of the electorate (disproportionately high in rural districts of the “red” states ); they won the generic House of Representatives constituency in 2016 by 3.4 percent, while Trump lost the popular vote at the same time, 2.1 percent behind. In the last election in 2018, the Democrats won the generic House of Representatives seat with 4.49 percent.

Surveys and Forecasts

The Center for Politics and the Cook Political Report (see Cook Partisan Voting Index ) provide regularly updated forecasts for contested congressional electoral districts.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Donna Cassata closeDonna CassataBioBio: Rep. Justin Amash, lone GOP critic of Trump, leaves Republican Party. Retrieved October 25, 2019 .
  2. ^ A b Russell Berman: The 2020 Congressional-Retirement Tracker. October 21, 2019, Retrieved October 25, 2019 (American English).
  3. ^ Greg Walden to retire in latest sign of GOP doubts about retaking House. Retrieved October 30, 2019 .
  4. ^ David Wasserman, The Congressional Map Has A Record-Setting Bias Against Democrats. In: FiveThirtyEight , August 7, 2017.
  5. ^ Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball "2020 House. Retrieved October 25, 2019 .
  6. ↑ 2020 House Race ratings. Retrieved October 25, 2019 .