Democratic Candidate Recruitment Is Booming, Even in Republican Districts

Democrats say a recruitment effort to find candidates in Republican strongholds has paid off — even in often-overlooked races down the ballot.

In a handful of key states this year, Democrats are running an uncommonly broad field of state legislative candidates, challenging Republicans in races that had often gone unopposed in recent elections. The data, compiled by the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, show that in states like Texas and North Carolina, the party has recruited a candidate to run in every state House and Senate district up for election this year. Other states have more Democratic candidates running than any time in recent history.

“There’s no question that state Democrats are breaking recruitment records across the country,” Heather Williams, DLCC president, said in an interview. “We’re hitting these markers in all of these important states.”

The success in recruiting at the state legislative level is another force behind the wave of Democratic candidates this election, many of them motivated by an animus toward President Donald Trump.

It’s also the product of a party that — eyeing the president’s low approval ratings and mindful that out-of-power parties traditionally do well in midterm elections — says it’s made a conscious effort to recruit candidates in places it previously hadn’t, eager to take maximum advantage of a favorable political climate should the fall’s election go its way.

Democrats have taken a similar approach in U.S. House, Senate and gubernatorial races, challenging in places like rural North Carolina, deep red Mississippi or heavily conservative Oklahoma.

“The work we’ve been able to do in states is demonstrating that it’s not just in Democratic districts or even toss-up districts that we should be able to run candidates,” Williams said. “It’s in every corner of the country.”

Even candidates recruited by the party establishment don’t always run serious campaigns, of course, much less win on Election Day. And many of them running in Republican-heavy districts aren’t guaranteed to receive substantial support from a party with limited resources, leaving them vulnerable to blow-out defeats even in a strong year for Democrats.

But the increase in the number of candidates running is stark. Texas Democrats fielded candidates in only 73% of state House seats during the last midterm election, in 2022, according to the DLCC. In North Carolina, only 76% of General Assembly races had a Democratic candidate that year.

In South Carolina, the share of state House candidates running from 2022 to 2026 jumped from 56% to 100%. In Georgia’s state House, the share increased from 71% to 88%. States like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maine saw similar spikes.

And in Indiana, Democrats went from contesting 68 of the 100 state House seats in 2022 to 90 of the 100 this year. In state Senate races, they went from 68% to 100%.

“It’s the highest number that we’ve had in a long time,” said Indiana Democratic state Rep. Phil GiaQuinta, the state House’s minority leader.

GiaQuinta said he thought concern about Trump’s presidency had helped motivate some Democratic candidates to run, some of them aware that the party has overperformed in a number of special state legislative elections across the country.

Victory isn’t guaranteed, he said, but the party is eager to try to take advantage of what it hopes is a strong political environment.

“I tell everyone, if you’re in a district with even just 30 or 35% Democrats, work hard, knock on as many doors as you can and talk about the issues. You never know what may happen.”