January 13, 2020: Two years ago, in the midterm elections, most of the attention was focused on races for the U.S.Senate and House of Representatives. However, there were also 6,073 state legislative elections held that year. Most were not all that competitive and the average margin of victory was 26 percentage points.^[1]

But there were a few significant exceptions where every vote really mattered. Two elections were decided by just a single vote: Alaska House of Representatives District 1 and Kentucky House of Representatives District 13.

Another 14 races were won by 10 votes or fewer. On top of that were another 72 races where the leading candidates were separated by less than half a percentage point.^[1]

Looking ahead to the 2020 elections, there will be nearly 5,000 state legislative seats up for election.

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Each weekday, Scott Rasmussen’s Number of the Day explores interesting and newsworthy topics at the intersection of culture, politics, and technology. Columns published on Ballotpedia reflect the views of the author.

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