The 2020 downballot primary season starts off with a bang on March 3 as Alabama, Arkansas, California, North Carolina, and Texas all hold their nominating contests, kicking off a long and exciting period that runs all the way through September. With so many races in so many states, it can be tough to keep tabs on which primaries matter, which is why Daily Kos Elections has published our new 2020 Primaries to Watch tracker. You'll also want to bookmark our handy calendar of primary dates and candidate filing deadlines.
Our tracker will be regularly updated throughout the year as new races come onto the radar. For instance, we added the GOP primary for North Carolina’s 11th Congress District in late December when GOP Rep. Mark Meadows unexpectedly announced his retirement and set off an open-seat rumble. We may also add contests if some otherwise unheralded candidates turn out to be credible contenders. Conversely, we might remove some races as candidates drop out, if it becomes clear that one contender is the overwhelming favorite to win the nomination, or if a race simply looks like a dud.
There's still always a judgment call about which races to include or exclude. We don't want to list primaries in districts where one party has no realistic chance of winning the general election. (You won't see a GOP primary for NY-15, a district Hillary Clinton won 94-5, for instance.) We do lean towards inclusion, though, so we do catalog some races where we think the party with a contested primary will have a tough, but not impossible, task winning the general election. Examples include the Democratic primary for Texas’ open 17th District and the Republican battle to take on Democratic Rep. Jennifer Wexton in Virginia’s 10th.
In addition, there are probably some races lurking out there right now that do have contested primaries but don't look like they'll host interesting general elections. Some of them will, however, develop into competitive contests, especially in an election year like this one, so we're always on alert for races like this. And on occasion (though hopefully rarely!), it's even possible we'll miss a race, since there will always be a handful of little-known candidates in seemingly uncompetitive primaries who pull off surprising victories.
For all these reasons, we'll be continually revising our list as needed. As always, we welcome reader input on our tracker, which we hope you'll bookmark and put to good use in this busy election cycle.
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