Jon Prevo is tracking candidate filings for Decision Desk HQ in the run up to 2020. He took a quick glance at the data for us this week.
In order to run for re-election, Congressional incumbents must file a few forms with the Federal Election Commission. The form filings this map shows are sitting incumbents of the 116th Congress as of March 6th who have filed FEC F2 forms. Lighter color seats indicate that the current incumbent has announced that they will not be running for re-election.
Now these forms don’t necessarily mean that the incumbent will run again, but they do allow the incumbent to fund-raise. For instance, Rep. Gabbard (D, HI-02) has filed for House re-election despite being a Presidential candidate and Rep. Perlmutter (D, CO-07) has filed for House re-election but is currently floating a run for Cory Gardner’s seat in the Senate.
Lots of safe-seat/safe-ish seat Representatives often file earlier so they can raise money from donors that gets sent to their party’s central committee and/or is dispersed to more vulnerable party incumbents/ challengers in competitive seats.