Democratic hold Democratic gain Republican hold No election
The 2020 United States secretary of state elections were held on November 3, 2020, to elect the secretaries of state in seven states. These elections took place concurrently with several other federal, state, and local elections.
The previous elections for this group of states took place in 2016. The secretary of state of Vermont serves two-year terms and was last elected in 2018.
Going into the election, there were 26 Republican secretaries of state and 21 Democratic secretaries of state. 5 Republican secretaries of state were up for election, of whom Corey StapletonofMontana and Bev ClarnoofOregon are retiring. 2 Democratic secretaries of state were up for election, both seeking re-election.
Going into these elections, this class of secretaries of state is made up of 5 Republicans and 2 Democrats. Republicans were defending two states won by Hillary Clintonin2016 (Oregon and Washington), while Democrats are defending one state won by Donald Trumpin2016 (North Carolina).
Several sites and individuals published predictions of competitive seats. These predictions looked at factors such as the strength of the incumbent (if the incumbent is running for re-election), the strength of the candidates, and the partisan leanings of the state (reflected in part by the state's Cook Partisan Voting Index rating). The predictions assigned ratings to each seat, with the rating indicating the predicted advantage that a party has in winning that seat.
Most election predictors use:
"tossup": no advantage
"tilt" (used by some predictors): advantage that is not quite as strong as "lean"
"lean": slight advantage
"likely": significant, but surmountable, advantage
"safe" or "solid" : near-certain chance of victory
Incumbent secretary of state Jay Ashcroft ran and won re-election to a second term after he defeated Democratic nominee Yinka Faleti with 60.6% of the vote.
Incumbent Democrat Elaine Marshall won re-election to a seventh term after she defeated Republican nominee businessman E.C. Sykes with 51.2% of the vote.
Incumbent Republican secretary of state Kim Wyman won re-election to a second term after she defeated Democratic nominee Gael Tarleton with 53.6% of the vote.
Incumbent Republican secretary of state Mac Warner won re-election to a second term after he defeated former secretary of state Natalie Tennant with 53.3% of the vote.
