Electoral competition between candidates and parties is a necessary condition for democracy. This workshop will assemble papers that examine the state of competition in U.S. elections. The papers will address a variety of broad yet basic questions that have important implications for our understanding of elections, including how to measure a political candidate, why the attributes of competitors vary over time, and how changes in competition matter for the quality of American democracy. Although the papers will focus on the U.S., the themes are relevant across contexts in which competition among candidates and parties is central to political legitimacy.