incumbents in their reelection efforts, wining reelection 90% of time to the incumbent senators’ 75% reelection rate. The reason for senators being defeated more often is that it is a bigger prize to be won than a house race. As a result there are better challenges due to the fact that the election is state wide allowing for more to run than in a given house district that only represents 480,000 people. What explains this advantage is fourfold; the four things reasonable for the high reelection rate of incumbents is that they discourage quality challengers, they have name recognition, they serve there districts though constituent services, earmarks, and pork and lastly, they are helped through partisan gerrymandering of district lines for the house. First in regard to the incumbent being able to discourage quality challengers, a quality challenger is defined as anyone who has run for public office before and won. Two factors allow for incumbents to discourage quality challengers. The first is cost; it costs about $1 million to be competitive in a house face and $30 million in a senate race. The second is the fact that politicians are linked and they have to vacate there current office to run for a higher office, politicians are on a strategic ladder, if you hope off to soon and lose you may not be able to get back on. In light of these challengers most quality challengers wait for an open seat to run for. The second element working to tilt the advantage towards the incumbent is name recognition. This recognition can be split into two measures; recall following two terms in the senate an incumbent senator has 90% name recognition. After 6 years in the House, a house incumbent has 75% name recognition. Third, Congressman spend lots of time on what is called constituents services. Constituent services are non partisan in nature. Examples are John McCain or Harry Mitchell helping Veterans with a getting there benefits. By engaging in this symbolic work on behalf of there constituents they are building favorable feelings and increasing there name recognition. Lastly, Partisan Redistricting has helped to create house districts that have large concentration of one party afflation, allowing for wider victory margins and few quality challengers. For example in Arizona District 4, Ed pastor wins reelection by 75% every time, this is due to the make up of his district electorate. The Republicans part has been helped most by this partisan Gerrymandering.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Is There an Advantage of Incumbency in Congressional Elections and if so what Explains why it is Taking Pace?
There has been a strong advantage for incumbents for the last 100 years and margin of victory has been increasing since the 1960’s . This widening of the margin of victory is known as the vanishing margins. House incumbents perform slightly better than senate
incumbents in their reelection efforts, wining reelection 90% of time to the incumbent senators’ 75% reelection rate. The reason for senators being defeated more often is that it is a bigger prize to be won than a house race. As a result there are better challenges due to the fact that the election is state wide allowing for more to run than in a given house district that only represents 480,000 people. What explains this advantage is fourfold; the four things reasonable for the high reelection rate of incumbents is that they discourage quality challengers, they have name recognition, they serve there districts though constituent services, earmarks, and pork and lastly, they are helped through partisan gerrymandering of district lines for the house. First in regard to the incumbent being able to discourage quality challengers, a quality challenger is defined as anyone who has run for public office before and won. Two factors allow for incumbents to discourage quality challengers. The first is cost; it costs about $1 million to be competitive in a house face and $30 million in a senate race. The second is the fact that politicians are linked and they have to vacate there current office to run for a higher office, politicians are on a strategic ladder, if you hope off to soon and lose you may not be able to get back on. In light of these challengers most quality challengers wait for an open seat to run for. The second element working to tilt the advantage towards the incumbent is name recognition. This recognition can be split into two measures; recall following two terms in the senate an incumbent senator has 90% name recognition. After 6 years in the House, a house incumbent has 75% name recognition. Third, Congressman spend lots of time on what is called constituents services. Constituent services are non partisan in nature. Examples are John McCain or Harry Mitchell helping Veterans with a getting there benefits. By engaging in this symbolic work on behalf of there constituents they are building favorable feelings and increasing there name recognition. Lastly, Partisan Redistricting has helped to create house districts that have large concentration of one party afflation, allowing for wider victory margins and few quality challengers. For example in Arizona District 4, Ed pastor wins reelection by 75% every time, this is due to the make up of his district electorate. The Republicans part has been helped most by this partisan Gerrymandering.
incumbents in their reelection efforts, wining reelection 90% of time to the incumbent senators’ 75% reelection rate. The reason for senators being defeated more often is that it is a bigger prize to be won than a house race. As a result there are better challenges due to the fact that the election is state wide allowing for more to run than in a given house district that only represents 480,000 people. What explains this advantage is fourfold; the four things reasonable for the high reelection rate of incumbents is that they discourage quality challengers, they have name recognition, they serve there districts though constituent services, earmarks, and pork and lastly, they are helped through partisan gerrymandering of district lines for the house. First in regard to the incumbent being able to discourage quality challengers, a quality challenger is defined as anyone who has run for public office before and won. Two factors allow for incumbents to discourage quality challengers. The first is cost; it costs about $1 million to be competitive in a house face and $30 million in a senate race. The second is the fact that politicians are linked and they have to vacate there current office to run for a higher office, politicians are on a strategic ladder, if you hope off to soon and lose you may not be able to get back on. In light of these challengers most quality challengers wait for an open seat to run for. The second element working to tilt the advantage towards the incumbent is name recognition. This recognition can be split into two measures; recall following two terms in the senate an incumbent senator has 90% name recognition. After 6 years in the House, a house incumbent has 75% name recognition. Third, Congressman spend lots of time on what is called constituents services. Constituent services are non partisan in nature. Examples are John McCain or Harry Mitchell helping Veterans with a getting there benefits. By engaging in this symbolic work on behalf of there constituents they are building favorable feelings and increasing there name recognition. Lastly, Partisan Redistricting has helped to create house districts that have large concentration of one party afflation, allowing for wider victory margins and few quality challengers. For example in Arizona District 4, Ed pastor wins reelection by 75% every time, this is due to the make up of his district electorate. The Republicans part has been helped most by this partisan Gerrymandering.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment