scholarly journals Constituency Service and Incumbency Advantage

1991 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary King
Keyword(s):  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Congressional Elections ◽  
State Legislators ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
Incumbency Advantage ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
Electoral Defeat ◽  
State Legislative Elections ◽  
State Legislative

Numerous scholars have documented a dramatic increase in incumbency advantage in US congressional elections and also state legislative elections over the past four decades. For example, Gelman and King show that incumbents in the House of Representatives now receive about twelve extra percentage points solely as a result of holding congressional office during the campaign; the comparable figure for most of the first half of this century was only 2 per cent. This advantage of incumbency has made members of the US House and many state legislators nearly invulnerable to electoral defeat.

Non-emergency exits : voluntary retirements from legislatures

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Theodore J. Masthay
Keyword(s):  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Career Decisions ◽  
Institutional Arrangement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Congressional Elections ◽  
Incumbency Advantage ◽  
Data Set ◽  
University Of Missouri ◽  
Electoral Defeat ◽  
The University

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Retirement is the main source of legislative turnover in the United States Congress. The incumbency advantage in congressional elections is so strong as to allow most members to decide to time their departure to align with their personal preferences. Much of the scholarly work on legislative retirements focuses on the House of Representatives. I identify this as a gap and extend this field of study to the Senate. I conclude that retirement decisions in the Senate do not mirror those in the House. Republicans retire at higher rates in the House of Representatives than their Democratic counterparts. There are several theories as to why this is the case, but the trend is an enduring one. Using a data set including every senator elected since the ratification of the 17th Amendment, which mandated their direct election, I compare Senate retirement patterns to those in the House. I find that the partisan effect seen in the House is essentially non-existent in the upper chamber. Instead, senators treat their time there as the natural end to their political career, usually eschewing the opportunity to seek higher office. However, this trend is relatively new, considering that before the middle of the 20th century electoral defeat was the most common way for senators to leave office. Finally, I extend my retirement analysis cross-institutionally to the European Parliament to further highlight the role of institutional arrangement on the career decisions of legislators.

The Incumbency Advantage in the US Congress: A Roller-Coaster Relationship

Politics ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 220-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Stockemer ◽  
Rodrigo Praino
Keyword(s):  
House Of Representatives ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Roller Coaster ◽  
Incumbency Advantage ◽  
Constant Increase ◽  
Us Congress ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
The 1960S

While every student in American politics knows that the incumbency advantage grew post-1965, it is less clear as to whether or not this growth has been sustainable throughout the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. Focusing on the last three decades, we show that the electoral margins of sitting members of the House of Representatives have not linearly grown over the past 60 years. On the contrary, the constant increase in incumbents' vote shares between the 1960s and 1980s could not be sustained in the 1990s. In fact, in the 1990s, the incumbency advantage dropped sharply to levels experienced in the 1960s. In recent years, the electoral margin of sitting House members seems to have grown again to levels comparable to those in the 1970s.

Presidential Coattails and Midterm Losses in State Legislative Elections

1986 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. Campbell
Keyword(s):  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
The State ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
Aggregate State ◽  
Midterm Elections ◽  
State Legislative Elections ◽  
State Legislative ◽  
The U.S

The president's party consistently loses partisan control of state legislatures in midterm elections, a pattern similar to the loss of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in midterms. This study examines presidential coattails as a possible explanation of these losses. Aggregate state legislative election outcomes between 1944 and 1984 in 41 states are examined. The analysis indicates that the president's party gains seats in presidential elections in proportion to the presidential vote in a state, and subsequently loses seats in midterm elections also in proportion to the prior presidential vote in the state. The presidential coattail and the midterm repercussion effects are evident even when gubernatorial coattail effects are introduced, but are fairly modest in states lacking competitive parties.

National Forces in State Legislative Elections

2016 ◽  
Vol 667 (1) ◽  
pp. 207-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
State Legislature ◽  
State Legislators ◽  
Presidential Approval ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
White House ◽  
State Legislative Elections ◽  
The Impact ◽  
State Legislative

The race for the White House is at the top of the ticket, but voters will also choose more than 5,000 state legislators in November 2016. While voters elect and hold the president responsible for one job and state legislators for another, the outcomes of their elections are remarkably related. In analyses of elite and voter behavior in state legislative elections, I show that legislators affiliated with the president’s party—especially during unpopular presidencies—are the most likely to be challenged, and compared with individual assessments of the state legislature, changes in presidential approval have at least three times the impact on voters’ decision-making in state legislative elections. Thus, while state legislatures wield considerable policymaking power, legislators’ electoral fates appear to be largely out of their control.

Do Campaign Finance Reforms Insulate Incumbents from Competition? New Evidence from State Legislative Elections

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 460-464
Author(s):  
Jordan Butcher ◽  
Jeffrey Milyo
Keyword(s):  
Campaign Finance ◽  
State Legislators ◽  
Public Financing ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Independent Expenditures ◽  
State Legislative Elections ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
State Legislative ◽  
Over Time

Variations in state campaign finance regulations across states and over time provide an opportunity to test the effects of reforms on the electoral success of incumbent state legislators. We use the most recent state legislative election returns dataset to test whether state campaign finance reforms help or hinder incumbents. Our analysis of nearly 66,000 contests in 33 years reveals that campaign contribution limits and partial public financing have little impact on incumbent reelection prospects. However, full public financing and prohibitions on corporate independent expenditures significantly increase the probability of incumbent reelection.

scholarly journals The Influence of Turnout and Constituency Diversity on Voting in Southern State House Races in the 1990s

2002 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 141-166
Author(s):  
Joseph A. Aistrup
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
Congressional Elections ◽  
The Political ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
Southern State ◽  
The Subject ◽  
State Legislative Elections ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
State Legislative

This research focuses on assessing the impact of participation on voting in southern state legislative elections in the 1990s. While turnout is the subject of much study as a dependent variable (Hill and Leighley 1999; Bullock, Gaddie, and Kuzenski 1995; Weber 2000, 233-246; Gaddie and Bullock 1997; Davidson 1994; Hogan 1999), its relationship to southern state legislative outcomes has not been extensively studied. I find that higher levels of turnout lead to increased votes for the Republicans. While this was the case only in South Carolina in the early 1990s, by the late 1990s, this pattern was consistent across five of the ten states under study. These findings suggest that the relationship between participation and voting in state legislative elections in the South may be becoming similar to congressional elections (Campbell 1996). This study also focuses on the influences of constituency diversity on voting outcomes at the state house level. In recent years, most of the discussion regarding the influences of constituency characteristics has been centered around assessing the impact of creating numerous majority-minority districts during the 1990s redistricting (see Lublin and Voss 2000). This study moves beyond this debate to assess the influence of constituency diversity on aggregate voting outcomes, beyond majority-minority districts. Using a measure of constituency diversity (based on the work of William Koetzle (1998)), which measures the “political diversity” of districts, the findings support the contention that constituency diversity has a significant influence in structuring aggregate voting outcomes.

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