Incumbent-Quality Advantage and Counterfactual Electoral Stagnation in the US Senate
| Published date | 01 February 2015 |
| Author | Paul Redmond,Tuvana Pastine,Ivan Pastine |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9256.12057 |
| Date | 01 February 2015 |
| Subject Matter | Research Article |
Research Article
Incumbent-Quality Advantage and
Counterfactual Electoral Stagnation in the
US Senate
Ivan Pastine
University College Dublin
Tuvana Pastine
National University of Ireland Maynooth
Paul Redmond
Dublin Institute of Technology and National University of Ireland Maynooth
This article examines the extent to which electoral selection based on candidate quality alone can account for
the pattern of re-election rates in the US Senate. In the absence of officeholder benefits, electoral selection is
simulated using observed dropout rates from 1946 to 2010. This provides a benchmark for the re-election rate
that would be generated by incumbent quality advantage alone. The simulation delivers a re-election rate that
is almost identical to the observed rate prior to 1980, at around 78 per cent. In the later subsample,
quality-based selection generates a re-election rate that is seven percentage points lower than observed. The
divergence in the re-election rates in the later subsample is consistent with the findings of vote margin studies
that indicate rising incumbency advantage due to officeholder benefits. In addition, it is found here that the
quality-based selection first-term re-election rate is significantly lower than the observed first-term re-election
rate. This result supports sophomore surge vote margin studies of officeholder benefits.
Keywords: congressional elections; re-election rate; incumbency advantage; electoral selection
Introduction
Incumbents in the US Congress are typically re-elected.1In an environment with significant
officeholder benefits, incumbents who would otherwise be defeated may be able to retain
their seats. High re-election rates are therefore often taken as prima facie evidence of a poorly
functioning political system where lesser quality incumbents are not replaced. However, the
literature on congressional races does not provide a yardstick to gauge what constitutes an
overly high re-election rate. Even in the absence of officeholder benefits, it is likely that an
incumbent would be re-elected since he or she must be of a relatively high quality given their
previous electoral success. Incumbents who have served many terms have defeated multiple
opponents and so are likely to be of very high quality. Hence their re-election rates are likely
to be very high. In this article we examine the extent to which electoral selection based on
candidate quality alone can account for the pattern of re-election rates in the US Senate. The
counterfactual setup may provide a simple benchmark for the re-election rate in the absence
of officeholder benefits.
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POLITICS: 2015 VOL 35(1), 32–45
doi: 10.1111/1467-9256.12057
© 2014 The Authors. Politics © 2014 Political Studies Association
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