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Constituency Service and Incumbency Advantage

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  • King, Gary

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • King, Gary, 1991. "Constituency Service and Incumbency Advantage," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(1), pages 119-128, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:cup:bjposi:v:21:y:1991:i:01:p:119-128_00
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    Cited by:

    1. Leandro De Magalhaes & Dominik Hangartner & Salomo Hirvonen & Jaakko Meriläinen & Nelson A. Ruiz, 2020. "How Much Should We Trust Regression Discontinuity Design Estimates? Evidence from Experimental Benchmarks of the Incumbency Advantage," Discussion Papers 135, Aboa Centre for Economics.
    2. Benjamin Highton, 2011. "The influence of strategic retirement on the incumbency advantage in US House elections," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 23(4), pages 431-447, October.
    3. Shigeo Hirano & James M. Snyder, Jr., 2009. "Using Multimember District Elections to Estimate the Sources of the Incumbency Advantage," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(2), pages 292-306, April.
    4. Mauricio Morales & Fabián Belmar, 2022. "Clientelism, Turnout and Incumbents’ Performance in Chilean Local Government Elections," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-19, August.
    5. David Niven & Benjamin Plener Cover & Michael Solimine, 2021. "Are Individuals Harmed by Gerrymandering? Examining Access to Congressional District Offices," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 102(1), pages 29-46, January.

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