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Disentangling the Personal and Partisan Incumbency Advantages: Evidence from Close Elections and Term Limits

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  • Fowler, Anthony
  • Hall, Andrew B.

Abstract

Although the scholarly literature on incumbency advantages focuses on personal advantages, the partisan incumbency advantage - the electoral benefit accruing to non-incumbent candidates by virtue of being from the incumbent party - is also an important electoral factor. Understanding this phenomenon is important for evaluating the role of parties vs. individuals in U.S. elections and the incentives of incumbents and their parties in the legislature, among other things. In this paper, we define the partisan incumbency advantage, explain its possible role in elections, and show how it confounds previous estimates of the personal incumbency advantage. We then exploit close elections in conjunction with term limits in U.S. state legislatures to separately estimate the personal and partisan incumbency advantages. The personal advantage is perhaps larger than previously thought, and the partisan advantage is indistinguishable from zero and possibly negative.

Suggested Citation

  • Fowler, Anthony & Hall, Andrew B., 2014. "Disentangling the Personal and Partisan Incumbency Advantages: Evidence from Close Elections and Term Limits," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 9(4), pages 501-531, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:now:jlqjps:100.00014013
    DOI: 10.1561/100.00014013
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    Cited by:

    1. Leandro De Magalhães & Salomo Hirvonen, 2015. "Multi-Office Incumbency Advantage: Political Careers in Brazil," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 15/662, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
    2. Jeremy Bowles & Benjamin Marx, 2022. "Turnover and Accountability in Africa's Parliaments," Working Papers hal-03873800, HAL.
    3. 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.
    4. Ari Hyytinen & Jaakko Meriläinen & Tuukka Saarimaa & Otto Toivanen & Janne Tukiainen, 2018. "When does regression discontinuity design work? Evidence from random election outcomes," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(2), pages 1019-1051, July.
    5. Galasso, Vincenzo & Dano, Kevin & Ferlenga, Francesco & LePennec, Caroline & Pons, Vincent, 2022. "Coordination and Incumbency Advantage in Multi-Party Systems - Evidence from French Elections," CEPR Discussion Papers 17600, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. González, Felipe & Muñoz, Pablo & Prem, Mounu, 2021. "Lost in transition? The persistence of dictatorship mayors," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    7. Ben Lockwood & James Rockey, 2020. "Negative Voters? Electoral Competition with Loss-Aversion," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(632), pages 2619-2648.
    8. Sebastián Umpierrez de Reguero & Patricio Navia, 2024. "Why Do Non‐Resident Citizens Get Elected? Candidates' Electoral Success in Ecuadorian Extraterritorial Districts," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 12.
    9. Prato, Carlo & Wolton, Stephane, 2014. "Electoral Imbalances and their Consequences," MPRA Paper 68650, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 26 Nov 2015.
    10. Bennett, Daniel L. & Long, Jason T., 2019. "Is it the economic policy, stupid? Economic policy, political parties & the gubernatorial incumbent advantage," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 118-137.
    11. Fernanda Herrera, 2021. "Partisan affect and political outsiders," Papers 2108.05943, arXiv.org.
    12. Gomberg, Andrei & Gutiérrez, Emilio & López, Paulina & Vázquez, Alejandra, 2019. "Coattails and the forces that drive them: Evidence from Mexico," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 64-81.
    13. Leandro de Magalhaes & Salomo Hirvonen, 2019. "The Incumbent-Challenger Advantage and the Winner-Runner-up Advantage," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 19/710, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
    14. De Benedetto Marco Alberto, 2020. "Personal or Partisan Incumbency Advantage? Evidence from an Electoral Reform at the Local Level in Italy," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 20(1), pages 1-18, January.
    15. Kai A. Konrad & Raisa Sherif, 2019. "Sanctioning, selection, and pivotality in voting: theory and experimental results," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 330-357, September.
    16. Bernardo P. Schettini & Rafael Terra, 2020. "Electoral incentives and Public Employees’ Retirement Systems in Brazilian municipalities," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 184(1), pages 79-103, July.
    17. Fiva, Jon H. & Røhr, Helene Lie, 2018. "Climbing the ranks: incumbency effects in party-list systems," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 142-156.

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