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Using Multimember District Elections to Estimate the Sources of the Incumbency Advantage

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  • Shigeo Hirano
  • James M. Snyder, Jr.

Abstract

In this article we use a novel research design that exploits unique features of multimember districts to estimate and decompose the incumbency advantage in state legislative elections. Like some existing related studies we also use repeated observations on the same candidates to account for unobserved factors that remain constant across observations. Multimember districts have the additional feature of copartisans competing for multiple seats within the same district. This allows us to identify both the direct office‐holder benefits and the incumbent quality advantage over nonincumbent candidates from the same party. We find that the overall incumbency advantage is of similar magnitude as that found in previous studies. We attribute approximately half of this advantage to incumbents' quality advantage over open‐seat candidates and the remainder to direct office‐holder benefits. However, we also find some evidence that direct office‐holder benefits are larger in competitive districts than in safe districts and in states with relatively large legislative budgets per capita.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:53:y:2009:i:2:p:292-306
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2009.00371.x
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Fiorina, Morris P., 1977. "The Case of the Vanishing Marginals: The Bureaucracy Did It," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 71(1), pages 177-181, March.
    2. Erikson, Robert S., 1972. "Malapportionment, Gerrymandering, and Party Fortunes in Congressional Elections," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 66(4), pages 1234-1245, December.
    3. King, Gary, 1991. "Constituency Service and Incumbency Advantage," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(1), pages 119-128, January.
    4. Ansolabehere, Stephen & Hirano, Shigeo & Snyder, James M. & Ueda, Michiko, 2006. "Party and Incumbency Cues in Voting: Are They Substitutes?," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 1(2), pages 119-137, March.
    5. Jacobson, Gary C., 1989. "Strategic Politicians and the Dynamics of U.S. House Elections, 1946–86," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(3), pages 773-793, September.
    6. Gordon, Sanford C. & Huber, Gregory A. & Landa, Dimitri, 2007. "Challenger Entry and Voter Learning," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 101(2), pages 303-320, May.
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    Cited by:

    1. Carlos Seixas & Diogo Lourenço, 2024. "On the optimality of policy choices in the face of biased beliefs, retrospective voting and the down-up problem," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 63(2), pages 299-321, September.
    2. Hiroyuki Kawakatsu, 2022. "Parliamentary debate as electoral signaling," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 5(2), pages 1235-1255, November.
    3. Marko Klašnja, 2016. "Increasing rents and incumbency disadvantage," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 28(2), pages 225-265, April.
    4. Matthew T. Cole & Ivan Pastine & Tuvana Pastine, 2018. "Incumbency Advantage in an Electoral Contest," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 49(4), pages 419-436.
    5. Prato, Carlo & Wolton, Stephane, 2014. "Electoral Imbalances and their Consequences," MPRA Paper 68650, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 26 Nov 2015.
    6. Tuvana Pastine & Ivan Pastine & Paul Redmond, 2012. "Incumbent-Quality Advantage and Counterfactual Electoral Stagnation in the U.S. Senate," Economics Department Working Paper Series n221-12.pdf, Department of Economics, National University of Ireland - Maynooth.

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