The Variable Incumbency Advantage: New Voters, Redistricting, and the Personal Vote

Authors: Desposato S.W.¹; Petrocik J.R.²

Source: American Journal of Political Science, Volume 47, Number 1, January 2003 , pp. 18-32(15)

Publisher: Blackwell Publishing

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Abstract:

In this article we explore the personal vote costs of redistricting. After redistricting, incumbents often face significant numbers of new voters—voters that were previously in a different incumbent’s district. Existing conceptualizations of the incumbency advantage suggest that the cost to incumbents of having new voters should be relatively small and predictable. We propose a different formulation: a variable incumbency advantage. We argue that any incumbency advantage among the electorate is a function of short–term effects, partisanship, and electoral saliency. We use a massive untapped dataset of neighborhood–level electoral data to test our model and to demonstrate how the intersection of the personal vote, redistricting, and short–term environmental variables can provide a healthy margin to incumbents—or end their careers.

Language: English

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1111/1540-5907.00002

Affiliations: 1: University of Arizona 2: University of Missouri–Columbia

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