Southern Primary and Electoral Competition and Incumbent Success

Jewell, Malcolm E.; Breaux, David A.

doi:10.2307/439971

Cited by 23 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…2 Incumbents may win by greater margins without being any more likely to win, period. Garand (1991) and Jewell and Breaux (1988) make this same point empirically in their study of state legislative victory margins and incumbent reelection rates, noting that margins in races involving incumbents grew substantially in the 1970s-1980s, but that incumbent victory rates edged up barely perceptively. This suggests replacing vote-denominated measures of incumbency advantage with an outcomedenominated measure-an estimate of the extent to which incumbency generates a higher probability of electoral victory.…”

Section: Incumbency Advantage In State Legislaturesmentioning

confidence: 87%

“…In 1987, the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) made available for the first time a machine-readable dataset of legislative election results for all states from 1968 through 1986, prompting a torrent of studies (Jewell andBreaux 1988, 1991;Breaux 1990;Garand 1991;Holbrook and Tidmarch 1991;Weber, Tucker, and Brace 1991) that revisited many of the issues central to the earlier literature on Congress. This work shows that there was substantial growth in the vote-denominated incumbency advantage for state legislators during the 1970s and 1980s (Jewell and Breaux 1988;Garand 1991) and that the resources available to legislators that facilitate constituency service activities account for much of that growth (Holbrook and Tidmarch 1991;Weber, Tucker, and Brace 1991). King (1991) confirms this conclusion in applying the Gelman and King (1990) model to the ICPSR data on elections in 13 states, as do Cox and Morgenstern (1993), with a larger dataset that includes states using both pure single-member district (SMD) and post-position elections.…”

Section: Incumbency Advantage In State Legislaturesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Incumbency and the Probability of Reelection in State Legislative Elections

Carey

Niemi

Powell

2000

The Journal of Politics

129

119

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We build on work estimating and explaining the incumbency advantage in state legislative elections. Our work makes advances in three ways. First, our model measures the effect of incumbency on the probability of reelection, rather than on candidate vote share or margin of victory. Second, we accommodate both multimember district (MMD) elections that are excluded from most previous studies and uncontested and partially contested (MMD) races. Third, we use an improved method of controlling for the underlying partisan makeup of districts. We calculate incumbency advantage using data from elections in 96 legislative chambers across 49 states in the 1992-1994 electoral cycle. We then model relative incumbency advantage across the states as a function of institutional characteristics. We find that district type, term length, and electoral formula have substantial effects on incumbent safety; incumbents in multimember post and free-for-all districts are more vulnerable than those in traditional SMDs, as are those with four-year, rather than two-year, terms. Professionalization also affects incumbency safety, and salary rather than other resources best accounts for incumbency advantage.How much does incumbency improve electoral prospects for state legislators, and why? In the last 10 years, following earlier work on U.S. congressional elections, students of state legislatures have made substantial progress in estimating and explaining the extent to which incumbency augments the vote shares of state legislators who run for reelection. In this paper, we build on these advances in three important ways. First, we offer a model to estimate and explain the effect of incumbency on the probability of reelection, rather than on

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Section: Incumbency Advantage In State Legislaturesmentioning

confidence: 87%

Section: Incumbency Advantage In State Legislaturesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Incumbency and the Probability of Reelection in State Legislative Elections

Carey

Niemi

Powell

2000

The Journal of Politics

129

119

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Van Dunk and Weber (: Figure ) find over 75% of state house races were contested in 1972 but fell 10% by 1986. During this period, the rates of incumbents seeking reelection did not decline, were highly successful in primaries, and became less likely to be challenged in the general election (Grau ; Jewell and Breaux ).…”

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confidence: 99%

Strategic Challenger Entry in a Federal System: The Role of Economic and Political Conditions in State Legislative Competition

Rogers

2015

Legislative Studies Qtrly

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Over a third of state legislators do not face challengers when seeking reelection. Existing analyses of state legislative contestation almost exclusively focus on the stable institutional features surrounding elections and ignore conditions that change between elections. I remedy this oversight by investigating how political contexts influence challenger entry. State legislators—particularly members of the governor's party—more often face opposition during weak state economies, but the president's copartisans are even more likely to receive a challenger when the president is unpopular. My findings suggest that both national‐ and state‐level political conditions have an important impact on challengers' entry strategies.

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“…Candidates, as well as interest groups and parties, understand the formidable force of incumbency. Previous research from the state legislative setting clearly indicates that the presence of an incumbent reduces the level of competition in both general (Breaux 1990;Garand 1991;Holbrook and Tidmarch 1991;Jewell and Breaux 1988) and primary elections (Grau 1981;Jewell 1967;Jewell and Breaux 1991;Key 1956). Given the strength of these findings, we can expect competition to be lower when an incumbent runs.…”

Section: Competitive Environmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sources of Competition in State Legislative Primary Elections

Hogan

2003

Legislative Studies Qtrly

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Primaries are an important but understudied component of American elections. In this article, I examine competition in state legislative primaries across 25 states during the 1994 and 1996 election cycles. My findings indicate that competition varies greatly and is affected by a number of factors on the state and district levels. The presence of an incumbent reduces competition, but strong district support for a party leads to greater competition in that party's primaries. Population size and social diversity do little to affect competition, but urbanism and unified party control have a positive impact. Further, legislative professionalism is associated with greater competition, particularly in open‐seat races. Overall, the results have important implications for theories about the conditions that enhance or inhibit competition across different types of elections.

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Southern Primary and Electoral Competition and Incumbent Success

Cited by 23 publications

References 2 publications

Incumbency and the Probability of Reelection in State Legislative Elections

Incumbency and the Probability of Reelection in State Legislative Elections

Strategic Challenger Entry in a Federal System: The Role of Economic and Political Conditions in State Legislative Competition

Sources of Competition in State Legislative Primary Elections

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