Specifying the Impact of Incumbency On State Legislative Elections

Abstract

Prior research, based on the analysis of aggregate-level state legislative election data, has documented a decline in the marginality of state legislative districts. Over the past twenty or so years, state legislators, much like congressional incumbents, have been winning reelection by larger margins of the vote. By taking advantage of district-level, state legislative election data, the research presented here specifies the relative impact of incumbency on district marginality, while controlling for statewide party trends. More specifically, it follows the lead of congressional elections studies, examining the impact of retirement slump and sophomore surge on the legislative district vote. In general, the legislative district vote reflects both a retirement slump and a sophomore surge, with the magnitude of their impact being conditioned by the level of contested incumbent victories in a state.Since the mid-sixties, congressional incumbents have sought and won reelection at higher rates, and their margins of victory have increased over time (Erikson ). At the congressional district level, a party's share of the vote increases over its previous share when its freshman incumbent runs for a second term (i.e., sophomore surge), and decreases below its previous share when its incumbent does not run for reelection (i.e., retirement slump;Erikson 1971;Mann 1978).During the last decade, we have learned much from survey data about the incumbency advantage in congressional elections. The increased visibility of congressional members in such areas asThe author would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive criticism and Malcolm E. Jewell for his significant contribution to this research.

Incumbency and the Probability of Reelection in State Legislative Elections

“…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).…”

“…An exception isBreaux (1990), who includes uncontested races and finds, not surprisingly, that doing so increases the size of sophomore surges and retirement slumps.…”

Sources of Competition in State Legislative Primary Elections

“…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.…”

Contestation versus Replacement: Republican Party Gains in Southern State Legislative Elections

“…'A growing body of literature on various issues in state legislative elections also exists, such as the incumbency advantage (Breaux 1990;Cohen 1984; Garand 199 1;Holbrook and Tidmarch 199 I and 1993;Jewel1 and Breaux 1988;Weber, Tucker and Brace 199 1 ), campaign finance (Gierzynski and Breaux 199 1 ;Stonecash 1990;and Thompson and Cassie 1992), the success of African-American candidates and the implications of racial redistricting (Grofman and Handley 199 1 ;Handley, Grofinan, and Arden 1998;Lublin and Voss 1999), and challenger quality (Francis 1993;Pritchard 1992;Van Dunk 1997). They all have implications for this study because they address subjects that are clearly components of legislative contestation.…”