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Testing the Basis of Incumbency Advantage: Strategic Candidates and Term Limits in the California Legislature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Erik J. Engstrom  and
Nathan W. Monroe
Erik J. Engstrom
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Nathan W. Monroe
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
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Abstract

Conventional wisdom suggests that incumbent politicians use the resources of office to create an electoral advantage. But Cox and Katz (2002) argue that at least part of this incumbency advantage in the United States House of Representatives can be attributed to the strategic entry and exit decisions of incumbents. We test this claim by taking advantage of the natural experiment provided by state legislative term limits in California. By comparing different types of open seats, we identify the strategic component of the incumbency advantage that exists above and beyond the resource-based advantage. The vote loss suffered by the incumbent party is smaller in term-limited seats than in voluntary open seats, indicating that incumbents do sometimes leave when their electoral prospects look dim. Further evidence of this strategic component is that quality challengers run more often in voluntary open seats, while quality incumbent-party replacements run disproportionately in term-limited seats.

Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , Spring 2006 , pp. 1 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © 2006 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

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