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The Political Edge: Is Incumbency Still an Advantage?

After receiving positive feedback on our political intelligence roundup last week, today we are officially launching The Political Edge. Every week, AR/Intel will bring you a concise collection of some of the best analysis happening in the world of politics with the goal of arming you with expert facts to make you smarter.

In this week’s roundup, we look at the diminishing incumbency advantage, what historical turnout can tell us about 2020, and note the huge surge in House spending this cycle. We’ve also included a roundup of stray observations about the 2018 midterm.

The Incumbency Advantage Continues To Diminish

Historically, running as an incumbent has been an advantage in electoral politics. As recently as 20 years ago, holding office added an average of 8 percentage points to a candidate’s margin. In recent years, however, the incumbency advantage appears to have diminished. FiveThirtyEight’s Nathaniel Rakich crunched the numbers from the 2018 midterm and found the electoral benefit of already being a member of Congress was down to less than 3 points.

  • The average U.S. representative had a net incumbency advantage of 2.7 points; U.S. senators got an average boost of 2.6 points over their challengers.

  • Senators from small states enjoyed a larger net incumbency advantage (1.9 points on average) than senators from big states (-1.3 points).

  • One-term senators had an average net incumbency advantage of 2.0 points; that increased to 5.2 points for two-term senators. Three-term senators, however, (of whom there were only four on the ballot this year) underperformed their challengers by an average of 2.3 points.

  • In the House, there was no clear relationship between the number of terms an incumbent had served and his or her net incumbency advantage.

What Historical Turnout Numbers Can Tell Us About 2020

One of the major political stories coming out of the 2018 midterm was the sharp increase in voter participation; turnout in 2018 was over 50 percent, making it the highest turnout in a midterm since 1914. Roll Call’s Nathan Gonzalez looked at the data provided by the U.S. Elections Project and made several observations about the election and what history can tell us about what to expect in 2020.

  • Going back to 1914, the record for turnout in a presidential cycle was 63.8% in 1960 (JFK defeated Nixon). For comparison, turnout was 61.6% in 2008 and 60.1% in 2016.

  • Over the last century, the average difference in turnout between a midterm and a subsequent presidential election has been 16 points. That would pin 2020 turnout at about 66%, setting a new record.

  • The smallest difference between turnout in a midterm and a subsequent presidential election was 9 points between the 1918 and 1920 elections and the 1970 and 1972 elections.

  • The largest difference in turnout was 23.4 points, from the 2014 midterm to the 2016 presidential.

The Five Most Expensive House Races Ever Held Occurred In 2018

An analyst for The Center for Responsive Politics looked at campaign spending this cycle and found that excluding special elections, each of the five highest-spending House races ever — including money spent by candidates and outside groups — were held this cycle. Four of those five races were rated as toss-ups.

Stray 2018 Observations

This week, The Washington Post published a list of topline intelligence “nuggets” about the 2018 election cycle. Some of the most notable pieces of information are collected below:

  • House popular vote margin: Democrats by 8.6 points, the largest popular vote margin for any party since 1974.

  • House members who won with less than 50% of the vote: Iowa Democrat Cindy Axne (49.5 percent), Kansas Republican Steve Watkins (48.1 percent) and New York Rep. Chris Collins (49.4 percent).

  • Closest House race won by a Democrat: UT-04; Democrat Ben McAdams edged out Rep. Mia Love (R) by just 694 votes or 0.2 points.

  • Closest House race won by a Republican: GA-07; Rep. Rob Woodall (R) pulled out a 419-vote (0.2-point) win.

  • Narrowest win by a Democratic incumbent: MN-07; Rep. Collin Peterson (D) held on by 4.2 points, winning by 12,004 votes.

  • Biggest Republican incumbent improvement over 2016: WI-08; Rep. Mike Gallagher (R) won a second term here by the biggest margin of any Republican on the ballot in the Great Lakes region, a 27.4-point victory over Democrat Beau Liegeois.

  • Biggest Democratic incumbent improvement over 2016: FL-07; Rep. Stephanie Murphy’s (D) margin grew from 3 points to 15.4 points.

  • Biggest margin of defeat for an incumbent: VA-10; Rep. Barbara Comstock (R) lost by 12.4 points after winning by 5.8 points in 2016.

  • Most money spent per vote: Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) spent $168.90 for each vote she won.

  • Best endorsement record: Joe Biden; 71.4% of Biden’s endorsed candidates won. For comparison, just 58.3% of candidates endorsed by the president won, and just 46.7% of candidates endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) won.

  • Best turnout: Montana; It was the only state that set a total votes cast record in 2018 – 504,384 Montanans voted this year, more than had voted in any presidential election.

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