![]() | This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations .(June 2014) |
Incumbency is a researched and debated topic in political science. However, research on appointed U.S. senators and the incumbency advantage is less voluminous. In this research, the relationship between the number of months served as an appointed U.S. senator and the percentage of the vote the appointed senator receives in their initial election is studied. It is hypothesized that the longer an appointee has served before an election, the higher percentage of the vote that appointee will receive.
Data was compiled from the United States Congressional archives of appointed U.S. senators, the percentage of vote those senators received in the election after their appointment, and the number of months between their appointment and election. Discovering a relationship between months served and vote percentages received will add to the scholarship of incumbency, and how political science views appointed U.S. senators.
According to conventional political science, the greatest advantage a U.S. senator has is incumbency. However, it is uncertain if the advantage held by elected senators extends to those who are appointed.
Several studies examine the incumbency advantage; David R. Mayhew’s Congressional Elections: The Case of the Vanishing Marginals is one. Peter Tuckel has written two articles: "Length of Incumbency And the Reelection chances of U.S. Senators" and "The Initial Re-Election Chances of Appointed & Elected United States Senators". Other books are Treadmill to Oblivion: The Fate of Appointed Senators by William D. Morris and Rodger H. Marz and The Electoral (Mis)Fortunes of Appointed Senators and the Source of the Incumbency Advantage, by Jennifer A. Steen and Jonathan Koppell.
In Congressional Elections: The Case of the Vanishing Marginals, Mayhew compiled House seat swing data from 1956 to 1972 and wondered if House members receive more benefits from federal programs. He suggests that they have become more skilled at taking positions on issues, possibly due to an increase in polling technology and resources. His study explains that incumbency becomes an advantage due to experience.
Tuckel examined incumbency in "Length of Incumbency and the Reelection Chances of U.S. Senators" and "The Initial Re-Election Chances of Appointed & Elected United States Senators". He found that 24 percent of senators who are appointed remain in office, compared to 65.4 percent of those who are elected. Excluding appointed incumbents who relinquish their role voluntarily, Tuckel wrote that 56.5 percent of appointees win an election; 76 percent of elected office holders are reelected. He also suggested that the reason for the difference in electoral chances between appointed and elected senators is the amount of experience.
In Morris and Marz's Treadmill to Oblivion: The Fate of Appointed Senators, voters tend to see appointed senators as illegitimate; this weakens the power of incumbency. None of the nine appointed senators who stood for election were victorious, and seven of their nine successful opponents had more political experience. Morris and Marz conclude that Senate appointees cannot make effective reelection efforts while doing committee work and conducting other Senate business for less than one term.
In The Electoral (Mis)Fortunes of Appointed Senators and The Source of Incumbency Advantage, Steen and Koppell suggest two often-overlooked factors in the incumbency advantage: incumbents are reelected because of qualities they had before they were elected the first time, and reelected incumbents have successfully honed their skills and connections. The incumbency advantage is due more to previous election than to holding the office.
The 1972 United States presidential election was the 47th quadrennial presidential election held on Tuesday, November 7, 1972. Incumbent Republican president Richard Nixon defeated Democratic U.S. senator George McGovern in a landslide victory. With 60.7% of the popular vote, Richard Nixon won the largest share of the popular vote for the Republican Party in any presidential election.
The incumbent is the current holder of an office or position. In an election, the incumbent is the person holding or acting in the position that is up for election, regardless of whether they are seeking re-election.
James Thomas "Jim" Broyhill was an American businessman and politician from North Carolina. A member of the Republican Party, he served in both chambers of the United States Congress as a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1963 to 1986 and briefly a member of the United States Senate in 1986. He represented much of the Foothills region of the state in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1963 to 1986, and served in the U.S. Senate for nearly four months in 1986. He had a career in the furniture industry before entering politics.
The 1978 United States Senate elections were held on November 7, in the middle of Democratic President Jimmy Carter's term. The 33 seats of Class 2 were contested in regular elections. Special elections were also held to fill vacancies.
The 1966 United States Senate elections were elections on November 8, 1966, for the United States Senate which occurred midway through the second term of President Lyndon B. Johnson. The 33 seats of Class 2 were contested in regular elections. Special elections were also held to fill vacancies. With divisions in the Democratic base over the Vietnam War, and with the traditional mid-term advantage of the party not holding the presidency, the Republicans took three Democratic seats, thereby breaking Democrats' 2/3rds supermajority. Despite Republican gains, the balance remained overwhelmingly in favor of the Democrats, who retained a 64–36 majority. Democrats were further reduced to 63–37, following the death of Robert F. Kennedy in June 1968.
The 1964 United States Senate elections were held on November 3. The 33 seats of Class 1 were contested in regular elections. Special elections were also held to fill vacancies. They coincided with the election of President Lyndon B. Johnson by an overwhelming majority, to a full term. His Democratic Party picked up a net two seats from the Republicans. As of 2023, this was the last time either party has had a two-thirds majority in the Senate, which allowed the Senate Democrats to override a veto, propose constitutional amendments, or convict and expel certain officials without any votes from Senate Republicans. However, internal divisions would have prevented the Democrats from having done so. The Senate election cycle coincided with Democratic gains in the House in the same year.
The 1960 United States Senate elections coincided with the election of John F. Kennedy as president on November 8, 1960. The 33 seats of Class 2 were contested in regular elections. A special election was also held on June 28, 1960, for a mid-term vacancy in North Dakota where Democrats flipped a seat to expand their majority to 66–34. As Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson was elected Vice President, Mike Mansfield became the new majority leader.
Mark Andrews was an American politician from the state of North Dakota. He was a member of the Republican Party who served in both chambers of the United States Congress, the United States House of Representatives from 1963 to 1981 and the United States Senate from 1981 to 1987.
The 1930 United States Senate elections occurred in the middle of Republican President Herbert Hoover's term. The 32 seats of Class 2 were contested in regular elections, and special elections were held to fill vacancies. With the Great Depression beginning to take hold, Republican incumbents became unpopular, and Democrats picked up a net of eight seats, erasing the Republican gains from the previous election cycle, however, Republicans retained control of the chamber. This was the first of four consecutive Senate elections during the Depression in which Democrats made enormous gains, achieving a cumulative pick-up of 34 seats.
Edwin George Perlmutter is an American lawyer and politician who served as the U.S. representative for Colorado's 7th congressional district from 2007 to 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, his district was located in the northern and western suburbs of the Denver metropolitan area. He previously served as the Colorado state senator from the 20th district from 1995 to 2003. On January 10, 2022, he announced he would not seek re-election in 2022.
Congressional stagnation is an American political theory that attempts to explain the high rate of incumbency re-election to the United States House of Representatives. In recent years this rate has been well over 90 per cent, with rarely more than 5–10 incumbents losing their House seats every election cycle. The theory has existed since the 1970s, when political commentators were beginning to notice the trend, with political science author and professor David Mayhew first writing about the "vanishing marginals" theory in 1974.
The Government of Mississippi is the government of the U.S. state of Mississippi. Power in Mississippi's government is distributed by the state's Constitution between the executive and legislative branches. The state's current governor is Tate Reeves. The Mississippi Legislature consists of the House of Representatives and Senate. Mississippi is one of only five states that elects its state officials in odd numbered years. Mississippi holds elections for these offices every four years in the years preceding Presidential election years.
Elections were held in Delaware on Tuesday, November 2, 2010. Primary elections were held on September 14, 2010.
Congress: The Electoral Connection is a book by David Mayhew, first published in 1974, that applies rational choice theory to the actions of American Congressmen. Mayhew argues that Congressmen are motivated by re-election.
The 2000 congressional elections in Minnesota were held on November 7, 2000 to determine who would represent the state of Minnesota in the United States House of Representatives.
The 1988 United States presidential election in South Carolina took place on November 8, 1988. All 50 states and the District of Columbia, were part of the 1988 United States presidential election. South Carolina voters chose eight electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president.
The 1944 United States Senate special election in New Jersey was held on November 7, 1944.
The 2024 United States Senate elections are scheduled to be held on November 5, 2024, as part of the 2024 United States elections. 33 of the 100 seats in the U.S. Senate will be contested in regular elections. Senators are divided into three classes whose six-year terms are staggered so that a different class is elected every two years. Class 1 senators will face election in 2024.
The 2000 Wisconsin Fall General Election was held in the U.S. state of Wisconsin on November 7, 2000. One of Wisconsin's U.S. Senate seats was up for election, as well as Wisconsin's nine seats in the United States House of Representatives, the sixteen even-numbered seats in the Wisconsin State Senate, and all 99 seats in the Wisconsin State Assembly. Voters also chose eleven electors to represent them in the Electoral College, which then participated in selecting the president of the United States. The 2000 Fall Partisan Primary was held on September 12, 2000.
The 1960 United States Senate elections in Oregon took place on November 8, 1960.