Incumbency and Re-election
Incumbency and Re-election
The election is a process in which individuals use to choose leaders to hold public office. In any democratic society, the election is the only process that people use to exercise their democratic rights. In the political election, an incumbent is an individual holding an office. Always associated with elections are the incumbent leaders who have to use the democratic space to ensure they are re-elected. The re-elections come with its advantages and disadvantages to individual holding offices. The incumbents are always in positions that worry them because they are likely not to be re-elected, or some are better placed since they have an upper hand over the new entrants (Erikson & Tedin, 2014). Purposely, the paper seeks to identify and explain the advantages and pitfalls of incumbency, explain whether congressional incumbents have such high rate of re-election, find out the major difficulties that incumbents face for re-election and give an explanation if the high rate of re-elections for congressional incumbents is good for democracy.
The incumbents always hold certain advantages over other candidates. The main advantage of the incumbents is that they always have name recognition. The incumbents will always have an upper hand over her/ his challengers because the electorate always knows him or her. The incumbent does not need to spend a lot of time and money during the campaigns introducing his/her background, personal qualities and accomplishments to the electorate (Erikson & Tedin, 2014). The incumbent having spent some time and years in office, the voters have a good understanding of him/her. The incumbent may be known on either the positive note or worse reasons, and this may not change his identity to the electorate as re-elections near.
The second advantage of incumbency is favorable policy making. The incumbents once elected they make use of their offices to publicize themselves. Most of them will undertake strategies that respond to the needs of the voters. With such activities in place, the incumbents secure a competitive advantage over their challengers. They make and build close personal relations with the voters by building projects, improving and developing infrastructure in their areas of representation. Such projects and developments in their areas of representation give them an upper hand over their challengers. This ensures that they are exposed well to the public and get positive publicity. They are likely to get the feelings of goodwill by the favorable projects they initiate, and this puts them in competitive position over their challengers.
The incumbents do have some disadvantages over their challengers. The first pitfall is that the incumbents have to take positions on controversial issues. Most of the incumbents have to face the wrath of the electorate who are always upset about the economic and social conditions (Erikson & Tedin, 2014). The electorate will always have to believe that the incumbent is not performing very well, and he /she may find it difficult to explain the underlying reasons for the poor state of the economy. The incumbent’s challengers to hit back of them will always use disruptive issues.
Why do congressional incumbents have such high rate of re-election?
Congressional incumbents have a high rate of re-election because of some reasons. The incumbent congressional candidates always have wide name recognition, and this puts them at a high rate of being re-elected by their electorate (Phillips, 2004). With the name recognition, most of them do not have to spend a lot of time in the campaigns trying to introduce themselves and making the electorate understand their personalities. The money issue is another determinant why the congressional incumbents have a high rate of re-election. Most of them have a lot of money than their competitors, and this puts them at the high rate of being reelected. They gather a lot of money immediately after been elected which they use to convince their constituents to reelect them by dishing it out.
Major difficulties do incumbents face for re-election
The major difficulty that incumbents face is that governing comes with compromise. Mostly they are likely not to have their electorate on their side as the result of the general performance of the economy and social setting. Voters in their areas of representation will view the compromise as a betrayal of their trust, and the campaign promises that the incumbent put in place. The other difficulty that the incumbents are likely to face for re-election is high propaganda from their challengers. This negative ad will ensure that the electorate who are ready and willing to make change trust the new voices. The incumbent' record will also be the most difficult thing they are to face when seeking re-election. If one has a poor record and did nothing for his or her constituents, then he or she will find it difficult to explain it away as he/she faces the electorate.
Do you believe the high rate of re-elections for Congressional incumbents is good for democracy?
The high rate for re-elections for the Congressional incumbents is not good for the democracy. The re-election of every Congress in elections is a sign that democracy has been broken with the idea that money from the congressional incumbents is always the speech. The politics of the Congress have been turned into a scenario that the wealthy will derive what the electorate hears and who should be voted (Patterson, 2009). The unrestricted and largely unregulated cash hand outs in the congress elections are mainly the reason for their high rate of re-election, and this is bad for democracy since the politics are not agenda driven. They mainly are re-elected because the electorate has not been provided with compelling reasons to vote in their challengers who are always underfunded.
Conclusively, it is well established that incumbents have a competitive advantage over their challengers. The electorate needs to do research and ensure they re-elect the incumbents regarding their effective representation but not because of other factors such as their money oiled campaigns (Phillips, 2004). The electorate needs to base on the incumbents actions in office, records of service and fair representation to determine if they are to reelect them. This should happen at all levels of governance to ensure fair representation and success in exercising the electorates’ democracy. The incumbents need to consider the challenges they are likely to face during re-election and weigh them over the advantages they have before seeking re-election.
References
Erikson, R., & Tedin, K. (2014). American Public Opinion, Mysearchlab With Pearson Etext Access Card: Its Origins, Content, and Impact. Pearson College Div.
Patterson, T. E. (2009). We the people: A concise introduction to American politics.
Phillips, K. (2004). American dynasty: Aristocracy, fortune, and the politics of deceit in the house of Bush. New York: Viking.
