Why do incumbents get reelected

Each member of Congress has a office budget allotment which provides enough money to hire a sizable staff both in Washington, D. These staffers assist members in their efforts to be effective, well-liked representatives. In addition to money for staff, members of Congress also have travel allowances for trips between Washington and their constituencies as well as for trips inside their states or districts.

Sitting members of Congress are on the job full-time—that is what they are paid to do. In fact, many of the things a candidate would do to win an election, such as meeting and talking with voters, attending special events, appearing on television or radio talk shows, etc. In contrast, a candidate challenging an incumbent must generally figure out how to pay his or her bills while running for office. Many candidates are forced to go into debt, especially in the early stages of a campaign before he or she has raised much money.

Sitting members of Congress are almost universally recognized in their districts. Having waged at least one previous campaign, and a successful one at that, and then serving in Congress for two years House members or six years Senators makes a sitting member of Congress something of a household name among his or her constituents.

Moreover, members of the U. House and Senate have easy and ready access to the news media and make regular appearances on television and radio programs and are frequently mentioned in newspaper articles and editorials. As noted, every sitting member of Congress has run at least one successful election campaign for the seat he or she holds.

This means, among other things, that a sitting House member or Senator has invaluable experience with creating and managing a campaign organization. It also means that incumbents generally have an effective volunteer organization in place and ready go when it is time to campaign. By far the most widely recognized and probably the most significant advantage enjoyed by sitting members of Congress is the large amounts of campaign contributions they are able to raise, especially in comparison to those who run against them.

The table below summarizes the average campaign resources available to various groups of candidates in House and Senate races in In sum, incumbents tend to win because they enjoy significant advantages over their challengers. The widely-accepted conventional wisdom about these advantages is that they make congressional elections unfair.

It is true that it is difficult to beat an incumbent, but that is generally the case not simply because the incumbent enjoys the perks of office and has a large campaign bank account. Members of Congress are reelected because their constituents have not been provided with a compelling reason to vote for someone else. True, an under-funded candidate is limited in his or her ability to provide voters with such a reason, but when a member of Congress strays too far from the opinions and values of his or her constituents or becomes embroiled in controversy, challengers will find that they are able to raise more than enough money to make sure the voters know about such things.

In reality, incumbents leave office with fair amount of regularity. Each election year, a handful of House members and Senators retire for a variety of reasons—sometimes because they are not confident they could keep their seat if they ran again. And there are a handful of members that are defeated by challengers each campaign cycle. Thirty-five senators and all House members face the prospect of losing their jobs in November.

But political analysts tracking the races say that only a relatively small number of races — fewer than 50 House seats and just a handful of Senate races — are truly competitive. A look at past election cycles helps explain why. Since , voters have sent their incumbent House representative back to Washington 93 percent of the time. Senators enjoy only slightly less job security — 82 percent. Academics have speculated on the multiple reasons that congressional incumbents have enjoyed an advantage over the years.

Incumbents have traditionally used their positions to win favor with voters by offering a variety of constituent services or by pointing to increased funding they've captured for the home state or district.

More recently, some have argued that redistricting has created politically lopsided seats that strongly favor one party over another. Moreover, as the cost of mounting a political campaign has risen, incumbency in Congress has created an important financial advantage in attracting the money needed to win.

Based on the amount of campaign cash both sides have raised so far, Republicans are in a better position to defend their majority in the House than the Democrats are in taking it away. If the Senate's two independents continue to caucus with them, Democrats only need to pick up two seats to win a majority. And five of the eight seats that are considered "toss-ups" by one or more of the political pundits rating the races are currently held by Democrats. That may be why Democrats in those races have been busy fundraising.

More than Democrats have entered races for open seats or to challenge an incumbent in Senate races.