Essay #11, Incumbency

   (a) The importance of incumbency is undoubtedly high on America's priority list. In this section, the graph exhibites the incumbency of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The graph shows how both the House and the Senate have high incumbency rates, while the House has higher and more stable rates than the Senate. 

        (b) Incumbency allows for many advantages for the politician involved. By remaining in office, they have more experience and understand the inner-workings of the government. Also being in office longer allows them access to more campaign funding as they have more connections within the government.

 (c) A positive consequence of incumbency is the development of more experienced political leaders. The longer a politician is in office, the more experience they will have, and the better they will become in most cases. 

(2001_2) the graph above shows reelection rates for incumbents in the House and Senate. From this information and your knowledge of of the US politics, perform the following 

tasks. (Fig 12.1)

a) identify two patterns displayed in the graph

b) identify 2 factors that contribute to incumbency advantage. Explain how each factor contributes to incumbency advantage.

c) Discuss one consequence of incumbency advantage for the US political process