Congressional elections are not always about how much money a candidate spends to get their name out, or what he or she promises to do in office. It can be as easy as just putting his or her name on the ballot. This is sometimes the case for incumbents. Incumbents are usually the members who see themselves as representing the state as a whole instead of just their district. The percentage of incumbents who are reelected bears this out.
Incumbents have had more time in office to achieve particularized benefits for their district. Incumbent reelection rates in the House have increased from 87% between 1946 and 1950, to an astonishing 99% in the 2002-2004 elections. (Jacobson 2012) For this reason, most constituents want to have a more senior member representing their district. More senior members have a higher chance of being the ranking member of some of the more prestigious committees or “gaining turf,” such as Ways and Means, Rules, or Appropriations committees. Being a ranking member on one of these committees means that the representative has a higher chance of getting a bill passed that affects his or her district in a positive way, and also having a more powerful voice in matters that could affect his or her district in a negative way. (Mayhew 2004) Being an incumbent also discourages any opposition from running in later elections because of the larger margin of victories an incumbent usually receives.
Another great advantage that incumbents have over new candidates is the ability to redistrict. Redistricting is the act of changing a district’s boundary because of the change in population of an area as revealed after a census. This can work in the favor of an incumbent because he or she can sometimes influence how the lines will be drawn in order to gain supporters or drop opposing party constituents depending on whether the incumbent’s party owns the redistricting process in the state legislature. Over the years, redistricting has been used in order to group opposition party constituents into one area in order to win all other districts of a state. This is called “packing.” Another redistricting practice is called cracking, which breaks up the opposing party's constituents in order to win all districts in a state. Packing is usually a lot more obvious that cracking due to the districts being drawn in various shapes and sizes. Today there are laws governing redistricting that say districts must be compact, with a population that is nearly equal in all districts, and they must be contiguous. (Jacobson 2012) These laws put an end to districts that zigzagged from one side of a state to the other in order to include only certain constituents.
Sometimes being an incumbent is not enough to get reelected. The President’s popularity and party often has a huge influence on who will get elected into congress. During midterm elections, there is almost always a decrease the in the party with which the president is affiliated. This is because people often attach what the president does to his party so it will either help or hurt members of congress in that party. (Mayhew 2004) The President is seen as the “face” of a party. The party will gain or lose support depending on his actions. Things such as the economy will determine what people think of the President’s party. An example of this would be during times of prosperity, the President’s party gains support, thus increasing the number of party members in the House and Senate. It is much easier for constituents to blame one person (the President) than 535 members of the legislative branch. This will determine things such as a unified government, which is where one party controls the House, Senate, and the Presidency, or a divided government, which is any deviation away from unified. When the Presidents party is doing well, or a new President is elected, members of that same party tend to do better in congressional elections. This is called “riding the President’s coattail.” (Jacobson 2012)
Sometimes elected officials use symbolic policies in order to make constituents happy and gain reelection. An example of a symbolic policy would be the Civil Rights Acts that came before 1964. They really did not accomplish anything, because the southerners were being forced to accept them. These acts were in turn not being completely enforced in the South, with loopholes such as the Jim Crow Laws. Symbolic policies are part of what Mayhew says a representative needs to do to stay in office, and that is “keep doing what you are doing,” and “take a cautious approach to policy making.” (Mayhew 2004)
Representatives do take into account their constituents’ opinions, after all, the constituents have the power to take the representative out of office. Representatives will monitor their constituents’ opinions through things such as opinion polls. Through these polls, a representative can see what his or her constituents’ consider their highest priorities. If a bill being voted on is not one of the constituents’ top priorities, then a representative may often vote with the preferences of an interest group that may donate money for elections. This will also lead to representation by referendum, which is voting as a whole country instead of just as a representative of a single district, or back to the idea of the Trustee style of representation.
Candidates for election also use descriptive representation, conforming to the demographics of a district to get elected. Descriptive representation is the idea that representatives should look like the people they represent. Constituents want representatives who share their beliefs and fight for the wants and needs of their district. Conforming to the demographics is accomplished in several ways: 1) by identifying with the economic base of the constituents, e.g. promising to fight for agricultural legislation if the constituents are mostly farmers; 2) by communication, e.g. a candidate from New York City needs to be able to communicate well due to the major media in the area; 3) by indicating a kinship with a certain ethnicity or by sharing that ethnicity; 4) by aiming to represent a district composed predominantly of like-aged constituents, e.g. a younger candidate has a better chance of wining if most of his or her constituents are young; and 5) by running for office in a district that is known to vote for a certain party. (Jacobson 2012)
Larry M. Bartels (2008) shows that because of the different means of getting elected , e.g. money, there is a huge representation gap among the different socioeconomic classes of constituents. Bartels looked at representation by breaking down the different income groups - rich, middle class, and poor. Bartels found that the rich are very well represented in congress, while the poor was not represented at all. (Bartels 2008) This is important because it shows the true representation that congressional elections provide. As stated in the beginning of this paper, the main goal of representatives is to get reelected.
Works Cited
Bartels, Larry M. 2008. Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.
Jacobson, Gary C. 2012. The Politics of Congressional Elections. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Mayhew, David R. 2004. Congress: The Electoral Connection. 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Quirk, Paul J., and Sarah A. Binder, ed. 2005 The Legislative Branch. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
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