The Senate's Re-Election Equation
By Charlie Cook
©
NationalJournal.com
Tuesday, March 30, 1999
The seven or eight Senate incumbents who today appear likely
to face stiff re-election challenges next year should take
some solace in knowing that, statistically speaking, their
chances of political survival are considerably better than
they would have been a generation ago. Indeed, statistics
argue that in the absence of some partisan tidal wave,
only two or three are likely to be unseated. Simply put,
senators
are being re-elected at a substantially higher rate today
than they were 20 years ago.
During the first ten elections after the end of World War
II, the Senate incumbent re-election percentage was all
over the map, ranging from a low of 56.7 percent in 1946
to a
high of 96.6 percent in 1960. The average for this period
(1946-64) was 74 percent. (By comparison, the House incumbent
re-election rate during the period ranged from 79.3 to
94.6 percent, averaging 89 percent. )
The unusually low re-election rate in 1946 was a manifestation
of a devastating election for Democrats, one in which they
lost 12 Senate and 45 House seats. Generally speaking, the
incumbent re-election rates on both the House and Senate
sides plummet when one party is getting pasted. In "normal
years," when neither party is getting hammered, re-election
rates remain relatively constant.
The next ten-election period, 1966-84, saw the Senate incumbent
re-election percentage rise just two points to 76 percent
-- ranging from 55.2 in the 1980 Reagan landslide to 93.3
percent in 1982. Interestingly, 1982 was a recession year
and something of a downer for the GOP nationally. The party
lost 26 seats in the House, but held its own in the Senate,
just barely holding a number of seats by the narrowest
of margins. (The House re-election rate increased three points
during this period, to 92.6 percent.)
The Senate incumbent re-election rate jumped rather significantly
during the next period (the most recent seven elections),
up to 87.4 percent. The worst re-election rate during this
period was in 1986, when just 75 percent of all Senate
incumbents were re-elected, meaning that the recent era's
worst election
was on par with the average for the first 20 post-World
War II elections.
While some assigned the blame for Republicans' eight-seat
Senate loss on the "six-year itch" election phenomenon,
(a midterm election in Reagan's second term), there is a
more convincing explanation. This was a rebound election
-- a number of GOP freshmen swept into office by the 1980
Reagan landslide were defeated in 1986, when they were forced
to rely on their own steam.
The highest re-election rate was in 1990, when only one
incumbent -- Sen. Rudy Boschwitz, R-Minn. -- lost re-election.
This relatively recent uptick in Senate incumbent fortunes
actually began with 1982's 93.3 percent incumbent re-election
rate. Prior to 1982, it had been 11 elections since 89
percent or more of incumbents were re-elected. Since 1982,
the re-election
rate in six out of nine cycles was 89 percent or more. Changing Times, Changing Campaigns
The sophistication of Senate campaigns took a quantum leap
during the early and mid-1980s when incumbents began running
campaigns that were smarter, both tactically and strategically,
than before. Until then, many incumbents subscribed to
the view that they should never even mention an opponent's
name,
lest they give their challengers name recognition and legitimacy.
The leading proponents of this view soon became known as
former members of Congress. Before long, incumbent campaigns
were responding to challengers' attacks even before the
insurgent campaigns had neared the critical mass necessary
to become
formidable.
During this period, not surprisingly, the price tags on
Senate campaigns increased exponentially. What had been $1-2
million
campaigns soon became $3-4 million efforts, and more recently
much higher than that. Given this substantial increase
in the cost of running for the Senate, fewer challengers
were
able to keep up with the fundraising pace of their incumbent
opponents.
Smarter campaigns and better funding, combined with the
natural advantages of incumbency that have always been around,
have
conspired to make it extremely difficult to knock off incumbents.
Today, the gap between the incumbent re-election rate in
the Senate runs only marginally lower than in the House,
far from the huge disparities of past decades. And In 2000?
Just for the record, recent averages would suggest that
two or three of the 28 senators expected to seek re-election
will be unsuccessful in their bids -- a fact that could
make
rising re-election rates of little comfort to incumbents
in 2000. |
