Is There an Ideological Asymmetry in the Incumbency Effect? Evidence From U.S. Congressional Elections

Abstract

The electoral advantage that incumbent legislators enjoy over challengers in the U.S. Congress has been investigated extensively in political science. Very few studies, however, have considered the role of individual differences when it comes to incumbency preferences among voters. Based on theory and research in political psychology, we hypothesized that political conservatives would exhibit stronger preferences than liberals for incumbents over challengers from the same party. Extensive analyses based on more than 150,000 voters from seven election cycles in the United States from 2006 to 2018 support this hypothesis. A significant effect of conservatism on incumbency preferences was observed in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, and it was not attributable to Republican Party identification. This ideological asymmetry is consistent with system justification theory and prior research linking conservatism to risk aversion and status quo bias. Practical implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Cognitive–motivational mechanisms of political polarization in social-communicative contexts

“…Consequently, those who endorse conservative attitudes exhibit stronger biases in favour of the status quo than those who endorse liberal attitudes. This asymmetry can have consequences for affective polarization, including stronger preferences for incumbent candidates and chief executives from one’s own party (the ‘President-in-power’ effect) on the part of conservative (versus liberal) voters 161 , 162 . In addition, decades of research in political psychology demonstrate that those who embrace more conservative-rightist attitudes, identities and leaders are more authoritarian and social-dominance-oriented (that is, supportive of group-based hierarchies) than those who embrace more liberal-leftist attitudes, identities and leaders 107 , 149 , 163 – 169 .…”

System justification motivation as a source of backlash against equality‐promoting policies—and what to do about it

“…Many members of advantaged groups are highly supportive of egalitarian reforms, and some members of disadvantaged groups are not. This is because individuals and groups differ in the ideological motivation to defend versus challenge the societal status quo (Jost, 2020(Jost, , 2021; see also García-Sánchez et al, 2019;Grossmann & Thaler, 2018;Mikołajczak et al, 2022;Morisi et al, 2021Morisi et al, , 2022Osborne et al, 2019). This is the starting point of system justification theory, which helps to explain within-group variation in policy backlash.…”

“…Conservatives and rightists, on the other hand, are more committed to maintaining the societal status quo, and this leads them to defend and justify existing forms of hierarchy and inequality (Jost, 2021). These differences in values also correspond to differences in system justification tendencies, that is, the extent to which people resist change and defend existing institutions and arrangements as legitimate and desirable (e.g., Grossmann & Thaler, 2018; Morisi et al., 2021, 2022). In countries as diverse as Argentina, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lebanon, New Zealand, Poland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States, people who identify themselves as more politically conservative or rightist score higher on Kay and Jost's (2003) general system justification scale, which includes items such as “Society is set up so that people usually get what they deserve,” and “Everyone has a fair shot at wealth and happiness” (see Jost, 2020, pp.…”

Candidate visibility, voter knowledge, and the incumbency advantage in preferential-list PR

“…1.Their paper focuses on risk attitudes. Other work exploring heterogeneous voters’ reactions to incumbency in the US considers preference for the status quo (Morisi et al, 2021) and the Big Five personality traits of openness (Ramey et al, 2021) as moderators.…”