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The Pros And Cons Of Incumbents

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Incumbents are individuals who currently hold a position in office. When it comes to reelection they are more likely to win than they are to lose. Constituents are people who live in the area the incumbent is in charge of. Serving their constituents, having an easier time raising campaign money and redistricting provide incumbents advantages with being reelected. On the other hand, disruptive issues, personal misconduct, election challengers and Super PACs can make it hard for incumbents to get reelected.
Serving constituents is one way incumbents attempt to get reelected. Before choosing a stance on legislation an incumbent will find out what their constituents think about it. From there they will try to adjust their stance to meet …show more content…

An opponent representing extreme views from their party can make it possible for the incumbent to lose. That opponent can claim the incumbent is not conservative enough or not liberal enough. This usually occurs during primary elections. General elections sometimes can present problems to senators looking to get reelected. When a senator runs for office they are usually going against politicians with high ranks such as a state governor or attorney general. Their high rank give them a voter base, the ability to raise campaign funds, recognition from the public, and credibility. Challenges like this are not faced by House incumbents. Mayors and other state legislators do not find a seat in the House as appealing as the Senate. Due to this House incumbents will have feeble competition. They usually only have to worry about losing their House incumbency if any disruptive issues take place.
Super PACs are a novel threat to incumbents reelection hopes. A Super PAC is capable of contributing millions of dollars to help candidates in their campaign. During a Colorado Senate race in 2010 a Super PAC got involved. The Super PAC put an extra $22 million into the campaign. Most of these funds went to the Republican challenger, Ken Buck. Michael Bennett was the Democratic incumbent in this race and he was able to overcome the Super PAC. He pulled out a very narrow victory. The victory was lower than two percentage

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