Release date: Jan. 6, 2005
Contact: Beverly Cox Clark at 404-712-8780 or beverly.clark@emory.edu

Emory Study Says Incumbents Hard to Beat

For most U.S. Representatives in Congress today, their election to the post was no contest. Competition in U.S. House elections has declined for more than 50 years, and those in 2004 were the least competitive of the postwar era, says Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz. He will present his study of the elections this week at the annual meeting of the Southern Political Science Association in New Orleans.

Since the 1970s there has been a substantial increase in the number of House districts that are relatively safe for one party and a substantial decrease in the number of marginal districts -- those with a relatively even balance of party support based on presidential voting patterns.

"In 2004, only five challengers -- out of 401 -- succeeded in winning a seat; of 400 incumbents running in 2002, only four were defeated," Abramowitz says. In 2004, only 22 contests in the entire country were decided by a margin of fewer than 10 percentage points, compared to 36 contests in 2002. At the other end of the spectrum, 172 winning candidates in 2004 either had no major party opposition, or coasted to victory by a margin of at least 40 percentage points.

Abramowitz's analysis has further found that the declining proportion of marginal districts is primarily due to demographic change and ideological realignment within the electorate. Contrary to popular opinion, redistricting has had little effect on the competitiveness of house districts: Out of the 401 House races in 2004, just three races were affected by redistricting -- all in Texas. Even in the remaining marginal districts only a small minority of House races are competitive, mainly due to the advantage of incumbency.

"The biggest factor in why challengers are not successful is money. It takes on average $1 million to win a seat, and a vast majority of challengers can't raise enough to threaten an incumbent," Abramowitz says. "Since 1998, 99 percent of incumbents in the U.S. House of Representatives have been re-elected and only 16 challengers have beaten incumbents, which makes it difficult for any significant shift in control to occur."

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