The Advantages of Incumbency

The re-election rates in Congress are overwhelmingly favored to the incumbents of Congress. People who are running for re-election holds many advantages to winning opposed to whomever the challenger is running against them. Many authors and political science scholars support this theory including such people as Richard Fenno, Morris Fiorina, David Mayhew, and Timothy Cook.
Richard Fenno explains some of the advantages an incumbent may have over any challenger in his article entitled Home Style. Many politicians in Washington are on the Tuesday through Thursday schedule. This means that mem…