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This 7 page paper discusses the relationship between home style and incumbency advantage, and whether or not descriptive representatives have greater incumbency advantage than non-descriptive representatives. Bibliography lists 10 sources.
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7 pages (~225 words per page)
File: KV32_HVhmstyl.rtf
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and whether or not descriptive representatives enjoy higher levels of incumbency advantage than non-descriptive representatives, and why. Discussion We begin with the relationship between home style and incumbency advantage: Its
probably best to define terms briefly before going further. Incumbency advantage is just that: an incumbent always has an advantage over a challenger, for a number of reasons. First, there
is whats known as the "campaign discount," whereby the incumbent has to spend less than a challenger to mount a reelection campaign (Gordon & Landa). The "campaign discount" is enabled
by such things as "greater name recognition within a district (which may stem from constituency service ...), the franking privilege ... greater media coverage ... and the ability to amass
a war chest of contributions (Gordon & Landa). Second, there is something called the "pro-incumbent endorser bias," in which uniformed voters may rely on endorsements of the incumbent rather
than keeping track of their voting record or otherwise watching their actions themselves (Gordon & Landa). Since these endorsements come from special interest groups or elites that the voter respects,
he or she is likely to follow their recommendation when casting their vote (Gordon & Landa). This works in the incumbents favor because they have often had more time to
cultivate these groups than a challenger does (Gordon & Landa). The third advantage an incumbent has is simply that he or she was elected by voters who share the same
values; absent a dramatic change in the composition of the constituency, and assuming the representative has been voting the way most of his or her constituents feel is right, its
likely that he will be returned to office (Gordon & Landa). Thats why its so difficult for an opposition party candidate to unseat a candidate of the same party as
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