Once you have been in the leadership, it’s difficult to go back to the second row. Many clients have told me that, and in that sense, Kevin Mcarthy’s decision to resign from the House of Representatives had to be expected.
It also goes to show however that one always has to be ready for a surprise in electoral politics. People can die, there can be a pandemic, a terrorist attacks, international turmoil or an intra-party revolt. Who would have thought that there would be a real race in the 20th district of California just four months ago?
The US Congress has historically been a great example for the power of the incumbency advantage I write about in my forthcoming book, Beat the Incumbent. During the past ten years, more than 80 percent of incumbent US congressmen and senators beat their respective challengers. The incumbency advantage has three main aspects, namely name recall, media attention and fundraising. Unless the composition of a district has changed due to redistricting, an incumbent congressman should be well-known and seen ex officio as a legitimate candidate. An incumbent also has unique opportunity to attract media attention. If he’s not featured in cable news, he should at least be able to penetrate local news. Being an incumbent also makes fundraising a lot easier. I have rarely seen an incumbent that is not at least at eye level with his challenger with respect to campaign funds. In fact, the fundraising advantage is the main reason why these seats often only become competitive again once the incumbent retires.
If incumbent lawmakers play their cards well, they are set for reelection. As for myself, I have only lost one incumbent race during my sixteen years as a political consultant. It was a state legislator in my very early days in the trenches.
With respect to McCarthy’s seat, there will be a special election. Democrats will certainly hope and try to take this very particular seat away from Republicans, and I expect considerable money will flow into the race. The Republican majority in the House is getting smaller and smaller, which doesn’t make it easier for Speaker Mike Johnson to get anything passed. As the episode last week with the ouster of New York Republican George Santos showed, there is a need for some leeway. The 20th district of California is however a clearly Republican leaning district and has overwhelmingly voted for Trump in 2020.
As I write in my book, not every challenger is equal; there are important differences, most notably with respect to awareness, funding, and experience. High-quality challengers make up for at least some of the traditional challenger weaknesses. As there is not much time, a candidate should already have considerable name recall. If I were to do research for the campaign, I would certainly explore possible ways to localize the race.
While the US House of Representatives is actually a classic illustration of the power of the incumbency advantage, a trend I observe worldwide is that upset elections are increasing. Public opinion has become more volatile. And as voters have grown increasingly frustrated with politicians and all parties, they are more willing to take a risk on something new.
For Republican congressional candidates this means to either run against Joe Biden or against their own party leadership. Either way it’s a challenge to claim change when you’re from the incumbent party. A real masterpiece for this comes from France. When Nicolas Sarkozy ran for president, people wanted change and were very unhappy with incumbent president Jacques Chirac, who however belonged to the same party as Sarkozy. To make things worse, Sarkozy was actually the head of the incumbent party and served in the incumbent government. So, one might wonder how someone can own change when he is the head of the incumbent party? The key for Sarkozy was a personal dispute with Chirac, who made it clear that Sarkozy would not be his chosen successor. By doing so, he made Sarkozy’s claim for change only credible.
Dr. Louis Perron is a political consultant who has won dozens of elections around the globe. His forthcoming book Beat the Incumbent: Proven Strategies and Tactics to Win Elections is a step-by-step guide for challenger to take on incumbents at any level of government.