Incumbents also have easier access to campaign finance, as well as government resources (such as the franking privilege) that can be indirectly used to boost the incumbent's re-election campaign. An anti-incumbency factor can also be responsible for bringing down incumbents who have been in office for many successive terms despite performance indicators, simply because the voters are convinced by the challengers of a need for change. Opposite of an act of assigning a job or position to someone. Then, on March 31, Johnson announced he wasn’t going to run for re-election. For example, embattled incumbents Ford, Truman and LBJ had all come to the presidency either upon the death or departure of their predecessors, the Miller Center’s Perry notes, so it’s possible the public thought they didn’t “live up to the previous president.” And even those challenged incumbents who weren’t in that situation were facing troubles of their own. chosen, discretionary. For example, in 2020, Donald Trump was the incumbent president seeking reelection, while the Democratic canidate Joe Biden was a challenger to the incumbent. In 1952, Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver challenged President Harry S. Truman for the Democratic Party nomination. The same goes for politics. That summer, TIME reported that 55% of Americans believed it was wrong for Gerald Ford to pardon Nixon, and that polls showed Republicans rated Ronald Reagan higher than Ford in leadership and decisiveness. Curbelo had held the seat since his election in 2015. incumbent definition: 1. officially having the named position: 2. to be necessary for someone: 3. the person who has or…. And Arthur, who succeeded President James Garfield, was denied the 1884 Republican nomination, though he didn’t actively seek it because he was suffering from kidney disease. It is also argued that the holders of extensively powerful offices are subject to immense pressure which leaves them politically impotent and unable to command enough public confidence for re-election; such is the case, for example, with the Presidency of France. This phenomenon is said to bring an advantage of up to 10% for first term representatives, which increases the incumbency advantage. President Gerald Ford — who was elected to the House of Representatives, but became first Vice President then President thanks to the resignations of Spiro Agnew and Richard Nixon — was vulnerable, thanks especially his unpopular decision to pardon Nixon. [5] This means that the incumbency advantage gets more significant as political polarization increases. For comprehensive election results, click here. [citation needed] Also, an open contest is created when the term of office is limited, as in the case of terms of the U.S. president being restricted to two four-year terms, and the incumbent is prohibited from recontesting. From the very beginning of his presidency, Donald Trump has never really left “campaign mode” — but as the next election gets closer, that approach has turned into a more concrete play for victory in 2020. Bush in 1992, conservative pundit Pat Buchanan never won a primary, but he helped expose a rift in the GOP — thus opening room for Ross Perot to make a third-party run, and arguably foreshadowing Trump’s eventually election. “It’s probably not that the challenge itself weakened the nominee,” says Noel, “but the fact that they were weak drew their challenge in the first place. Pictured (center), Democratic presidential nominee Jimmy Carter, (R), puts his arm around Senator Edward M. Kennedy (L) as he arrived at Logan International Airport in Boston on Sep. 30, 1976, for a four-hour campaign blitz. For example, in an election for president, the incumbent is the person holding or acting in the office of president before the election, whether seeking re-election or not. Elections in which an incumbent president is running typically are referenda on the job performance of the incumbent. An incumbent is an individual who is responsible for a specific office within a corporation or government position such as a director or an officer. Less than a week after New Hampshire, Attorney General Robert Kennedy jumped into the race. In general, an incumbent has a political advantage over challengers at elections. You have 1 free article left. He racked up 1,187 delegates compared to Ronald Reagan’s 1,070, which was barely more than the 1,130 he needed to secure the nomination. Subscribe for just $18. Bush faced a challenge from more conservative Pat Buchanan — but that wasn’t the only time a sitting President has had to fight for his spot on the ballot. Barbara A. Perry, the Director of Presidential Studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, who spoke to TIME as part of a presidential-history partnership between TIME History and the Miller Center, points out that those 1912 primaries were products of the progressive-era populist movement, as former President Teddy Roosevelt unsuccessfully tried to unseat incumbent President William Taft by forming the Progressive Party, also known as the Bull Moose Party. TIME reported that McCarthy’s surprisingly strong showing in the New Hampshire primary was a statement that was “as much anti-Johnson as antiwar,” citing a NBC poll that found more than half of Democrats didn’t even know McCarthy’s position on Vietnam. Opposite of an election or the process of voting. There is definitely a relationship between G.D.P. “Parties were still big tents and had factions and wings, and now parties are so polarized and monolithic,” says Perry. Opposite of the best or most desirable among a category, kind or class. noun: inconsequential, noncurrent, dispensable, optional, subjacent, unwanted, voluntary, discretionary, chosen, insignificant, nonessential, elective, unneeded, unimportant. In 1952, Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver challenged President Harry S. Truman for the Democratic Party nomination. In the United States, an election without an incumbent is referred to as an open seat or open contest. In France, the phenomenon is known by the catchphrase "Sortez les sortants" (get out the outgoing [representatives]!) Johnson was the first president to be impeached, in February 1868, so he didn’t get either party’s nomination. However, there exist scenarios in which the incumbency factor itself leads to the downfall of the incumbent. In political campaigns, the 'defending champion' in an election is called the incumbent. Subscribe for just $18. Find 7 ways to say INCUMBENT, along with antonyms, related words, and example sentences at Thesaurus.com, the world's most trusted free thesaurus. 3 : lying or resting on something else. [5] A 2017 study in the Journal of Politics found that incumbents have "a far larger advantage" in on-cycle elections than in off-cycle elections.[6]. Both Tyler and Fillmore, who were Whig Party presidents, were denied the nomination because the political battles surrounding slavery: Tyler in 1844, over the annexation of Texas, which he supported but which would upset the balance of free and slave states; Fillmore in 1852 over his support of the Fugitive Slave Act. All else equal, redistricting has reduced the probability of incumbent reelection over time. In some situations, there may not be an incumbent at time of an election for that office or position (for example, when a new electoral division is created), in which case the office or position is regarded as vacant or open. Some of the first primaries were held in 1912. When Kefauver won the New Hampshire primary — the first primary of the campaign season — Truman decided not to run for re-election. Antonyms for Incumbent On (opposite of Incumbent On). If the presidential candidate opposite of the incumbent's party won the district in the 2016 elections by 20 points or more Other factors could also cause a race to be classified as a battleground. Steve Russell Incumbent … After Jimmy Carter’s first term in the White House, he got a challenge in the form of Massachusetts U.S. Obama beat … But Trump is not alone. Popularly known as the anti-incumbency factor, situations of this kind occur when the incumbent has proven himself not worthy of office during his tenure and the challengers demonstrate this to the voters. 1 : imposed as a duty : obligatory incumbent on us to take action. The opposite of what Trump suggested. Protesters took to the street during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago to protest the fact that Humphrey won the nomination without campaigning in a primary, and Humphrey went on to lose the Presidential election to former Vice President Richard Nixon. That speech was also the launchpad for a new chapter in his Senate career. The Northern Democrats had spearheaded the addition of a civil rights plank to the party platform at the 1948 convention, leading the Southern Democrats to form a spin-off “Dixiecrat” coalition. “[Truman’s] defeat by Kefauver in the New Hampshire preference primary emphasized that he was not the unanimous choice of Northern Democrats,” TIME reported in its April 7, 1952, article on Truman’s dropping out. In 1996, there were 80 CDs, while in 2016, there were 31. As Buchanan framed the difference between the candidates, while launching his campaign in December 1991: “[Bush] is a globalist and we are nationalists. Find 7 ways to say incumbent, along with antonyms, related words, and example sentences at Thesaurus.com, the world's most trusted free thesaurus. Only if they decide to "fire" the incumbent do they begin to evaluate whether each of the challengers is an acceptable alternative. You have reached your limit of 4 free articles. Incumbent GOP Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida’s 26th Congressional District was ousted by Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. “Battered by the Vietnam War, Watergate, scandals and abuses in high places,” TIME noted in a cover story that year, “many Americans clearly welcome Carter’s confidence in them and the worth of their country, and his soft-spoken promise to restore a moral purpose to national life.”. But some politicking by Ford’s strategists enabled the incumbent president to edge out his opponent. "This has been declared an unlawful assembly," officers informed Black Lives Matter activists in Salem, … At the time, Democrats were bitterly divided. Even after that period, not all primaries can be evaluated the same way. The number of competitive districts is in decline, which may make it difficult for candidates to swing the vote for that district in the opposite direction. and election results. However, the trend is headed in the opposite direction. “People thought that it was close for an incumbent president and [Johnson] looked vulnerable because of the Vietnam War,” says Perry. Meanwhile, Truman would tie Richard Nixon for the dubious honor of the lowest approval ratings upon leaving office. Periods of anti-incumbent sentiment are typically characterized by wave elections. Crucially, it’s difficult to establish cause and effect when a challenged incumbent loses the general election. approach, we –nd evidence of the opposite e⁄ect. Estes Kefauver on the Mar. (Democratic President Franklin Pierce, who ended up winning the 1852 election, also lost his party’s nomination after one term, as many Northern Democrats felt his support for the Kansas-Nebraska Act was too conciliatory to pro-slavery Southerners.) Carter won 36 primaries that year, but Kennedy’s 12 victories included important ones in New York and California, and he didn’t concede until Aug. 11, 1980, at the Democratic National Convention at Madison Square Garden in New York City. ... Kelly, the incumbent, lost to liberal challenger Jill Karofsky by a wide margin. Write to Olivia B. Waxman at olivia.waxman@time.com. In the United States, an election (especially for a single-member constituency in a legislature) in which an incumbent is not seeking re-election is often called an open seat; because of the lack of incumbency advantage, these are often amongst the most hotly contested races in any election. On top of that, once it became clear that World War II hero Dwight D. Eisenhower was poised to get the Republican nomination, Truman, whose Administration had been entangled in scandals in 1951, realized he probably wouldn’t be able to win anyway. 22, 1968, cover of TIME. A poll has become the opposite of a self-fulfilling prophecy. “The conventional wisdom is that primary opponents harm incumbents in the general election, although this is hard to prove,” says Robert G. Boatright, editor of The Routledge Handbook of Primary Elections. Antonyms for incumbent. Updated 4:00pm EST, December 21, 2018. If the actual timing of the closing was a critical term of any agreement, then it was incumbent on the Respondent to stipulate that in his offer. This content is part of Ballotpedia's analysis of the 2018 midterm elections. Political analysts in the United States and United Kingdom have noted the existence of a sophomore surge (not known as such in the United Kingdom) in which first term representatives see an increase in votes in their first election. When newcomers look to fill an open office, voters tend to compare and contrast the candidates' qualifications, positions on political issues, and personal characteristics in a relatively straightforward way. When Kefauver won the New Hampshire primary — the first primary of the campaign season — Truman decided not to run for re-election. [8], Nick Panagakis, a pollster, coined what he dubbed the incumbent rule in 1989—that any voter who claims to be undecided towards the end of the election will probably end up voting for a challenger.[9]. Popularly known as the anti-incumbency factor, situations of this kind occur when the incumbent has proven himself not worthy of office during his tenure and the challengers demonstrate this to the voters. From the 1790s through 2000, omitting the peculiar multi-candidate election of 1824, parties holding the American presidency lost it exactly half the time when they did not run incumbent candidates. Who knows because despite people’s growing dissatisfaction with the economy, Obama still has a healthy approval rating so only time will tell. What is the synonym of successor? Even though he didn’t win the nomination, he changed the entire state of the race. Subscribe for just $18. The result was the opposite on Election Day votes, with Caruso besting Petrolia by more than 500 votes. 24, 1952, cover of TIME. The incumbent is the current holder of a political office. Except when the timing of elections is determined by a constitution or by legislation, the incumbent may have the right to determine the date of an election. “If our parties are becoming more monolithic, then who is there to challenge?”. Senator Ted Kennedy, the brother of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. dispensable, unnecessary, unneeded, unwanted. That’s the exact margin that his opponent in the 2020 election, President Trump, deemed a “landslide” in 2016. While an incumbent President has never lost a primary nomination in modern U.S. history, these five challengers put up a serious fight. An anti-incumbency factor can also be responsible for bringing down incumbents who have been in office for many successive terms despite performance indicators, simply because the voters ar… In fact, the system in use today is only about 50 years old. Notably, four incumbents who were denied the nomination in the 19th century — John Tyler, Andrew Johnson and Chester A. Arthur — had been Vice Presidents who rose to the Presidency following the deaths of their predecessors, perhaps suggesting they’d never won their parties’ full support in the first place. A 2017 study in the British Journal of Political Science argues that the incumbency advantage stems from the fact that voters evaluate the incumbent's ideology individually whereas they assume that any challenger shares his party's ideology. "[4] Voters will first grapple with the record of the incumbent. The winning parties are more likely to belong to the opposite end of the political spectrum from the incumbent. This is your last free article. So just being challenged is not a good sign.”. This sentiment can also lead to support for term limits. This campaign is the first time an incumbent president has faced a challenger with name recognition within his own party since 1992, when Republican president George H.W. But, it isn’t a perfect one. At the time, Democrats were bitterly divided. In the world of politics, incumbent refers to the current holder of an office, especially during an election. The 1976 campaign season was the year in which primaries started to matter more than ever before, and is considered the closest a sitting President has come to losing his party’s nomination in modern history. Before primary elections became the dominant way to pick a nominee, party leaders were more able to either shut down challengers or smoothly pass the nomination to someone else. Senator Eugene McCarthy (D-MN) on the Mar. The timing of this e⁄ect is consistent with the hypothesis that legal constraints on gerrymandering, such as the Voting Rights Act, have become tighter over time. This sentiment can also lead to support for term limits. Unlike his brothers, “Kennedy could not articulate any appreciation of the economic anguish of Middle Americans,” as TIME put it back then. @Sunshine31 - Clearly in the 1980 election there was an anti-incumbent feeling that hurt Jimmy Carter and some wonder if we will have a repeat of the results in the 2012 election. An incumbent in an office or position is the one who current holds it (as opposed to some elected or appointed for it, but not yet installed into the position, such as a president-elect or a chair-designate). All Rights Reserved. That may be one reason why it’s not more common for Presidents today to get primary challengers, even though the current system of primaries gives party leaders less power to steer the selection process. You have 3 free articles left. The nomination was still up for grabs when the Republican National Convention started in Kansas City, Mo., but Ford eked out win the day before the convention was supposed to end. [7] Voters who experience the negative economic shock of a loss of income are less likely to vote for an incumbent candidate than those who have not experienced such a shock. When he decided to challenge President George H.W. Candidates didn’t usually have to compete in all of the primaries until party reforms in the early 1970s made primaries (rather than party leaders) key to determining who gets the nomination. inconsequential, insignificant, Opposite of the freedom or will to decide or choose. Synonyms for incumbent in Free Thesaurus. cumbency and elections, incumbent-free contests like those of 2000 and 2008 loom as even-up propositions in terms of either party s probable success. The Northern Democrats had spearheaded the addition of a civil rights plank to the party platform at the 1948 convention, leadin… As TIME reported in the April 12, 1968, article on Johnson dropping out, “So low had Johnson’s popularity sunk, said one Democratic official, that last-minute surveys before the Wisconsin primary gave him a humiliating 12% of the vote there.” But even with Johnson out of the race, his decisions on Vietnam plagued his Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, the eventual nominee. From left: Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and Gerald Ford, on the June 21, 1976, cover of TIME, Michael Evans; Dirck Halstead; Paul Keating, Conservative Republican presidential hopeful Pat Buchanan displaying The New Hampshire, Steve Liss/The LIFE Images Collection—Getty Images, The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election. Someone who wants that position would be a candidate for it, an aspirant to it, or an applicant for it. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our, Dog Thieves Capitalize on Pandemic Pet Demand, Could Trump Lose the Republican Nomination? At least in Biden’s case, though, he won the popular vote — and handily. “New rules make it easier for anyone to run,” says Hans Noel, professor of Government at Georgetown University and co-author of The Party Decides: Presidential Nominations Before and After Reform, “but also created more need for informal pressure for making sure things don’t go awry.”. "Re-election" redirects here. For the five midterms before 2014, in years when voters were less likely to say incumbents deserved to serve another term, the incumbent re-election rate in the U.S. House of Representatives was lower. Near Antonyms for incumbent. However, there exist scenarios in which the incumbency factor itself leads to the downfall of the incumbent. SALEM, Oregon, (Sputnik) - When the Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was kicking off his victory speech, on the opposite side of the United States his most radical black-clad allies hit a police cordon on their march to confront the most violent defenders of Republican incumbent Donald Trump. Subscribe for just $18. For the system used in the English Football League until 1986, see, The examples and perspective in this article, Learn how and when to remove these template messages, Learn how and when to remove this template message, List of current heads of state and government, List of presidents who did not win reelection, "Ideological Signaling and Incumbency Advantage", "France's Presidency Is Too Powerful to Work", Incumbency effects in a comparative perspective: Evidence from Brazilian mayoral elections, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Incumbent&oldid=999811656, Wikipedia indefinitely semi-protected pages, Articles with limited geographic scope from August 2015, Articles needing additional references from August 2015, All articles needing additional references, Articles with multiple maintenance issues, Articles with unsourced statements from November 2019, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 12 January 2021, at 02:25. Tovote "non-incumbent" would mean to vote for the challenger to theincumbent's position. You have 2 free articles left. Here's the History of Primary Challenges to Incumbent Presidents. He believes in some Pax Universalis; we believe in the old Republic. You have a limited number of free articles. At the DNC, he endorsed Carter in a sentence and laid out the Democratic Party’s vision in what TIME called “the speech of his life” in his 2009 obituary. Even though he didn’t win the nomination, he changed the entire state of the race. For most political offices, the incumbent often has more name recognition due to their previous work in the office. In the general election, Democratic Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter ended up winning for, as pundits said, being the opposite of Nixon. In 2014, Florida 2 Rep Steve Sutherland (R) lost the House elections to a Democrat- … which was the slogan of the Poujadist movement in the 1956 French legislative election. The incumbent is the current holder of an office or position, usually in relation to an election. The word "incumbent" is derived from the Latin verb incumbere, literally meaning "to lean or lay upon" with the present participle stem incumbent-, "leaning a variant of encumber,[1] while encumber is derived from the root cumber,[2] most appropriately defined: "To occupy obstructively or inconveniently; to block fill up with what hinders freedom of motion or action; to burden, load."[3]. It would be a mistake, however, to call 2010 an anti-incumbent election because 52 of the 54 defeated House incumbents and all three of the defeated Senate incumbents were Democrats. Party leaders still hold critical sway behind the scenes and can discourage people from running altogether, and, adds Noel, fewer people may be interested in disagreeing with a President from within a party anyway. Oil price increases one year before an election systematically lower the odds of incumbents being re-elected. Learn more. 2 : having the status of an incumbent (see incumbent entry 1) the team's incumbent third baseman especially : occupying a specified office the incumbent mayor. © 2021 TIME USA, LLC. Thank you for reading TIME. Opposite of the act or process of choosing or selecting. For the full story, go here. While President Lyndon B. Johnson won the New Hampshire primary on March 12, 1968, politicos thought he should have beaten radical anti-war Democratic Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota by a larger margin than the seven points with which he pulled it off. On Election Night , Bushnell trailed Fennell by 239 votes, out of a total of 7,171 ballots cast in the Second District race. What is the opposite of Incumbent On? I provided many examples, including a Gallup poll according to which then-Republican candidate Mitt Romney would beat incumbent Democrat Barack Obama 50 percent to 49 percent in 2012. He has challengers in the 2020 Republican primary, most notably, former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld, former South Carolina congressman Mark Sanford and former Illinois congressman Joe Walsh. As a result of this race, both the Democratic and Republican parties made rules changes in the early 1970s that created today’s modern primary-centric nomination process. Any candidate would face trouble securing widespread support. In general, re-election rates of incumbent members of Congress are high, but there are fluctuations in how high. Democratic Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton ended up winning the general election. Only two Republican incumbents lost their seats in 2010 — both in strongly Democratic House districts. Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson ended up winning the Democratic Party nomination, but losing the general election to Eisenhower. He would put America’s wealth and power at the service of some vague New World Order; we will put America first.” On top of that, Buchanan and his supporters felt betrayed by Bush’s having broken his famous campaign pledge, “Read my lips: No new taxes.”. Elections featuring an incumbent, on the other hand, are, as Guy Molyneux puts it, "fundamentally a referendum on the incumbent. Ronald Reagan went on to win the general election, and Carter’s loss made Democratic Party officials think that perhaps they needed to once again have more of a role in choosing the nominee — leading to the introduction of superdelegates as part of the nominating process for the 1984 election.
Importance Of Skill Variety,
President Of Spain,
Bars In Jersey City, Nj,
Rankin Electorate Map,
Buy Firefighter Rose,
Star Trek Next Generation Traveler Episodes,
Pumpkinhead Full Movie 123movies,
Thanksgiving Trifle Friends,
Who Won The 2002 F1 Championship,