Political Incumbency

While many books detail how senators and representatives operate in Washington, this one describes how they stay in power. The congressional elections of 1998 were the most expensive in history. Incumbency reelection rates were 98.3 percent in the House and 89.7 percent in the Senate, and this was a typical outcome after Watergate-era campaign "reforms" supposedly reduced the influence of money in politics. From the unique vantage of credible citizen-candidates who ran against congressional incumbents from Massachusetts to Hawaii during the 1990s, Against Long Odds tackles the question of why incumbents nearly always win.

This book is an examination of the central role of incumbency in the televised world of American presidential elections and analyzes how an individual incumbent, Bill Clinton, influenced the recurring and predictable patterns of televised news in ways that secured his reelection.

The 2000 presidential election marked the fourth time since 1960 when a president retired and his party nominated his leading surrogate, the vice president, as potential successor. Dover explains why television-age vice presidents win nominations and shows what they have to do to win the general election. He applies that model to the leading events of the 2000 campaign and shows why Gore lost.

The U.S. House of Representatives vastly overrepresents white males and underrepresents "minorities" and women. This essay collection examines the causes of the unrepresentative character of the House and analyzes reform possibilities, including alternative electoral systems, enlargement of the House, term limits, a new election campaign finance system, and more effective regulation of campaign contributions and expenditures.

"Vermeer's competently edited volume fills a void in the literature by focusing on mass media in congressional elections. . . . The project is well executed. The quality of the articles varies, but overall this edited collection is important because it addresses a topic which has not been covered very well." Choice

The 1994 elections represented a watershed year for southern Republicans. For the first time since Reconstruction, they gained control of a majority of national seats and governorships. Yet, despite these impressive gains, southern Republicans control only three of twenty-two state legislative chambers and 37 percent of state legislative seats. Joseph A. Aistrup addresses why this divergence between the national and subnational levels persists even after GOP national landslides in 1972, 1980, 1984, 1988, and 1994.

This timely study examines the increasing importance of the Sunbelt and its "megastates"--Florida, California, and Texas--in the U.S. election process. The purpose of the work is to provide a longitudinal analysis of partisan and gender election success and incumbency in the elections of 1986, 1988, 1992, and the "realignment" of 1994 (bringing up to date some of the classic studies from the 1970s and 1980s). In tracing the pattern of partisan success, the effect of incumbency, and the success of males and females in each party, the author is able to project the likely success of the two parties in the 1996 and subsequent elections in each megastate. This important election-year book will be of interest to scholars, students, and practitioners of politics.