Congressional Elections

• Incumbency refers to a person who currently holds political office. This has a very significant impact on elections
• Elections are expensive with average senate campaign costing $10.4 million in 2016, HOR it costs $1 million. Fundraising is easier for incumbents as they are already well recognised, e.g. incumbents in senate raised an average of $12 million compared to $1 million raised by their opponents
• Incumbents already have platforms on social media with wide followings (See AOC with 8 million). They will also already have their own websites with contact information
• Gerrymandering also helps incumbents as the party controlling the state gets to redraw the boundaries every 10 years so they can give themselves the advantage
• Incumbent stats: 115th congress house incumbency rate was 97%, for senate it was 93%. 110th congress it was 94% in house 79% in senate. Suggesting it has gone up.