Incumbency, National Conditions, and the 2012 Presidential Election
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6101545 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Thomas M Holbrook (0000-0002-9637-5768, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 45 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 640-643 |
| Publication date | 2012-10-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | PS Political Science & Politics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1049-0965 • E-ISSN: 1537-5935 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s1049096512000923 |
| OpenAlex | W2915500135 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 13 |
| References cited | 13 |
Although research at other levels of elected office has shown that incumbency has a powerful, additive effect on votes (Hogan 2004; Jacobson 2009; Krebs 1998), these effects largely have been ignored in presidential forecasting models (but see Abramowitz 2008). Instead, some scholars speculate about the conditional effects of incumbency; specifically, the decreased applicability of the retrospective model when the president is not on the ticket leaving the somewhat-harder-to-blame-or-reward vice president to represent the administration. The difficult-to-predict 2000 presidential election generated some discussion on this point. Although I and others argued (Campbell 2001; Holbrook 2001; Wlezien 2001) that part of the explanation for the forecasting error in 2000 lies with Al Gore's failure to embrace the Bill Clinton-Al Gore record and reinforce retrospective voting, others indicate that the retrospective cue may generally be weaker when the president is not on the ticket (Campbell 2001; Lewis-Beck and Tien 2001; Nadeau and Lewis-Beck 2001). Indeed, Campbell (2001; 2008) argues in favor of only giving half weight to presidential performance variables when the vice president, rather than president, is representing the incumbent administration. The logic here is simple: absent the president on the ticket, it is more difficult to frame the election as a referendum, leading voters to attach less weight to incumbency-oriented considerations. This is not to say that factors such as presidential approval and economic performance are unimportant when incumbents do not run, only that these factors might matter less
Blame · Economics · Hogan · Law and economics · Political science · Politics · Presidential election · Presidential system · Referendum · Sociology · Ticket · Voting · Computer Science · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Fiscal Policies and Political Economy · Law · Legal and Constitutional Studies · Psychology · Social Psychology
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| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2013 - 2024 (12) |
| Highly cited | No |