Incumbency

The best indication that incumbency gives an advantage to the sitting president is the success rate of those [Page p224]who sought reelection or election in their own right if they had succeeded to the presidency. Of the thirty attempts (including Franklin D. Roosevelt's in 1936, 1940, and 1944) twenty were successful, through and including Bill Clinton's in 1996.

Other recent history, however, has shown that renomination is not inevitable. Harry S. Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George Bush all faced strong challenges when they sought to run again. Truman in 1952 and Johnson in 1968 ultimately decided against seeking renomination, and they are not included in the thirty presidential reelection efforts. Since 1951, when the Twenty-second Amendment was ratified, the second-term incumbent president has been barred from running again. The amendment exempted Truman in 1952, but he chose not to seek a second full term.

If the incumbent appears at all vulnerable, another candidate likely will emerge to contend for the nomination. The decline of party identification and the rise of candidate-centered campaigns and interest groups can make an incumbent appear vulnerable if economic or foreign policy crises develop.

Nevertheless, incumbency offers advantages. The president can dominate media coverage, divert attention from domestic problems with foreign policy initiatives, and make use of budgetary and regulatory powers. So great is the prestige of the office that most party members [Page p225]are reluctant to reject an incumbent. No president since Chester A. Arthur in 1884 has lost a renomination effort at a national party convention.

When it appeared in 1980 that he might become the first president since Arthur to lose the convention vote, Carter embarked on a campaign strategy that overwhelmed challenges by Massachusetts senator Edward M. Kennedy and California governor Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown Jr. Carter won renomination by using the powers of incumbency. He stayed at the White House occupied with the Iranian hostage crisis, trying to appear above the partisan fray. At the same time he was deeply engaged in the primary strategy—persuading southern states to push their primaries to the early part of the schedule.

Incumbents play to the natural reluctance of voters to exchange a known commodity for a newcomer. Their campaign slogans stress stability rather than change. The Carter-Mondale slogan in 1980 was “A Tested and Trustworthy Team.” Similarly, pointing to a healthy economy and peace abroad, Clinton and Vice President Al Gore campaigned on a “don't rock the boat” theme in 1996.

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