Official
An office holder is the holder of a public office , especially an electoral office.
In democratic elections, it is usually assumed that the incumbent has an office bonus ( e.g. chancellor bonus ), that is, the approval of his person and / or his party is greater than if he did not hold the office. This is metaphorically sometimes compared to a home game in sport.
Even the electoral privileges of the incumbent are sometimes quite large, depending on the country and position taken. In some countries, the prime minister can decide when to vote. This offers the possibility of setting a favorable election date. The mass media also contribute to an advantage for the incumbent: The incumbent has more opportunities to be present in the media with his official acts and is therefore usually much better known than his competitors. Usually he can actually use part of the resources of his office in the election campaign.
In democratic elections, incumbents usually have a much easier time asserting themselves within the party and thus being able to stand for re-election, while challengers usually first have to make a name for themselves in their own political camp. Acting Chancellors or Prime Ministers are usually automatically considered the party's top candidate. In internal party primaries, such as the primaries in the US , it is very difficult to defeat an incumbent president , governor or senator . Most of the time, the incumbents receive no or only very weak opponents, while the challengers already have to campaign actively against internal party candidates.
Election research has shown that the advantages of incumbent status actually have a positive effect on the incumbent's share of the vote. In Germany, both the incumbent of a constituency and his party - within the framework of the second share of votes - receive an increase in votes (incumbent bonus) of around 1 to 1.5 percentage points.
Individual evidence
- ↑ In the novel "Chancellor Bonus", the author Johannes Goettsche satirically twisted this election-sociological observation into the opposite: A tired chancellor collapses in the Bundestag. Because the opposition is not supposed to benefit from this weakness, his team is sending him to Thuringia to relax until the upcoming election. Nobody there recognizes him - at least he does not enjoy any chancellor bonus with these voters. In the meantime, careerists in Berlin are forging plans not to rely on the chancellor bonus, but on another chancellor. The fictional chancellor has only one choice: of all things, to bring those brave citizens, such as the thrifty housewife and the local innkeeper, who did not even know him, into his cabinet. Conclusion of the insider author, who works in a ministry during the day: Only the populist has the last bonus. See Johannes Goetsche (pseudonym) / Klaus Paffrath: Kanzlerbonus, Nachttischbuch-Verlag, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-93755-013-8
- ↑ Jens Hainmüller , Holger Lutz Kern, Michael M. Bechtel (2006): Constituency work pays off twice - On the effect of the incumbent status of a party on its share of the second vote in the federal elections from 1949 to 1998 , in: Thomas Bräuninger , Joachim Behnke (ed.): Yearbook for Action and Decision Theory 4 (2006), pp. 11–45. Opladen: Leske + Budrich ( available online on the University of Konstanz website ).
