The incumbent, in politics

Politics

Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

, is the existing holder of a political office. This term is usually used in reference to election

Election

An election is a formal decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy operates since the 17th century. Elections may fill offices in the legislature, sometimes in the...

s, in which races can often be defined as being between an incumbent and non-incumbent(s). For example, in the 2004 United States presidential election, George W. Bush

George W. Bush

George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

 was the incumbent, because he was the president in the current term while the election sought to determine the president for the following term. A race without an incumbent is referred to as an open seat.

Etymology

The word "incumbent" is derived from the Latin verb incumbere, literally meaning "to lean or lay upon" with the present participle stem incumbent-, "leaning a variant of encumber, while encumber is derived from the root cumber, most appropriately defined: "4. To occupy obstructively or inconveniently; to block fill up with what hinders freedom of motion or action; to burden, load."

Politics

In general, incumbents have structural advantages over challengers during election

Election

An election is a formal decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy operates since the 17th century. Elections may fill offices in the legislature, sometimes in the...

s. The timing of elections may be determined by the incumbent instead of a set schedule. For most political offices, the incumbent often has more name recognition

Name recognition

Name recognition is a concept used in politics to describe the number of people who are aware of a politician. It is considered an important factor in elections, as candidates with low name recognition are unlikely to receive votes from people who only casually follow politics. Name recognition is...

 due to their previous work in the office. Incumbents also have easier access to campaign finance

Campaign finance

Campaign finance refers to all funds that are raised and spent in order to promote candidates, parties or policies in some sort of electoral contest. In modern democracies such funds are not necessarily devoted to election campaigns. Issue campaigns in referendums, party activities and party...

, as well as government resources (such as the franking privilege) that can be indirectly used to boost a campaign. An election (especially for a legislature

Legislature

A legislature is a kind of deliberative assembly with the power to pass, amend, and repeal laws. The law created by a legislature is called legislation or statutory law. In addition to enacting laws, legislatures usually have exclusive authority to raise or lower taxes and adopt the budget and...

) in which no incumbent is running is often called an open seat; because of the lack of incumbency advantage, these are often amongst the most hotly-contested races in any election.

In the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, incumbents traditionally win their party's

Political party

A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...

 nomination to run for office. Unseating an incumbent president, senator or other figure during a primary election

Primary election

A primary election is an election in which party members or voters select candidates for a subsequent election. Primary elections are one means by which a political party nominates candidates for the next general election....

 is very difficult, and even in the general election, incumbents have a very strong record. For instance, the percentage of incumbents who win reelection after seeking it in the U.S. House of Representatives has been over 80% for over 50 years, and is often over 90%.. However, this rate may be artificially inflated, as incumbents that feel unlikely to win may decline to run for reelection. Additionally, shifts in congressional districts due to reapportionment

Apportionment (politics)

Apportionment is the process of allocating political power among a set of principles . In most representative governments, political power has most recently been apportioned among constituencies based on population, but there is a long history of different approaches.The United States Constitution,...

 or other longer-term factors may make it more or less likely for an incumbent to win re-election over time. For example, a Democratic

Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

 incumbent in historically conservative

Conservatism

Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...

 rural Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

 would have less chance of winning than a Democratic incumbent in historically liberal

Liberalism

Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

 New York City, because Texas has shifted away from the Democratic Party in terms of voting while New York City has shifted toward the same party (see also Congressional stagnation in the United States

Congressional stagnation in the United States

Congressional stagnation is an American political theory that attempts to explain the high rate of incumbency re-election to the United States House of Representatives. In recent years this rate has been well over 90 per cent, with rarely more than 5-10 incumbents losing their House seats every...

).

However, there exist scenarios in which the incumbency factor itself leads to the downfall of the incumbent. Popularly known as the anti-incumbency factor

Anti-incumbency

An anti-incumbent vote is one exercised against elected officials currently in power. It allows the voters to register their discontent with sitting government officials, particularly when protesting against certain actions taken by the government or the elected officials in question.-See...

, situations of this kind occur when the incumbent has proven himself not worthy of office during his tenure and the challenger demonstrates this fact to the voters. An anti-incumbency factor can also be responsible for bringing down incumbents who have been in office for many successive terms in spite of performance indicators, simply because the voters are convinced by the challenger of a need for change.

When newcomers vie to fill an open office, voters tend to compare and contrast the candidates' qualifications, issues positions and personal characteristics in a relatively straightforward way. Elections featuring an incumbent, on the other hand, are as Guy Molyneux puts it, "fundamentally a referendum on the incumbent." Voters will first grapple with the record of the incumbent. Only if they decide to "fire" the incumbent do they begin to evaluate whether the challenger is an acceptable alternative. At the same time, if the challenger is determined to be wholly unacceptable, voters might reluctantly vote for the incumbent.

Business

In business the term "incumbent" is used for the largest company in a certain industry, for instance the traditional phone company in telecommunications, typically called the "incumbent operator". In a sales process, such as public tender, incumbent may also refer to the vendor that has the largest existing commercial relationship with the issuer of the tender.

In large corporations it is the incumbent who is the holder of an office, or one that occupies a particular position.

See also

• Lists of office-holders
• List of current heads of state and government
• Outgoing president
  Outgoing president
  An outgoing president is a president or, generally, other head of state or government when he holds office between the election of his successor and the inauguration by which that successor assumes power....