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"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
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The Myth of the Incumbent 50% Rule
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Issue
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| Contributor | RP |
| Last Edited | RP Feb 25, 2010 12:00pm |
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| Category | Analysis |
| Author | Nate Silver |
| News Date | Thursday, February 25, 2010 02:05:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | 1) It is extremely common for an incumbent come back to win re-election while having less than 50 percent of the vote in early polls.
2) In comparison to early polls, there is no demonstrable tendency for challengers to pick up a larger share of the undecided vote than incumbents.
3) Incumbents almost always get a larger share of the actual vote than they do in early polls (as do challengers). They do not "get what they get in the tracking"; they almost always get more.
4) However, the incumbent's vote share in early polls may in fact be a better predictor of the final margin in the race than the opponent's vote share. That is, it may be proper to focus more on the incumbent's number than the opponent's when evaluating such a poll -- even though it is extremely improper to assume that the incumbent will not pick up any additional percentage of the vote.
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