Who’d be a congressional challenger these days? Only the most
naïve candidate or fervent partisan could interpret the 2002
midterm results as anything other than a giant “Help NOT Wanted”
sign stationed atop the Capitol’s steps.
The incumbent reelection rate last November was 98.5 percent.
Only four incumbents lost their seats to non-incumbent challengers.
Not only do incumbents win more often than they used to do, but
they win by increasingly wide margins. In the 2002 election, the
average winning margin of a successful House candidate was an
imposing 30 percent.
The latest round of campaign finance regulation will only make
the problem worse. Instead of deregulating the system to allow
unrestricted donations to come to the aid of under-financed
challengers, the provisions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act
of 2002 (read: McCain-Feingold) prescribe a new limit on hard money
donations that is worth 40 percent less, in real terms, than the
limit enacted back in 1974.
And, boy, do challengers need more money. A review of the 2002
candidates’ campaign finance reports filed with the Federal
Election Commission reveals a glaring, and growing, disparity
between incumbents and challengers, irrespective of
partisanship.
In 1994, the average Democratic challenger was out-raised by a
ratio of 8 to 1 by the average Republican incumbent. By 2002, the
disparity — Democratic challenger to GOP incumbent — stood at 13
to 1. Eight years ago, the average Republican challenger found
himself out-raised by a 10 to 1 ratio by the average Democratic
incumbent. That ratio is now 18 to 1. Furthermore, of the 50
richest House campaigns in 2002, only two belonged to
challengers.
Considerable blame lies with contribution limits. Contribution
limits ensure an uneven campaign-playing field. They greatly reduce
the likelihood that a challenger will successfully oust an
incumbent because it’s difficult for a challenger to oust an
incumbent unless the former spends at least as much as — and
probably more than — the latter during the campaign. Only by
accepting and spending large sums can a challenger develop the
levels of name recognition, issue identification, and voter
mobilization to catch up with the years of subsidized campaigning
and pork barrel spending that characterize an incumbent’s terms in
office.
Incumbency is now so entrenched that many voters lack any real
say in who represents them. Incumbents share a semi-perpetual
easement on their seats that more nearly resembles hereditary
entitlement than the competitive politics we associate with a
democracy.
The next election is only 20 months away. Alas, due to the
over-regulation of politics, the next competitive election isn’t
even visible on the horizon.
