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The incumbent, in politics, is the existing holder of a political office. This term is usually used in reference to elections, 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 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[link]

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,^[1] while encumber is derived from the root cumber,^[2] most appropriately defined: "4. To occupy obstructively or inconveniently; to block fill up with what hinders freedom of motion or action; to burden, load."^[3]

Politics[link]

In general, incumbents have structural advantages over challengers during elections. 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 due to their previous work in the office. Incumbents also have easier access to campaign finance, 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) 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, incumbents traditionally win their party's nomination to run for office. Unseating an incumbent president, senator or other figure during a primary 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%.^[4] 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 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 incumbent in historically conservative rural Texas would have less chance of winning than a Democratic incumbent in historically liberal 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).

However, there exist scenarios in which the incumbency factor itself leads to the downfall of the incumbent. Popularly known as the anti-incumbency factor, 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. Nick Panagakis, a pollster, coined what he dubbed the "incumbent rule" in 1989--that any voter who claims to be undecided towards the end of the election will probably end up voting for the challenger^[5].

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."^[6] 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[link]

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[link]

• Lists of office-holders
• List of current heads of state and government
• Outgoing president

Notes[link]

References[link]

Politics portal

• Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989. Print.

Michael Lind (born April 23, 1962 in Austin, Texas) is an American writer. Currently Lind is Policy Director of the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C., Editor of New American Contract and its blog Value Added, and a columnist for Salon magazine. Lind was a guest lecturer at Harvard Law School^[1] and has taught at Johns Hopkins and Virginia Tech. He has been an editor or staff writer at The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, The New Republic and The National Interest.^{[citation needed]} Lind has published a number of books on U.S. history, political economy, foreign policy and politics as well as fiction, poetry and children’s literature.

Life[link]

A fifth-generation native of Texas, Lind graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with honors in English and History (Plan II). In 1985 he received an MA in International Relations from Yale University and a JD from the University of Texas Law School in 1988. Lind moved to Washington, where after working as Assistant to the Director of the U.S. State Department’s Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs in 1990-91 he became Executive Editor of The National Interest from 1991-94. From 1994-98 he lived in Manhattan and worked for Harper’s Magazine, The New Republic and The New Yorker. In 1998 he became Washington Editor of Harper’s Magazine and moved to Washington, where in the same year he, Sherle Schwenninger and Walter Russell Mead co-founded the New America Foundation with Ted Halstead, with whom Lind co-authored The Radical Center: The Future of American Politics.^[2]

Work[link]

Lind has examined and defended the tradition of American democratic nationalism associated with Alexander Hamilton in a series of books, including The Next American Nation (1995), Hamilton’s Republic (1997), What Lincoln Believed (2004) and Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States (2012). Lind has also written two books on U.S. foreign policy, The American Way of Strategy (2006) and Vietnam: The Necessary War (1999). A former neoconservative in the tradition of New Deal liberalism, Lind criticized the American Right in Up From Conservatism: Why the Right is Wrong for America (1996) and Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics (2004). Lind has also published a novel, Powertown (1996), a narrative poem, The Alamo (1997), and a children’s book, Bluebonnet Girl (2004).

Bibliography[link]

• The Next American Nation: The New Nationalism and the Fourth American Revolution, Free Press, 1995
• Up From Conservatism: Why the Right is Wrong for America, Free Press, 1996
• Powertown, HarperCollins, 1996
• The Alamo: An Epic, Houghton Mifflin, 1997
• Hamilton's Republic: Readings in the American Democratic Nationalist Tradition, Free Press, 1997 (editor)
• Vietnam: The Necessary War: A Reinterpretation of America's Most Disastrous Military Conflict, Free Press, 1999
• The Radical Center: The Future of American Politics, Doubleday, 2001 (co-authored with Ted Halstead)
• When You Are Someone Else, Aralia Press, 2002
• Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics, Basic Books, 2002
• Bluebonnet Girl, Henry Holt, 2004
• What Lincoln Believed: The Values and Convictions of America’s Greatest President, Doubleday, 2005
• The American Way of Strategy: U.S. Foreign Policy and The American Way of Life, Oxford University Press, 2006
• Parallel Lives Etruscan Press, 2007
• Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States, HarperCollins, 2012

References[link]

External links[link]

• Michael Lind Biography
• TNR article: For a New Nationalism, by Lind and John Judis (article 10 of 27)
• Video interviews/discussions involving Michael Lind on Bloggingheads.tv
• New America Economic Growth Program
• Value Added Blog

Suzanne Prentice is a country singer in New Zealand. Much respected icon in New Zealand for talented leadership in educational field with young people via music,numerous recordings worldwide. She stood as a candidate for the 2010 mayoral elections in Invercargill.^[1] but was unsuccessful.

See also[link]

• Music of New Zealand
• New Zealand local elections, 2010
• Invercargill mayoral election, 2010

References[link]

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