The Grateful Electorate: Casework and Congressional Elections

Paradigms can be very valuable for scholars. Sustained research efforts can be devoted to questions and analyses that ultimately do little to increase the readers understanding of phenomena. Embracing the conclusion that incumbents are safer, and adopting the paradigm David R. Mayhew suggested resulted in a great deal of normal science that has not produced much of an increase in knowledge of incumbent fortunes. The discipline could have benefited from more critical consideration of whether incumbents are better off. The embracing of Mayhew's puzzle and his framework has had other effects. Incumbents have tremendous advantages over challengers in visibility. Many incumbents have been operating in a shifting political context. The intriguing question is how have incumbents fared as the political inclinations of districts and states shifted. Mayhew posited that they were single-minded seekers of …