Incumbency, Campaign Spending, and the Decline of Competition in U.S. House Elections

The 1986 and 1988 U.S. House elections set all-time records for reelection of incumbents. This paper proposes and tests a comprehensive model of House election outcomes and uses this model to explain competition for House seats. The results indicate that the extraordinarily low level of competition in recent House elections is directly attributable to two trends which affected these elections during the 1980s: the increasing cost of House campaigns and the declining ability of House challengers to raise campaign funds. After controlling for inflation, a dollar of campaign spending in 1984 or 1986 yielded a much lower rate of electoral return for House challengers than a dollar of campaign spending in 1974 or 1976. In addition, between 1980 and 1988, average spending by House challengers declined by more than 30% in real dollars. Public financing of campaigns could increase competition for House seats, but only if a very high level of funding was provided.