In most congressional elections, the incumbent has a huge advantage, as reelection rates for incumbents are around 90%. Usually, incumbents try to be fairly passive and maintain their lead, while the challenger must be very aggressive in order to gain a similar level of name recognition. In Arizona’s 1st District, it seems as though the roles have been reversed. Democrat incumbent Ann Kirkpatrick has challenged Republican Paul Gosar to five debates, yet he has backed out of all of them. In a race where the incumbent has fallen very hard in the polls, Gosar just needs to protect his lead and I believe he will come away with the victory on Tuesday.
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| Kirkpatrick has not taken advantage of her incumbency |
According to Paul Herrnson’s book Congressional Elections, “the big leads most incumbents enjoy at the beginning of the election season make defending those leads the major objective of their campaigns. Incumbent campaigns usually focus more on reinforcing and mobilizing existing bases of support than on winning new ones.” It appears Kirkpatrick has done a pretty bad job of defending her huge lead, and now she is on the offensive, challenging Gosar to public debates, in an effort to change the public’s mind on the Republican challenger.
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| This should be Gosar on Election Day |
According to blogforarizona.com, Gosar has backed out of all five debates, a very strange strategy for a challenger. Herrnson points out that challengers usually need to have the aggressive campaigns, in order to build name recognition and give voters reason to support them. It appears that Gosar has been so successful at doing so far, and he does not want to do anything to hurt his chances. According to a blog on thehill.com, Democrats have been complaining that Republicans are trying to “run out the clock” for this election season. The blog points out that, “Many Republican challengers hold slender leads in the polls and don't want to put themselves in situations — exchanges with reporters, debates — where that could be jeopardized.” This seems to be Gosar’s current strategy, and based on recent polls, he will enjoy victory in this election.
That's very interesting that Gosar did not take up Kirkpatrick on her debate offers, a very "incumbent-like" move. What do you think it was about Gosar's earlier campaign moves that led him to achieve the name recognition needed for challengers and allowed him the flexibility to "run the clock" in the final weeks. While the district is "leaning republican" (http://elections.nytimes.com/2010/house/arizona/1), if Gosar does not pull through with a victory, I wonder if he will regret no taking the opportunity to debate.
ReplyDeleteDo you think Gosar thought that the debates would hurt him and therefor chose to not accept Kirkpatricks challenges? Because he is new to the political scene perhaps he thought he would not be able to stand up to a politican-esque performance.
ReplyDeleteThat is a very good point to bring up GH. It is very odd that Gosar has backed out of all the debates Kirkpatrick has challenged him to and may raise some eyebrows from the district. While it may be to "run the clock" i feel this campaign move may reflect poorly on Gosar and just shows that Kirkpatrick is determined to win the seat in the House. But as the polls show Gosar must have been doing something right if he overtook Kirkpatrick's aggressive attempts to draw him out and won the campaign.
ReplyDeleteSeems to me like Gosar's strategy of turning the other cheek to Kirkpatrick's attacks and debates was a genius idea. Republicans across the country were well aware of voters' tendency to jump on the bandwagon. What Gosar did in this race was what many of his fellow Republicans who are now Representative-elects did; sit back and let the Democrats make fools of no one but themselves by blabbering their way out of office. Gosar's 'incumbent-like' behavior speaks volumes about his knowledge political trends; he was apparently very confident that the promises of conventional wisdom would be fulfilled.
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