ELECTORAL CAREER PATTERNS AND INCUMBENCY ADVANTAGE IN THE US HOUSE-OF-REPRESENTATIVES

John Alford and John Hibbing (1981) questioned the thesis of generatio nal replacement that explains the improved incumbency advantage in the U.S. House of Representatives. They presented evidence that improved incumbent performance was uniform across all levels of tenure between 1966 and 1978. Alford and Hibbing found an almost monotonic increase i n non-southern incumbent vote percentage across ail levels of tenure, increasing as tenure increased. Our purpose in this study is to update and elaborate upon the Alford and Hibbing research by examining elect oral margins of House incumbents from 1980 to 1996. Unlike Alford and Hibbing, we examine all House members' (including southern members) vo te percentages to detect whether these patterns maintain throughout th e 1980s and 1990s. We update the data on incumbency advantage through the 1996 elections and compare changes in the South and the non-South. Members from both regions earn large victory margins early in their c areers, but the victories of Southern members are markedly more decisi ve.