Incumbency in 2020

[Mr. Smith]

For:

An actual record vs mere promises

Establishment money

Against:

Defense of a bad record, if record is bad

Keeping base enthused and convinced of threat, because fighting against is easier than fighting for.

[Mr. Smith]

A lot of the 1800's ones declined to even run for re-election in spite of popularity or lack thereof.

[Mr. Smith]

I think another one of the main points here is "better the enemy you know than the one you don't". If both candidates are considered bad, people will probably think, "well, we already survived one term of (insert incumbent here), so we should be able to survive another".

Sure she wasn't an incumbent technically, but by de-facto, we saw last year how that logic turned out for Hillary.