How much did incumbency help Trump?

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SnowLabrador:
Clearly, the answer is "not quite enough." However, since Trump only barely lost to Biden, many people have said that this proves how hard it is to defeat an incumbent President. However, I don't really understand this narrative.

After all, I can't imagine anyone saying, "I hate Trump, but I'll vote for him because he's currently President." That just doesn't sound like reasoning any sane person would adopt. Then again, this country's pretty insane, but my point still stands.

What do you all think?

Ragnaroni:
Quote from: SnowLabrador on February 03, 2023, 07:56:25 AM

Clearly, the answer is "not quite enough." However, since Trump only barely lost to Biden, many people have said that this proves how hard it is to defeat an incumbent President. However, I don't really understand this narrative.

After all, I can't imagine anyone saying, "I hate Trump, but I'll vote for him because he's currently President." That just doesn't sound like reasoning any sane person would adopt. Then again, this country's pretty insane, but my point still stands.

What do you all think?


Incumbents can get booted out of office if the economy is doing badly, recent examples : Jimmy Carter and George H.W Bush (Hoover was pre-1945 so not "recent" imo). Trump had the whole COVID catastrophe to deal with.

Pres Mike:
Trump had some incumbency advantage. Black and Hispanic men moved towards Trump. This is an example of incumbency advantage because the same thing happened to George W Bush in 2004.

But otherwise no. The typically incumbent sees movment towards him in every demographic. Reagan, Dubya and Clinton did better in every group when they ran for re-election. The ones who didn't were Carter and HW, which they lost. The exception was Obama who did worst with white people.

Trump saw many demographics move away from him. He is probably the first incumbent in modern times to have groups move towards him, others away. Thankfully the groups that moved away from him (suburban women) were more than the groups that moved towards him.

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