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I am convinced that the #1 problem in this country right now is the notion that having a primary challenger is somehow a sign of weakness. Yes, even more important than the creeping fascism, because it directly enables it. Even the opposition may be inclined to keep the creeping fascism creeping along if it guarantees they can keep their job.
The House, in particular, is meant to be the body that is most responsive to the people, because they are theoretically accountable to them every two years. But if you are in a heavily gerrymandered district, and can ensure that you never see a Primary challenge, then it is essentially a lifetime appointment.
I don't particularly mind if there folks keep their jobs into their 70's, as long as they really are the best person for that district. But if they never get any meaningful primary challenge how would we know?
I mean, I'd argue the absolute lack of participation in primaries is the problem. In general complaining but doing nothing is the problem.
Yeah, having a primary challenge, and winning, is a sign of strength. Not having a challenge is, at best, just a sign of nothing. It's possibly a sign of weakness, if you used your power to prevent a challenge.
Part of the problem is that everything is seniority based. So even if some new upstart may better represent the will of their district, they won't be able to accomplish anything when compared to the person who's been in Congress for 30+ years.
AOC did it.
And Max Frost.
That is correct coupled with how everything is gamified and that it’s statistically more like for an incumbent to win. Game theory, while a valid field of study, has really fucked us over
Because Congress and Senate should have 2 term limits. These old cunts just look after themselves.
In a true democracy, shouldn't the people be able to elect someone to office as much as they want? How is reelecting an unworthy candidate not a failing of the voters? Ancient democracies didn't have term limits.
I'd argue recall elections should be possible for every elected office.
The term limit is the election. Or should be anyway.
Not in a corrupt system where politicians buy votes with more power they get as they get older in office. Some of these assholes die of old age in office and people still want to elect them.
Then you ha e a stupid voter problem
This is a myth lacking citations to proper research.
Campaign spending[^research] has diminishing marginal returns: past making a voter aware of a candidate or an issue, it doesn't do much. It's not the decisive factor in a partisan, general election, where party affiliation & incumbency matter more. The relation between campaign finances & election outcomes is correlation rather than causation. Donors contribute to candidates likelier to win, and wealthy donors contribute large sums to improve their access to the winner.
In major elections where the voters already know the candidates pretty well, advertisement money is mostly wasted. An advertisement is unlikely to cause a voter to flip parties.
Money matters more in primary races & local elections full of unknown candidates lacking an incumbent. There, ads help raise awareness of candidates & issues voters hadn't known about. Multiple candidates of the same party may run, so party affiliation isn't decisive, and advertising matters more.
[^research]: notice the research the article cites
If buying votes were that easy wouldn't you just need money?
Seems like your bog-standard millionaire could buy an office if that was the mechanism.
Sort of.
In 2020, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, 89.1% of House candidates and 69.7% of Senate candidates that outspent their opponents won their elections. In 2016, 95.4% of top spending House candidates and 85.3% of top spending Senate candidates won.
I mean, it's absolutely a sign of weakness - which is to say, it's a sign that the incumbent isn't popular. The institutional response to an incumbent's unpopularity is to mask it by forcing rivals out of the primary process (as with Biden going uncontested in '24).
In 1803, a single House Rep had a district of about 34,000 people. In 1903, a district held 193,167 people. In 1953, 334,587 people. In 2023, 761,169 people. These seats weren't great at representing large-ish constituencies 220 years ago. They're absolutely dogshit at it now. Members exist to represent the party on behalf of local party members not the people of the district. In many cases, a Rep is explicitly antagonistic towards minority members of their district in an attempt to curry favor with the majority.
The two year window is not about direct accountability to the district nearly so much as it is direct accountability towards the donor class that sponsors their campaigns. And the near-continuous need to fundraise in order to cover the cost of advertising and self-promotion within the district has turned House Reps into patronage positions of the most servile sort.
The problem with primaries, in the modern political equation, is that they drive up the cost for donors to hold any single seat. And for parties to control a House majority (as non-incumbents are more vulnerable to a seat flip).
So suppressing primaries, suppressing voter turnout, and suppressing opposition parties through gerrymandering are - at the end of the day - cost control measures for national parties and corporate interests.
They're the best because at that age they've proven themselves to be unfailingly loyal. This is, again, an issue of cost control and risk mitigation. Nobody who has been in the Senate for 50 years is going to pitch any curveballs. Nobody who has climbed to the top of the ladder in their House Committee is going to deviate far from their proven ideology.
Unlike with freshmen who can waffle erratically from their original campaign pledges (see: Fetterman and Sinema, for instance) the 70 year old multi-election incumbent - a la Chuck Schumer or Diane Feinstein - is very predictable.
It doesn't have to be, though. Even framing it this way is kind of playing into the DNC's hand on this matter. A primary just means that other people think they could do a better job of it than the incumbent, for whatever reason. It could be that the incumbent is unpopular, but it could also be that the challenger brings a new perspective or new knowledge to the table that makes them more suitable to hold the office. It could just be someone who wasn't eligible to run in the previous election for that position, but they are now.
Vanity campaigns are consistently the worst