Incumbent (Dis)advantage?
Is incumbency truly an advantage in Europeia? Let's find out!
Written by JayDee
“Incumbent advantage” is a word thrown out with some regularity not only in our political simulator, but RL as well. Whether Presidential or General election, incumbency is one factor that some people consider when making predictions for upcoming elections. With election day on the horizon, I decided to investigate this incumbency advantage and find if theory really holds up to our reality. However, due to limitations, I was only able to go as far back as 2014, starting with Kraketopia’s first term as President, which resulted in his re-election to a second.
That trend continued for much of the pre-split era, with the incumbent winning in 5 of 7 elections in which there was a competitor. After Kraketopia, the next to attempt re-election was Writinglegend, who was elected two more times against a competitive field. The first notable outlier here is Calvin Coolidge’s first term as President, where he lost to the very man he replaced, Trinnien. Ironically, Calvin would later be the death knell of two incumbents in the post-merge era. Trinnien would, of course, go on to resign his term making HEM the President, but HEM did not try for another term which paved the way for Writinglegend, who took up the post once again two years after his last departure, winning a second term against Seven Deaths.
Calvin Coolidge would put up another bid a few terms later, winning out against Common-Sense Politics in a heated race, but he would wind up resigning in the middle of the term in favor of Darcness. Darcness would attempt to put up his own bid at the end of the term, but was beaten by a late entry ticket from Writinglegend. While some may argue that Darcness had not originally won the seat and was therefore not an incumbent, I still counted his loss towards the total as he had been sitting in the seat for half a term at that point. It would be another two years before someone secured a second term against a competitor, Sopo would secure the last bid for re-election against a surprisingly resistant Lime/Pichtonia ticket before handing off the reins to Kuramia to take Europeia into the Executive Split era.
The Executive Split was remarkable in that it wasn’t really remarkable at all. Only one incumbent, Rand, even attempted to be re-elected against a competitive field and he lost to Lloenflys quite handily. As a matter of fact, only one Head of Government would serve more than two consecutive terms in either role and their bid for re-election was uncompetitive.
However, any sense of “incumbent advantage” went down the toilet in the post-merge era. It wasn’t from lack of trying, and it certainly wasn’t from lack of popularity either. On the contrary, most of the Presidents who failed to be re-elected enjoyed very high ratings. However, of the 8 re-election bids against a competitor, the incumbent emerged victorious only twice; in Writinglegend’s bid for a second term with Sarah, in which he won against Monkey and Calvin Coolidge and in my own bid for a third term with Vor against Elio and Sincluda. Calvin Coolidge, who himself had been defeated as incumbent after his first term, dealt the killing blow to Pichtonia and Kazaman back-to-back. After Writinglegend’s last term, neither Icarus nor Lloenflys attempted another term as President. However, Rand’s attempt at a second term was infamously stopped by Pland Adanna and Forilian.
Of the 16 re-election attempts in the past 10 years against a crowded field, the incumbent won 7 times or 43.8% of the time. That percentage drops by nearly half for the post-merge to 25% or nearly doubles to 71.4% pre-split. Even if you were to remove SkyGreen’s attempt at re-election following his record Presidency, the percentage rises only to 2 out of 7 times or 28.5%. That brings me to my question. Why?
As previously stated, none of the Presidents who lost re-election in the post-merge were plagued by unpopularity, with perhaps the exception of Darcness - I couldn’t find any polls on his performance but the election polls did not speak kindly. However, that didn’t stop the Panda Spectre, Grumpy Curmudgeon, or Lovable Octopus from dealing a killing blow to a potentially promising president.
Perhaps it’s that Europeia desires something more fresh and new. That was one of the big messages of the previous campaign, bringing in a fresh perspective to help revamp the executive. The whole purpose of the original split was to make it easier for people to achieve higher office while also lowering the burden of the High Executive which had become unmanageable due to executive bloat. Europeia has certainly been more willing to try new things, with ten Europeians being elected to their first term as President post executive split. However, there have been just as many older Presidents as new ones, with Sopo, Calvin, Common-Sense Politics, and Writinglegend dominating much of the post-merge era, serving for 490 days between just the four of them, that’s over 50% of the 945 days since the post-merge.
While numbers alone don’t explain it, every one of those ten first time Presidents either didn’t seek re-election or lost against a more experienced candidate. If you break down the ten Presidents, only nine of them are actually serving as President for the first time with Darcness having previously ascended after Calvin resigned. Only six of them are serving as a Head of Government for the first time, with Rand, Lloenflys, and Pichtonia having previously served as First Minister/Chief of State. Of those remaining six, only one, Kazaman, attempted re-election and they were handily defeated by Calvin Coolidge. While Kazaman was a new President, they were far from what we’d call a “fresh face,” having been around since the days of the Monarchy. Calvin Coolidge was hardly any fresher, considering he is now in the top three for Total Days as Head of Government. Only one of those ten lost to a truly “fresh face,” and that was Rand.
Perhaps then, it’s a term plagued by missteps and misfortune. Inactivity and scandals have long been deathblows to promising careers, and any mistake is exaggerated a hundred-fold in the upper echelons of power. Pichtonia and Rand were both unseated following scandals which occurred late into their terms. Darcness and Kazaman both faced harsh criticism for how they handled their term and saw a lot of pushback for broken promises. This theory holds a bit more water than the previous one, but Europeian have always been rather punitive towards missteps even before the executive split. Why would it be so much worse now, to see such a significant drop in the rate of re-election?
Perhaps it is then, that there simply is no trend, but rather a series of unfortunate events. First Minister McEntire losing out against the more popular Sopo. A popular President Pichtonia unseated by a late entry bringing a spark to an otherwise boring election. A President Kazaman facing pushback for broken promises unseated by a steady yet reliable and experienced candidate. A slow, dull Darcness campaign washed away by the energy of a candidate who had been keeping his eye on the Goldenblock since he last departed it nine years prior. A Rand campaign mired by scandal and RL facing a heated opponent who had the heart and drive to win.
However, I think there’s another variable at play here that I intentionally ignored until now - uncompetitive elections. When putting the numbers together, I ignored any election in which there wasn’t a competitor who was running against the incumbent, but perhaps I should have. An uncompetitive election can often mean that either the region is sufficiently happy with the incumbent that no one is willing to stand against them or that there’s simply no one available to run against them. In either case, it meant that the sitting President had done enough to not draw the ire of the populace who would turn to anything to toss them out. Even in the five elections pre-split where the incumbent was elected against a competitor, only one could truly be classified as properly competitive with Lime(Punchwood) and Pichtonia putting up what many remarked to be a surprisingly formidable fight.
That stands in rather stark contrast to post-merge, where competitive and spirited elections have become more of a regularity. Only twice has a candidate won against an open field and again that’s Writinglegend and myself. Hell I even recently lost against an open field, so Europeians are very fond of their competitive election. Even the two elections pre-split where the incumbent lost mirror some of the post-merge elections, an incumbent running in a seemingly boring election before being uprooted by a late and more experienced candidate which shattered the field. Calvin and Darcness were victims to this by Trinnien and Writinglegend respectively, with Calvin pulling a similar maneuver on Pichtonia. It would seem the existence of a properly competitive election in of itself can often be seen as an indictment of the sitting President’s term, which would inevitably skew the numbers against them.
So, Incumbent Advantage or Disadvantage? Well, perhaps it’s neither, and yet perhaps it’s both. You represent stability and experience, but everything you do is put under a microscope and studied extensively. Incumbency simply gives you exposure, what you do with it is what makes it an advantage or disadvantage.
