The study, released this month by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, analyzed data from more than 50,000 elections in 16 states between 2002 and 2017. For each contest, researchers examined whether an incumbent ran, whether they won, whether the race was contested, and the margin of victory.
He conducted the study alongside Stéphane Lavertu at Ohio State, and Zachary Peskowitz at Emory University. The findings also indicate that voters are not persuaded to remove incumbents based on the district’s academic performance, a concept known as “retrospective voting,” Kogan added.