From what I’ve read the reason primaries aren’t done on incumbents is because every single time it’s been tried the incumbent lost the actual election and the seat went to the other party.
It’s not a thing that happens often, but as far as I can find every single time the incumbent president has had someone try to primary them, the incumbent’s entire party lost the seat.
I mean, in the current system if there’s enough desire from within the party to push to primary the incumbent president, they were already pretty unpopular.
It’s not the primary that’s causing them to lose, it’s that the party had thought a primary was even necessary because they were already likely going to lose.
My assumption is that primary related mud slinging depresses enthusiasm among the public for the incumbent, combined with attempts at it only being made when the incumbent is relatively unpopular anyway.
From what I’ve read the reason primaries aren’t done on incumbents is because every single time it’s been tried the incumbent lost the actual election and the seat went to the other party.
? If incumbent wins the primary its the same as if they didn’t have one but at least the party members chose.
primaries are separate by party.
It’s not a thing that happens often, but as far as I can find every single time the incumbent president has had someone try to primary them, the incumbent’s entire party lost the seat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_challenge
I mean, in the current system if there’s enough desire from within the party to push to primary the incumbent president, they were already pretty unpopular.
It’s not the primary that’s causing them to lose, it’s that the party had thought a primary was even necessary because they were already likely going to lose.
interesting. maybe a spread in focus leads to loss.
My assumption is that primary related mud slinging depresses enthusiasm among the public for the incumbent, combined with attempts at it only being made when the incumbent is relatively unpopular anyway.