The Incumbency Advantage

It is common knowledge that it is hard to unseat an incumbent president. That's a big reason why the Republican field was rather weak this year. A lot of the biggest names in the party were keeping their powder dry for 2016. It remains one of the strongest arguments for pessimism among Republicans this year.

But is it true? It is true enough for the House, and for the Senate, but for the Presidency? We may be misled here by assumption. Perhaps the official stats do not, indeed, reflect the reality. Officially, through the postwar years, ten presidents have run for reelection, and seven have been re-elected. But that's not the whole story.

Hang down your head, Tom Dewey...

Nominally, Harry Truman was re-elected. Once. Barely. (This was technically not a re-election, but the first time anyone voted for him for president.) But constitutionally, in those days, he could have run again, and did not. Why? Because in his estimation, he could not have been reelected. He arguably belongs in the other column. 

Technically, retired undefeated.

LBJ would not show up on a list of presidents defeated for re-election, but really, one can argue he was defeated in his own party's primaries in 1968. He pulled out, apparently, to avoid the shame of losing the nomination, never mind the election to follow. Like Truman, he really belongs in the other column.

So our more realistic tally is: 5 presidents defeated for re-election; 5 presidents re-elected.

Really, the odds are not all that bad. Straight-up even money. In other words, incumbents have no advantage.

On the other hand, historically, if a sitting president is going to run into trouble getting reelected, the trouble tends to show up first within his own party. Obama has seen none of that.