There are many reasons why congressional elections have become less competitive throughout the history of this government – and most, if not all of them, do not seem to be coincidental. The first of these contributions to a diminishing competition is name recognition. When an individual is successful in securing an elected office, it is believed that their name becomes a familiar one that most of their new constituents will be aware of. Although, according to Gary C. Jacobson in his piece The Politics of Congressional Elections, this is not so clear cut. In his bit he references research conducted by the National Election Studies which suggests that most individuals are twice as likely to recognize their incumbent's name (an astounding ninety-percent could recognize their incumbent's name) rather than recall it purely from memory, which he states, "The shift in focus from name recall to name recognition nicely resolves the apparent anomaly of voters favoring incumbents without even knowing who they are" (Jacobson, 123). Nevertheless, this is a minor factor in comparison to others as to why the elections have become less marginal.
While name recognition is a wonderful resource for many incumbents it fails in comparison to the nearly limitless benefits that the office itself brings to the table. Aside from having a personal staff that handles most of their reelection needs, congressman enjoy, " an astonishing array of official resourcesThese include salary, travel, officeand communication allowances that are now, by conservative estimate, worth more than $1 million per year for each House member and up to several times that much for senators" (Jacobson, 36). This brief list does not even include the most powerful weapon in the incumbent's arsenal – their franking privilege (the ability to send mail to constituents at no cost). With these resources at their disposal an incumbent has a much less harder time securing their reelection than a new challenger with no name recognition, staff that is not professionally trained to handle an election, nor the budget size, attempting to take away the seat.
