Incumbency advantages in the Canadian Parliament

Abstract

Abstract We apply a regression discontinuity approach to determine incumbency advantages in the Canadian Parliament, finding that incumbents enjoy a 9.4–11.2% increased probability of winning over non‐incumbents. Owing to the presence of multiple parties, an incumbency advantage in terms of vote share does not always translate to an increased probability of winning, because incumbents do not necessarily obtain votes from their closest opponent. Also, under the assumption that strategic exit is not an issue, we are able to split the incumbency advantage into party incumbency and individual candidate incumbency components, finding that the advantage is almost entirely due to the individual.