2025 Spring Seminar Series Seminar: Rachel Porter University of Notre Dame

Evaluating (In)Experience in Congressional Elections

Abstract: From the 1980s to the mid 2010s, three-quarters of newly elected members to the U.S. House of Representatives had previous elected experience; only half of freshmen elected from 2016 to 2020 held prior office. In this paper, we investigate emergence-and success-driven explanations for the declining proportion of experienced officeholders entering Congress. In our analyses, we find that the advantages traditionally afforded experienced candidates are waning. First, we show that inexperienced candidates’ emergence patterns have changed; amateurs are increasingly apt to emerge in the same kinds of contests as their experienced counterparts. We then show that experienced candidates have lost their fundraising edge, and that—for certain kinds of candidates—the value of elected experience itself has declined. Lastly, we identify other kinds of candidate characteristics as strong predictors for success in modern elections. We demonstrate that these electorally advantageous identities overwhelmingly belong to candidates who lack elected experience.