Why do people vote for incumbants?

[Elwar]

You hear people all of the time complaining about government and then overwhelmingly incumbants are elected over and over.

It has reached the point that I vote against every incumbant in the race, even if I have to vote for a Democrat.

I would vote for an incumbant if I liked what they are doing but I just do not get it.

Does anyone here just check the incumbant off if they do not know the candidates? Have you ever?

 

[Mahkato]

The incumbent is bringing home the bacon. All the rest of them are bringing your bacon to everyone else.

 

[CaptUSA]

A couple of reasons...

The evil you know versus the evil you don't
Incumbency holds privileges that can be used for campaigning (they're not supposed to, but they do. The franking process is out of whack.)
Usually, the incumbent has delivered some sort of pork - voters like that
and finally, once you have won once, your name recognition is very high. Often, people will vote for the name the recognize the most.

 

[ILUVRP]

it is crazy in that everyone hates congress , but everyone thinks their congressman is great , so the incumbants win.

sort of like voting on judges , no one knows them , so what i do is vote against every male judge and vote only for the female judges , i don't think i have aver seen a female judge being charged with anything.