The Biggest Unknown About 2020
American political parties are changing in strange ways. The next election will provide a useful test.
Who’s paying for it again?
Photographer: Herika Martinez/AFP
What’s the biggest unknown about 2020? It’s what happens to a political party that defies the way parties have always acted.
Here’s an example. Members of Congress typically work hard to represent their districts. In particular, they try to secure benefits that they can bring home and brag about. Constituents wind up hearing good things about their representatives, and therefore tend to vote for them, all else equal. Thus the advantage of incumbency. In the era of partisan polarization, however, that “all else equal” applies less and less because voters mostly support their party’s candidate, so much so that the incumbency advantage seems to be close to disappearing.