Slavery to Liberation- The African American Experience, 2019a

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The incumbency factor scares off strong candidates from challenging congressional
incumbents. According to Table 1, weak candidates overwhelmingly challenge African
American congressional incumbents. From 1970 to 2012, 74 percent of candidates
challenging African American incumbents had no previous political experience, 15
percent had experience serving in appointed capacities, 3 percent had served in local
countywide political office, 3 percent had served in citywide political offices, and 4
percent held current or past political experience in statewide political offices. Table 1
displays the challenger candidate quality score by election year from 1970 to 2012 45 .
Table 1 demonstrates an increase in the number of challenger candidates with no
political experience starting around 1992, this pattern continued well into the late
2000s.
45
Table 1 only includes the challenger candidate quality scores for which data is
available. While LexisNexis provided much of the information regarding the past political
experience for many of the challenger candidates, the candidate quality score for all
elections within the sample was not determined.