An Anti-Incumbent Election?
First, let’s get our terms straight. If “anti-incumbent election” means anything, it is that voters are so dissatisfied with the status quo that they vote against all incumbents, regardless of party. The term highlights one, and only one, quality of embattled candidates: their incumbency.
This kind of election is not about party or ideology or how Members voted on a particular piece of legislation. If it were about any of those things, it wouldn’t simply be an “anti-incumbent” election. An anti-incumbent election is a referendum on the “ins,” and voters, for whatever reasons, are so unhappy with the performance of those “ins” — all the “ins” — that they throw them out. All of them.
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