The anonymous commenter also wrote: The study you're referencing reviewed federal elections in one year. There were five incumbents running for office in primaries that year. The difference on the line or off was an average of 3 percentage points. From there we get a generalization that the reason no non-redistricted Congressional incumbent has lost in 52 years on the line. She used five elections for federal office involving incumbents from one year and then just decided to throw in a bunch of other elections that didn't involve incumbents or state legislative elections or mayoral elections or even a control group from another state.
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I do not think the real March Fong Eu, were she alive today, would care to see her name appear above such an insulting and inaccurate comment.
We have an article on this topic coming out soon with statistical analysis supporting the statements in Hayden's essay. For a preview, I encourage everyone to read the report of Julia Sass Rubin at New Jersey Policy Perspective, which reports primary data that Hayden and I used. https://www.njpp.org/publications/report/does-the-county-line-matter-an-analysis-of-new-jerseys-2020-primary-election-results/
MFE, despite your tone, I'd be glad to be in touch to understand your criticisms better and to see if we've missed anything. Please email me. -Sam
(Ms. Eu is a former Cal. Secretary of State.)
The real March Fong Eu, a staple of my childhood in California, died in 2017.
The anonymous commenter also wrote: The study you're referencing reviewed federal elections in one year. There were five incumbents running for office in primaries that year. The difference on the line or off was an average of 3 percentage points. From there we get a generalization that the reason no non-redistricted Congressional incumbent has lost in 52 years on the line. She used five elections for federal office involving incumbents from one year and then just decided to throw in a bunch of other elections that didn't involve incumbents or state legislative elections or mayoral elections or even a control group from another state.