Now the state has two Democrats in the Senate, but during the 1980's it had two Republican senators. For the last 30 years Minnesota has voted for a Democratic president, but it has also increasingly supported the third party or the more moderate candidate. We now turn to the question of incumbency-a defining factor of the race. According to Jacobson, incumbency is the central factor to consider in every Congressional race. It is a trusted pillar of Congressional politics that incumbency has tremendous advantages in elections.
Incumbency is an advantage for two major reasons.
First, incumbents are able to run a re-election campaign essentially from the moment they get into office. They have the valuable commodity of time to spend learning about and formulating a relationship with their district or state. These ties, created by time in the district, time spent doing constituency service, and time in general, are what make incumbents so difficult to unseat. In this particular race, Rod Grams used the advantages of incumbency poorly. The primary reason Grams was defeated by former state auditor Mark Dayton was Grams' failure to find the pulse of the state.