Incumbency advantage in brazilian municipal and state elections: a study from 2000 to 2018

The aim of this article is to investigate the occurrence of the incumbency advantage phenomenon in Brazilian local and state elections. The methodology adopted is that of repeated pairs of Brambor and Ceneviva (2011), in which pairs of candidates who face each other more than once are the unit of analysis. The greatest advantage of using it lies in the removal of candidate and municipality fixed effects. Contrasting evidence is found in terms of the incumbent's advantage for elections of mayors and governors. The results suggest that incumbent mayors suffer a disadvantage of 2.7 percentage points in the Brazilian municipal elections. There is evidence of a downturn in the incumbent's disadvantage between the 2000 and 2008 elections. However, there has been a growth in the phenomenon for the years 2012 and 2016. On the other hand, incumbent governors enjoy a significant advantage of 9.5 points percentages. The advantage of incumbent governors seems to be steadily increasing from 1998 to 2010, when it reaches a maximum of 17.3 percentage points.