Analysis of Vote Shares

Borooah examines the effects of incumbency on vote share: regardless of whether they win or lose, are incumbent parties in a constituency, on average, more likely to get a larger vote share than parties that are challenging? Aggregated over all eight elections between 1989 and 2014, the average predicted vote share for INC incumbents was higher than that for INC challengers and, similarly, the average predicted vote share for BJP incumbents was higher than that for BJP challengers. So, measured in terms of vote shares, there would appear to be a pro-incumbency effect towards both the INC and the BJP. However, compared to the average predicted vote shares for the BJP when it was the incumbent party, the INC did not do as well as the incumbent party but the INC did better than the BJP when both were challenger parties. So, on this interpretation, there would appear to be an anti-incumbency effect towards the INC but a pro-incumbency effect towards the BJP