Zero!
Notable & Quotable: Midterms
‘This year’s Senate elections marked the first time in at least a century in which no incumbent senator up for reelection lost.’
Dec. 8, 2022 5:49 pm ET
Harry Enten writing for CNN, Dec. 7:
One of the most common refrains in politics is voters hate Washington and want outsiders to be elected to office. But Sen. Raphael Warnock’s victory in Georgia’s Senate runoff on Tuesday is part of a trend that suggests that, at least in 2022, that wasn’t true.
Each of the 29 Senate incumbents who ran for reelection won. This year’s Senate elections marked the first time in at least a century in which no incumbent senator up for reelection lost. . . .
Like in the Senate, incumbent governors across the board seemed to do historically well. There was just one governor who lost reelection (Steve Sisolak of Nevada). That one loss marks the fewest losses by sitting governors in cycles in which at least 10 of them ran since at least 1948. . . .
It turns out that few voters seemed to want to “throw the bums out” in 2022. Voters actually seemed ready to have a steady hand in government in which incumbency and minimal change was favored. In an era dominated by the presence of former President Donald Trump, that’s certainly notable.