Recent news stories about conflicts within a few Conservative ridings over the party's new incumbency protection policy, and about new preconditions being imposed on Liberal incumbents to have their nominations protected, once again implicitly raise the question of the electoral benefits of incumbency (see Abbas Rana, The Hill Times, March 16, 2009; Don Martin, National Post, March 27, 2009; Trevor Howell, Calgary Herald, March 29, 2009; and David Akin, http://davidakin.blogware.com, April 6, 2009). The purpose of this piece is to provide data on the odds of incumbent MPs being re-elected versus the odds of challengers being elected, based on the 13 federal general elections between 1968 and 2008. Comparisons are made to the U.S.

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