November 5, 2025 | Noon to 1:00 PM EST
David Cottrell (University of Georgia)
This study investigates how states use the residential locations of incumbent legislators when drawing new district boundaries, focusing on the practice of displacing incumbents from their home districts and pairing them with rival incumbents. Using legislators’ home addresses collected from a national voter registration database, I identify when incumbents are retained within their districts and when they are displaced and paired. Comparing these outcomes to a baseline of computer-generated, incumbent-blind maps shows that enacted plans overwhelmingly avoid displacing incumbents, reflecting a broader norm of incumbent preservation. Only when plans are drawn by independent commissions or court-appointed special masters does this pattern weaken, suggesting that reform efforts may be necessary to challenge the political status quo.