Is it too easy for incumbents to win re-election? Is name recognition good enough, particularly in these local contests where there's often not much known about the candidates and not much to differentiate them from one another?
Yes, particularly in cities where nobody much knows the candidates. Our media tells us virtually nothing about the people running, if it even tells us their names. The only people who learn anything are those who actually go to the candidate debates, and that's a minuscule number of people.
What do we know about the challengers? Virtually nothing. What do we even know about the incumbent? We recognize the name, maybe. But do we know what he or she has been up to at city hall? Not really. So we probably don't have any real motivation for unseating them. In most cities, the incumbent wins unless someone with name recognition goes against them or they've gotten into trouble over something.
It's worse for school boards. There's ZERO public information about either the incumbents or the ones running against them. We have four school boards in Ottawa, and I couldn't name you even one trustee to save my life.
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