Very few American voters say they are in favor of dynasties like those of the Bushes and Clintons. But just six years after these families relinquished control of the White House after holding it for two decades, prominent Republicans are reportedly trying to draft Jeb Bush into a race in which Hillary Clinton is expected to be the leading Democratic candidate.
Georgia is likely to have a dual ticket of Democrats with famous family members: Michelle Nunn, the daughter of the former senator Sam Nunn and the party’s likely Senate nominee, and Jimmy Carter’s grandson Jason, the presumptive Democratic nominee for governor.
Other examples include Jeb Bush’s son George P. Bush, who is the Republican nominee for Texas Land Commissioner, and Debbie Dingell, the leading candidate to replace her husband, John Dingell, the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives.
America has a long history of political dynasties, including the Adams, Harrison, Roosevelt and Bush families, who collectively produced eight presidents, including two of the last four. This pattern extends well beyond the presidency. Consider the Kennedys: only John F. Kennedy became president, but he was the first of six Kennedys to serve in Congress. (On April 8, Ted Kennedy Jr. announced that he would run for the state senate in Connecticut.)
Just under 9 percent of members of Congress between 1789 and 1996 were related to a previous member of Congress, according to a 2009 study, including 7 percent of those who served after 1966. More recently, 12 percent of all House races without an incumbent candidate between 1994 and 2006 had a member of a political dynasty as a candidate, according to an article in Legislative Studies Quarterly by Brian Feinstein.
Mr. Feinstein found that being a close relative of a governor or a member of the House or Senate was associated with greater vote share and a higher likelihood of winning. That’s even after accounting for differences in candidate experience and fund-raising and the partisanship of the district, an advantage he attributes to having a strong “brand name” (he found no significant difference in political experience or fund-raising between dynastic candidates and others).
Despite never having held elected office, Ms. Nunn was recruited by Democrats to run for the Senate and has performed surprisingly well in polls, a result that is hard to imagine without her association with her father.
Jason Carter faces a far more difficult challenge in his campaign for governor in Georgia but is also getting family assistance in raising money, from his grandfather.
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