How to Use incumbent in a Sentence
- Voters will have the chance to see the incumbent and her opponent in a series of three debates.
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The incumbent in the race, Cindy Davis, took the lead with 53% of the vote.
—Courtney Tanner, The Salt Lake Tribune, 30 June 2022
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This was the third time an incumbent has not been in the race.
—Zachary Smith, cleveland, 14 Nov. 2022
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The incumbent had served on the council for a dozen years.
—The Indianapolis Star, 3 May 2023
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Brown was the incumbent and won with 51 percent of the vote.
—Gordon R. Friedman, OregonLive.com, 15 Dec. 2017
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The incumbent filed on Jan. 22 and is seeking a third term.
—Taylor Pettaway, San Antonio Express-News, 2 Feb. 2021
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That’s part of the challenge of not being the incumbent.
—Christopher Keating, Hartford Courant, 25 Sep. 2022
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Bell, as an incumbent, lost a runoff to Woodfin in 2017.
—al, 9 July 2021
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Does the incumbent have a track record of leading projects?
—Celeste Pewter, Teen Vogue, 3 Nov. 2017
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Townsend, the incumbent, hit his first punt just 34 yards.
—Matt Kawahara, SFChronicle.com, 10 Aug. 2019
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How did Woodfin earn 1,645 more votes than the incumbent?
—Erin Edgemon, AL.com, 27 Aug. 2017
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The incumbent led with more than 55 percent of the total.
—San Diego Union-Tribune, 7 June 2022
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Raman won enough votes to force a runoff in the fall against incumbent David Ryu.
—NBC News, 14 June 2020
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But that was a jump-ball election, with no incumbent in the race.
—Steven P. Dinkin, San Diego Union-Tribune, 1 Nov. 2020
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Patients would feel overwhelmed by the task and the power of the incumbents.
—Robert Pearl, Forbes, 27 Mar. 2023
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One big given is the presence of an incumbent in the race.
—Craig Gilbert, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 7 Sep. 2017
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The Fox and News Corp. of today no longer seem to be the challenger brands, taking on the incumbents.
—Alex Weprin, The Hollywood Reporter, 22 Sep. 2023
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Think of it, rather, as a show of reverence for the incumbents.
—Jon Wertheim, SI.com, 20 Dec. 2017
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Many who would likely have voted for the incumbent crossed the aisle to vote blue.
—Margaret Sullivan, Washington Post, 8 July 2020
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Nine of the twelve incumbents who sought reëlection won.
—John Cassidy, The New Yorker, 7 Feb. 2020
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Curtis Clements, the incumbent, was the only person who filed to run for the seat.
—Al Gaspeny, Arkansas Online, 3 Mar. 2023
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Still, the incumbent is short of the 61 seats needed to form a viable coalition.
—Sam Sokol, sun-sentinel.com, 25 Sep. 2019
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Biden isn’t the first incumbent to face grim polling a year out from Election Day.
—Jazmine Ulloa, New York Times, 29 Nov. 2023
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But the challenger agreed with the incumbent on how much the Georgia runoffs matter.
—Bill Barrow, BostonGlobe.com, 2 Jan. 2021
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Their main duty is to elect a new pope when the incumbent dies or resigns.
—Grayson Quay, The Week, 7 June 2022
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Advertisement At the polls, the incumbent’s track record seemed to be enough for some.
—Olivia Diaz, Washington Post, 21 June 2023
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Only two of the three incumbents have filed for re-election.
—Bob Dohr, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 8 Jan. 2020
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Will the sixth-round pick beat out incumbents Cleveland and Simpson?
—Baltimore Sun Staff, Baltimore Sun, 26 June 2023
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But incumbents weren't the only one who came out on top Tuesday.
—Daniel Bice, Journal Sentinel, 3 Apr. 2024
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In local congressional districts, all four incumbents secured their spot in their runoffs.
—Emily Alvarenga, San Diego Union-Tribune, 5 Apr. 2024
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And two, one of the Rangers’ incumbent starters may find their way into a bullpen role.
—Shawn McFarland, Dallas News, 2 Aug. 2023
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Democrats can afford to lose just one of the 23 incumbent seats on the map next year and stay in power.
—Philip Elliott, Time, 9 Aug. 2023
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Both ran to replace incumbent Jian Sun, who chose not to run again.
—Alec Johnson, Journal Sentinel, 4 Apr. 2023
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Might be incumbent on the defense to force those turnovers for this game to end Wisconsin's way.
—Jr Radcliffe, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 25 Sep. 2021
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Demings tore into the incumbent senator, who holds a small lead in the polls ahead of the Nov. 8 election.
—Skyler Swisher, Orlando Sentinel, 19 Oct. 2022
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This election will be the first time in 36 years that an incumbent mayor has not been on the ballot in Dearborn.
—Niraj Warikoo, Detroit Free Press, 30 Oct. 2021
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Williams also beat out incumbent starter N'Kosi Perry for the job.
—Jeremy Cluff, azcentral, 13 Aug. 2019
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Johnson was twenty years younger, and as the incumbent mayor, didn’t seem to be doing a bad job.
—Cassie Werber, Quartz, 18 July 2019
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But at some point, many of the incumbent figures will have to face the specter of their eventual replacements.
—Michael Middlehurst-Schwartz, USA TODAY, 29 Apr. 2020
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Last month, the incumbent president, Macky Sall, had called off the election with only three weeks to go.
—Mady Camara, New York Times, 24 Mar. 2024
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Ashford gets the benefit of the doubt as the incumbent starter, having started nine games for the Tigers last season.
—Tom Green | Tgreen@al.com, al, 28 Feb. 2023
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The city has also re-elected an incumbent council member and brought a new face to the panel.
—J.d. Duggan, Twin Cities, 5 Nov. 2019
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In four of those races, there is an incumbent governor who is a woman.
—Sarah Ewall-Wice, CBS News, 25 Aug. 2022
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Plumlee beat out incumbent starter Mikey Keene after weeks of battling back and forth for the top spot in training camp.
—Jason Beede, Orlando Sentinel, 22 Aug. 2022
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And each portrays the other as someone who would lose to the incumbent governor.
—Steven Lemongello, Orlando Sentinel, 10 Aug. 2022
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But the point is, it’s incumbent upon a sports executive to try.
—Steve Jbara, Forbes, 3 June 2022
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The state party chair in Texas, at least as of today, and there's a new one, is challenging the incumbent governor.
—NBC News, 11 July 2021
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For the first time in Senegal’s history, the incumbent president is not on the ballot.
—Rachel Chason, Washington Post, 23 Mar. 2024
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Lori Lightfoot, the incumbent Chicago mayor, received only 17% of the vote last week in the first round of balloting and failed to advance to the runoff.
—William A. Galston, WSJ, 7 Mar. 2023
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The news of Amazon’s entry had a predictable effect on incumbent firms.
—The Economist, 5 July 2018
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Even Baidu, the incumbent market leader with a 70% market share, is in trouble.
—Jacky Wong, WSJ, 24 Jan. 2019
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And the incumbent governor said, in contrast, his progress has been solid.
—Yereth Rosen, Anchorage Daily News, 12 Oct. 2022
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Two incumbent Democrats are also facing off against each other in the same district, and only one of them can come back.
—Cayla Harris, San Antonio Express-News, 14 Dec. 2021
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Just about 60% of voters in each state think Sanders would be likely to defeat the incumbent president.
—Josh Boak and Hannah Fingerhut, SFChronicle.com, 11 Mar. 2020
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The public’s pessimism is bad for the incumbent governor.
—Craig Gilbert, Journal Sentinel, 10 June 2022
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Still, the incumbent senator has maintained a small lead in most surveys.
—Joey Garrison, USA TODAY, 3 Nov. 2020
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The incumbent mayor, Joyce Craig, isn’t running for re-election.
—Steven Porter, BostonGlobe.com, 21 June 2023
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And oddly enough this time, Musk is copying some of his incumbent rivals, rather than blazing his own trail.
—Bychristiaan Hetzner, Fortune, 16 Aug. 2023
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The incumbent president's high fundraising this year comes as he is locked in a tight rematch with Trump, with most national and state polls showing the race is close between the two men .
—Aaron Navarro, CBS News, 6 Apr. 2024
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The numbers looked much different in the early months of 2020, when Trump was the incumbent president and Democrats were choosing their nominee.
—Craig Gilbert, Journal Sentinel, 25 Mar. 2024
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'incumbent.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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