We use elections data in which a large number of ties in vote counts
between candidates are resolved via a lottery to study the personal
incumbency advantage. We benchmark non‐experimental regression
discontinuity design (RDD) estimates against the estimate produced by
this experiment that takes place exactly at the cutoff. The experimental
estimate suggests that there is no personal incumbency advantage. In
contrast, conventional local polynomial RDD estimates suggest a moderate
and statistically significant effect. Bias‐corrected RDD estimates that
apply robust inference are, however, in line with the experimental
estimate. Therefore, state‐of‐the‐art implementation of RDD can meet the
replication standard in the context of close elections.