Introduction: In this paper, we undertake two challenges: measuring political influence and
using influence to explain reelection. First, we develop a new measure of policy
leadership in the European Parliament (EP), by which we mean leadership by lawmakers
in particular policy domains. Second, we investigate the predictive power of this new
indicator by considering its ability to explain individual MEPs’ reelection. In other
words, we ask if policy leaders are more likely to be reelected, controlling for relevant
confounding factors, such as formal party and legislative leadership, seniority, and the
electoral performance of MEPs’ national parties