What should I do in the next election? How should I behave in order to get success in the following election? Spending most of my time and energy in the internal activities within Congress would increase my chances of reelection? Or, alternatively, answering my constituency demands would build up my next career step? Possibly, those are the first questions that come to a politician?s mind right after his/her successful election? Those questions to a great extent distress politicians because they rarely offer easy or straightforward answers. Depending on politician?s ambition, those questions will have a direct impact on how incumbents will strategically behave during his/her entire term. In other words, politicians? choice of career is guided not only by the incentives of the position pursued, such as a higher stipend or a bigger staff, but also by the electoral viability of that choice. That is, the higher utility of being elected to such position is weighed against the risks and costs one must incur. Therefore, politicians weigh the utility of surviving politically by the probabilities of winning against the possible costs of running. For the second consecutive election for the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies, the majority of incumbents (75% in 1998 and 69% in 2002) decided to run for reelection and at least 70% of them in both elections were successful, suggesting thus it would be incorrect to ignore static ambition as the main target among Brazilian legislators. It also raises doubts about the assertion that incumbents use their posts to pursue their post-legislative careers. However, this number also suggests that not all legislators seek reelection, indicating that it is also incorrect to assume all of them are driven by similar motivations. In their attempts at career survival, incumbents may also run for higher offices (Senator, Governor, Vice-governor). Others may run for state level offices (regressive ambition). Other still could run for Mayor in the midterm election. Finally, politicians can just give up of running to electoral position. We have demonstrated elsewhere, specifically for the 1998?s election, that the local performance primarily affects the electoral success of incumbents. However, participation within the Chamber and links with the Executive Branch cannot be totally disregarded, since they do affect incumbents? choice of what career a politician should run. The purpose of the present paper is thus to make a comparative analysis of the determinants of career and success between two consecutive electoral episodes, 1998 and 2002. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]