Voting and sports

A FICKLE electorate can be swayed by anything, from polling-day drizzle to a candidate’s hairdo—or even, according to a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the outcome of recent sporting events.

Led by Loyola Marymount University’s Andrew Healy, a team of researchers compared 44 years of US presidential, gubernatorial, and Senate election data to the results of Division I college football games. After controlling for demographic effects, they found that at the county level, a local athletic victory one week before an election gave incumbents an average 1.70% gain. (In contrast, post-election victories or games more than two weeks before polling day had no effect on voting.)

The effect didn’t arise from athletic triumph alone—the emotional intensity of a win seemed to determine its electoral impact. For example, Dr Healy and his colleagues calculated the unexpectedness of each victory based on point spreads from the betting market. They found that a surprise win garnered a bigger electoral bump (2.59%) than an expected one. And in “powerhouse” districts with an especially fervent fan base, a victory could yield up to 3.35% for the incumbent.

The researchers argue that the triumph of a favoured team fosters a sense of general well-being—and a corresponding contentment with the status quo, including sitting officials. It seems that incumbents may wish to consider investing in their hometown team.

(For those tempted to sneer at football fans’ lack of political sophistication, note that the study reports similar trends among basketball aficionados during the 2009 NCAA tournament. And while the researchers only considered American football, a clear-eyed look at the global voting public during World Cup games suggests the universality of their findings: surely those beery, but enfranchised, vuvuselleurs are just as susceptible.)

(Photo credit: Bloomberg News)