Election battle played out on sportsfield
Just as the All Blacks world cup victory meant the Nats were a dead cert for last year’s election – according to some – there are those who believe the race for the White House could also come down to a handful of sports results. By and
‘‘The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.’’ – Winston Churchill" THE 2012 presidential election looks like it could be a close one. So what will be the critical factor? The unemployment rate? Position papers? TV adverts?
It may be something else altogether. Recent research has revealed that voters may be even more arbitrary and irrational than we think.
It is possible that the outcome of a handful of college football games in the right battleground states could determine the race for the White House.
Economists Andrew Healy, Neil Malhotra and Cecilia Mo make this argument in a fascinating article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. They examined whether the outcomes of college football games on the eve of elections for presidents, sen- ators and governors affected the choices voters made. They found that a win by the local team, in the week before an election, raises the vote going to the incumbent by around 1.5 percentage points. When it comes to the 20 highest attendance teams – big athletic programmes like the University of Michigan, Oklahoma, and Southern Cal – a victory on the eve of an election pushes the vote for the incumbent up by 3 percentage points.
And these results aren’t based on just a handful of games or political seasons; the data was taken from 62 big- time college teams from 1964 to 2008.
The good news, we suppose, is that sports really can cheer us up and make the world seem like a brighter place. When you are feeling upbeat and happy, you feel more satisfied with the status quo in general. And feeling satisfied with the status quo makes you more likely to vote for the incum- bent politician, totally irrational.
The study’s authors control for economic, demographic, and political factors, so the results are much more sophisticated than just a raw correlation. They also did a deeper analysis that took into
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Politicians are getting credit or blame for the game’s outcome in the voting booth.
account people’s expectations. It turns out that surprise wins are especially potent, raising local support for incumbent politicians by around 2.5 percentage points.
This phenomenon was observed with both football and basketball results.
Another study looks at mayoral elections from 1948 to 2009 and analysed those electoral contests against professional baseball, football and basketball games.
Again, if the local sports team is having a good year, it’s a good bet that incumbents will see a bump on election day.
No one is suggesting that college football or basketball games are the main determinants of elections. But these results are still amazing. Because, as the authors point out, the government has nothing to do with the game, yet incumbent politicians are getting credit or blame for the game’s outcome in the voting booth.
It’s a sign of just how fickle we are and how much we can be a captive to our own moods. It’s a little scary to think that popular culture, including sports, ‘‘medicates’’ us for when we face real world decisions.
Furthermore, if a sports score can matter this much, we should wonder whether voters are processing the more traditional forms of political information – such as data on economic performance – in a rational manner either.
Three states are crucial to the election result: Florida, Ohio and Virginia.
On October 27, a little more than a week before the election, the Ohio State Buckeyes have a big football game against Penn State. The University of Florida Gators have a huge match up against the University of Georgia Bulldogs. If the election remains razor close, these games in these two key battleground states could affect who sits in the White House for the next four years.
Perhaps the coaches will get pregame phone calls from Obama and Romney with advice?
The decision of whether to punt or go for it on that crucial fourth down could affect the job prospects of more than just the football team’s coaching staff.
The success of your local team is the electoral cousin of beer goggles: it can cloud your judgment and make you hate yourself in the morning. And that, as they say, just ain’t right.