Do Sports Wins Equal Political Wins?
BY CHLOE NAGUIB AND LINDSEY WANBERG
With the final squelch of the whistle, Brazilian soccer fans erupted into profane chants about their president, Dilma Rousseff. Their national team had just experienced its worst-ever performance in the World Cup, losing 7-1 to Germany in the semifinals. With each angry chant, it seemed that the Brazilians lost faith not only in their team, but also in their country. And with the Brazilian presidential election approaching in a few months, the chants led many to question what effect the loss would have on President Rousseff’s re-election chances.
Though President Rousseff did end up winning the election in October, the loss of the Brazilian team made her re-election significantly harder. Before the team was knocked out of the World Cup, approximately 38 percent of individuals said they would vote for President Rousseff. This number then declined after the team was eliminated in the semifinals to 36 percent, narrowing the margin between her and her competitors and demonstrating a clear correlation between support for her and national team’s success. Although Rousseff won re-election, it was by the narrowest margin in Brazilian electoral history.
Not convinced that sports could possibly make a difference in elections? It’s Psychology 101. According to a 2010 study authored by Andrew J. Healy of Loyola Marymount University along with Neil Malhotra and Cecilia Hyunjung Mo of Stanford University, our emotions affect the evaluations we make. When we are happy, we will evaluate the status quo more positively. Interestingly, in the case of an election, the human brain tends to associate the incumbent with the “status quo.” The study expands: “Voters who are in a positive state of mind on Election Day are likely to use their mood as a signal for the incumbent party’s success and access positive memories about the incumbent party and/or interpret past actions taken by the incumbent party more favorably.” Therefore, “those voters may then be more likely to choose the incumbent party in the election.”
This is the premise behind why sports wins and losses, independent from political and economic factors, can sway elections. Sports have a great effect on our emotions, and therefore affect our decision-making. To prove this, Healy, Malhotra, and Mo dug up data from 1964 to 2008 regarding the outcome of “pre-election” local college football games and the success of the incumbent in the following election. They ultimately found that in these local college football games in particular, “a win the 10 [days] before Election Day causes the incumbent to receive an additional 1.61 percentage points of the vote in Senate, gubernatorial, and presidential elections, with the effect being larger for teams with stronger fan support.”
So what does this mean in terms of our own government in the United States? Even though sports will play some role in the elections of incumbents, the American government is more insulated from this effect than other nations due to aspects of American sports culture and the structure of the US government.
Americans are pretty divided among the sports that they follow, a fact demonstrated by a Gallup poll that asked Americans to indicate their preferred sport. The favorite of most respondents was football (39 percent), followed by baseball (14 percent) and basketball (12 percent). This means that the individuals emotionally affected by a particular win or loss are less concentrated, therefore minimizing election-swaying potential. Furthermore, the most popular sport in the United States, football, is not played internationally. Because we don’t have a national team to rally behind or to symbolize our nation’s triumph against others through competition, presidential elections are less affected by the outcome of sporting events.. These two unique properties of the American sports system allow US presidential elections to be more insulated than those of other nations.
That certainly does not mean American politicians cannot use sports to their advantage. Sports games function as a platform for politicians to increase their popularity. A little more than a month after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, during the first pitch of the 2001 World Series, every news camera focused on George W. Bush, straight-faced at the mound. Bush was not the most popular president, but he could throw. John Flinn, writing for the Elite Daily recalled the pitch with admiration. According to him, “George W. Bush freaking nailed it.” Flinn explained that Bush’s pitch changed the political atmosphere as it signaled that “if baseball could carry on, then [the United States] could too.” Using the mound as his platform, President Bush pumped hope into the political atmosphere, making the crowd go wild.
Though sports will still play some role in affecting incumbent elections for our government, America will be more insulated from the effects than other countries. Local politicians may still have a chance to ride the wave of enthusiasm from sports victories back into office. However, sports will play a diminished role in the United States presidential elections in comparison to those of other countries.