Friday, December 11, 2009
Root root root for the home team would be advisable for incumbent politicians facing a tight re-election battle. Voters, as they are wont to do, don’t always make their voting decisions entirely on the merits of a candidate’s record in office, and that includes allowing their post-game mood to affect how they cast their ballots.
In a study published by Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, researchers compared the results of certain college football games with voting patterns and came away with the conclusion that incumbents can receive a 1% bump in support when the “right” team wins. Researchers also discovered that emotions can get in the way of political surveys if conducted during major sporting events like the NCAA Men’s College Basketball Tournament.
Specifically, the research group interviewed people living in counties near colleges playing in the third and fourth rounds of the tournament. In those counties in which the local college team survived these rounds and made it to the Final Four, interviewees were more likely to feel that the nation is on “the right track” and to approve of President Barack Obama’s job performance than were people in counties whose team was eliminated.
-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky
Personal Emotions and Political Decision Making: Implications for Voter Competence (by Andrew J. Healy, Neil Malhotra, and Cecilia H. Mo, Stanford University Graduate School of Business) (pdf)
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