How do the Olympics Affect the Presidential Election?

The United States puts a lot of time and effort into sporting events. In the US, the Super Bowl is the most watched television program ever (and also the second, and the third...). Athletes are some of the highest-paid people on the planet. In 2007, around 19 million people participated in fantasy football leagues across the country.

It would stand to reason that sports have some sway over the decisions people in America make. The biggest decision of all occurs every four years: the presidential election- and coincidentally, the election happens about three months after the world's biggest sporting event: The Olympics.

The question I intend to answer today is how much impact the Olympics have over the presidential election. Do incumbents win reelection more often when the U.S. wins the most golds? Do they receive a boost when the U.S. successfully hosts the games?

To compile this data I again used the IOC's medal ranking tables that I used in my first Olympic post. The U.S. has "won" (had the most gold medals in) 15 out of 24 summer Olympics. I did not include the winter games, as the more recent ones have occurred in non-election years. I also did not include boycotted games, games that took place after the election (1956) or the 2012 London games.

The results may surprise you. Of the fifteen times the U.S. came in first in the standings, the incumbent party was reelected eight times, and a new party was elected seven times. Similarly, of the nine times the U.S. did not come in first in the standings, the incumbent party was reelected five times, and a new party was elected four times.

When the U.S. has hosted the Olympics, the results have been more favorable: the incumbent party has won three out of four times. On the other hand, when the Olympics were cancelled during World War I and II, the incumbent party won each time, proving that the U.S. at least cares more about the war effort than sports.

Then again, when we boycotted the 1980 Moscow games, incumbent president Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan.

Speaking of the Soviet Union, I identified nine Olympics when the U.S. had a clear rival- in politics and in the medal count: Germany in 1936, China in 2008, and the Soviet Union from 1952 to 1988. The U.S. won more gold medals than their rivals just three times out of nine- yet the voting public didn't seem to care. The six "losses"are split evenly between the incumbent party and a new party, and the incumbents actually lost more often than not when the U.S. defeated their rival.

So what does this mean? The U.S. isn't as in to sport as one may think. We'll have to use other, more efficient means of forecasting the upcoming presidential election.

My data: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnZrkjWWJajQdDcyV3kzWWVGaUVZcXRndnJ3M3MxMUE