http://www.snopes.com/sports/football/election.asp

Winning Tradition


Claim: The outcome of Washington Redskins home football games has
correctly predicted the winner of every U.S. presidential election since
1936.

Status: True.

Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2004]

"FOOTBALL + ELECTION

Did you know....??

The Washington Redskins have proved to be a time-tested election predictor.
In the previous 15 elections, if the Washington Redskins have lost their
last home game prior to the election, the incumbent party has lost the White
House. When they have won, the incumbent has stayed in power.

This election year, that deciding game takes place on Sunday, October 31 ...
vs. Green Bay.

Go Pack!!!"

Origins: Our desire to understand and assert some control over the world
around us is often manifested by our attempts to find predictive signs that
enable us to prognosticate events - even when there is no seeming
connection between predictor and event. Sometimes one natural phenomenon
supposedly forecasts another, as in the belief that a groundhog's seeing his
shadow on February 2 portends another six weeks of winter. In other
instances the linkage is between affairs of mankind, as in the superstition
that the winner of football's Super Bowl augurs that year's stock market
performance (or vice-versa).

A recent item of this ilk maintains that the results of the last game played
at home by the NFL's Washington Redskins (a football team based in the
national capital, Washington, D.C.) before the U.S. presidential elections
has accurately foretold the winner of the last fifteen of those political
contests, going back to 1944. If the Redskins win their last home game
before the election, the party that occupies the White House continues to
hold it; if the Redskins lose that last home game, the challenging party's
candidate unseats the incumbent president. While we don't presume there is
anything more than a random correlation between these factors, it is the
case that the pattern has held true even longer than claimed, stretching
back over seventeen presidential elections since 1936:

On 30 October 2000 the Washington Redskins lost a Monday night game at home
to the Tennessee Titans, 27-21, presaging a loss for the incumbent
Democratic party. Since President Bill Clinton had already been elected to
the constitutionally-mandated maximum of two terms in office, the 7 November
2000 presidential election pitted Democratic Vice-President Al Gore against
Republican Governor George W. Bush of Texas. In the closest (and most
controversial) presidential election since 1876, Governor Bush gained the
White House by the slim margin of five electoral votes, thereby fulfilling
the Redskin prophecy....

[rundown of every election and game between 2000 and 1936]

....Going back to 1936 puts us beyond the beginnings of the Washington
Redskins, as that year the Redskins franchise was still playing in Boston.
Nonetheless, their knack for foretelling the outcome of presidential
elections was already in place. On 1 November 1936 the Boston Redskins
downed the Chicago Cardinals at Fenway Park, 13-10, predicting a win for the
incumbent Democrats. Two days later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt won
re-election over Republican Governor Alf Landon of Kansas.
That is as far back as the streak goes. In 1932 the Washington Redskins were
neither the Redskins nor a Washington team: they were the Boston Braves, and
they played in Braves Field, which they shared with the National League
baseball team of the same name. On 6 November 1932 they won at home against
the Staten Island Stapletons, 19-6, a result that should have foretold a
presidential victory for the incumbent Republican party. Neither the
Redskins' team name nor their predictive powers were yet evident, however,
as President Herbert Hoover lost to his Democratic challenger, Governor
Franklin Delano Roosevelt of New York, on 8 November 1932

What do we make of all this? Nothing. We see it as coincidence, as evidence
that anyone who tries long and hard enough can find apparent patterns in any
collection of data. But for those who believe in this sort of thing, the
Redskins' last home game before the 2 November 2004 election is a Halloween
Day contest against the Green Bay Packers. Republican supporters will be
rooting for the Redskins, and Democratic supporters will become Cheeseheads
for a day.

Update: On 31 October 2004, the Green Bay Packers defeated the Redskins in
Washington, 28-14, which - if the established pattern holds true - predicts
that Democratic challenger John Kerry will unseat incumbent President George
W. Bush in the upcoming presidential election".

Last updated: 31 October 2004


The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/sports/football/election.asp

On Tue, 02 Nov 2004 02:38:47 GMT, "Gregory Morrow"
> wrote:

> Claim: The outcome of Washington Redskins home football games has
> correctly predicted the winner of every U.S. presidential election since
> 1936.

Here's hoping the tradition continues!

sf
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