Election Day has finally arrived which means within 24 hours no one will care about the predictive powers of Larry Sabato, Nate Silver and *ahem* Dick Morris. Most of these folks make their predictions based on polling numbers, economic trends and you know….facts. What fun is that? In an election year where everything was getting fact checked from polls to birth-certificates why should we be restrained by actual facts when it comes to predicting the final race outcome? In the spirit of the season below is a list of “Non-Scientific” predictors and downright silly coincidences that have done just as good a job of predicting American presidential elections as those smarty pants folks at Gallup. Enjoy, and remember predictions only matter until the last votes have been counted.
Redskins Rule: Since 1936 when the Washington Redskins have won their last home game before the presidential election the incumbent party has won. Well at least until 2004 when the Skins lost and so did John Kerry. According to this rule Obama is on his way out of a job since somehow RG3 and the Redskins managed to lose to the pathetic Carolina Panthers (who were 1-5 heading into the game) this past Sunday.
Advantage: Romney
Kid’s Choice: I wrote about this predictor a few weeks ago. Scholastic Kids magazine has predicted every election correctly for the last 40+ years and only been wrong twice. Now I’m inclined to think that Romney lost the kid’s vote when he went after Big Bird and PBS last year but millions of kids across American can’t be wrong three times can they? Obama wins the kiddie vote 51-45% over Mitt Romney according to Scholastic.
Advantage: Obama
7-11 Cups: 7-11 the “Fast Food”chain dedicated to week old hot-dogs and stale donuts jumped into the election prediction game in 1996. Since then they’ve had spotless record of predicting who becomes president based on the sales of candidate coffee cups. At last count Obama was leading Romney 60 to 40%.
Advantage: Obama
Advantage: Obama
Halloween Masks: This is another campaign predictor I wrote about right before Halloween last week. The candidate whose mask sells the most by Halloween has won every election since 1996. I was never quite sure if this meant people wanted to scare you into voting for their mask or not but more Americans wanted to run around as Barack Obama than Mitt Romney last week according to sales.
Advantage: Obama
Family Circle: Not that it’s sexist to assume that all women bake cookies but the potential first lady of the United States cooking skills have come into play when predicting the next president since 1992. Family Circle magazine holds a vote on which potential first ladfy this is sexist or anything, but Family Circle magazine has run a contest about first lady cooking skills which has been a pretty good presidential election indicator since 1992. In every election (until 2008) the first lady whose cookies have been voted most popular ends up being the actual first lady in the White House. While Cindy McCain won out in 2008 this year Michelle Obama’s cookies have won out over Ann Romney’s. Translation? More health food in the White House.
Advantage: Obama
Bloodline: Care to get a bit conspiratorial with me? There are some that argue the United States never really “Won” the American Revolution because the British Royal family continues to run the country. How is that? In all but one presidential election in American history the candidate whose bloodline is closest to the British royal family has eventually won the contest. The only year where this was not the case was in 2004 when George W. Bush won re-election against John Kerry (who at the time was the most royal nominee for either party in almost a century). From what I’ve been able to discover both Obama and Romney are related to about 6 presidents, and of course to each other, but it’s not entirely clear which of the candidates is more closely related to other presidents (and thus the British Royal family). Because it can’t quite be determined at this point we’ll call this one a tie.
Advantage: No One
This article originally appeared online at Politic365.com.