Skip to content
Sports

Washington Redskins' loss may have determined result of presidential election already

    by Jonathan Tannenwald
    Published 

If you're superstitious about Tuesday's presidential election, you might want to take heed of what happened to the Washington Redskins on Sunday.

Since the Redskins moved to Washington in 1940, only once has the team's last result not been directly correlated with what happens to the incumbent party in the White House. When the Redskins win, the incumbent party wins; when the team loses, the incumbent party gets thrown out of office.

It has happened 17 out of 18 possible times. The only exception was in 2004, when the Redskins lost to the Packers but incumbent president George W. Bush defeated John Kerry.

Four years ago, what the Washington Post calls the "Redskins Rule" came back into effect, as a loss to the Steelers preceded a Republican loss of the presidency.

We'll know soon enough whether the rule remains in effect.