As Hurricane Sandy leaves millions without power across the East Coast, many commentators have argued that at least one person may benefit from the storm: President Barack Obama. But seeing Sandy as only an electoral benefit for the president ignores accumulating evidence on how “acts of God” influence elections. That evidence shows that voters often punish the incumbent party for adverse events, even events seemingly beyond any president’s control.
For example, one of us was part of a team that examined how tornadoes affect voting behavior. We found that voters in counties which sustained damage in election years were 1 point to 2 percentage points less likely to vote for the incumbent. While most states affected by Sandy are reliably Democratic, even small changes could affect close House and Senate races in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, or in a swing state such as Virginia.
A Princeton study found that American voters punished the incumbent presidential party for droughts, flu epidemics and even shark attacks. In 1916, in some of the very same New Jersey beach communities devastated by Sandy, shark attacks cost incumbent Woodrow Wilson up to eight percentage points.
In recently published research, we looked at decades of weather data and hundreds of elections in India. We found that incumbents fare much worse at the polls when droughts or floods — events over which the government has no control — occur. An adverse weather event cost incumbent parties about six percentage points at the polls. While the United States is not India — our population of farmers is smaller — the study provides two important lessons. First, the electoral effect is much more pronounced when the weather shock occurred in an election year. Second, voters voted against the incumbent ruling party, rather than against their individual legislators.
While voters might learn about politicians by observing how they respond to disasters, it also turns out that voters respond to events over which the government has no control whatsoever. A study examining college football found that a win by the local team in the 10 days leading up to Election Day gives the incumbent an additional 1.6 points to 2.4 percentage points at the polls.
If the past is any guide, Obama risks suffering a real electoral cost from the damage wrought by Hurricane Sandy, not just the apparent benefit from his strong response. Fortunately for him, such a cost would likely be borne in states — such as New Jersey — where people’s lives have been dramatically upended, states that he will almost certainly win anyway.
At the same time, research indicates that swift and decisive action may be able to overcome this effect, potentially even yielding electoral gains. In the United States, incumbent presidents who declared a disaster did not suffer an electoral cost following a tornado strike. More generally, disaster relief spending generated electoral support. Another study co-authored by one of us with Neil Malhotra of Stanford revealed that increases in FEMA relief spending predicted more votes for the incumbent party, enough to outweigh any electoral cost associated with the disaster itself. Similarly, in India, governments that undertook more election-year relief spending did better at the polls.
Through robust response, presidents also can influence the kind of voters who show up to the polls. A Michigan study takes advantage of individual-level public records of FEMA aid distribution, voter turnout, and partisan identification. FEMA relief spending after the 2004 Florida hurricanes increased turnout among Florida Republicans by about five percentage points, even as Democrat turnout dropped by three percentage points. Election-year relief spending both wins votes and convinces political supporters to turn out.
In the case of Hurricane Sandy, Obama will not have the time to send out the kinds of FEMA checks that help win an election. His position may be more similar to that of Michael Bilandic, the Chicago mayor who lost his primary election shortly after the severe blizzards of 1979. Like President George W. Bush after Hurricane Katrina, Bilandic was blamed for a variety of failures in the immediate response to the blizzards, such as a failure to adequately plow roads. His experience underscores the importance of the initial response to events that happen shortly before an election.
Long after his loss, Bilandic would insist that the storm itself and not an inept response had cost him the election. Such ideas run counter to how we think democracy should work. Nevertheless, these “acts of God” can indeed move close elections against incumbents. Obama is not only fortunate to have had competent local officials to showcase government at its best, but also fortunate that Sandy primarily struck states safely in his column.
Shawn Cole is an associate professor, Harvard Business School; Andrew Healy is an associate professor, Loyola Marymount University; and Eric Werker is an associate professor, Harvard Business School.