Now that the Chicago Cubs have done the impossible by ending a 108-year title drought to win the World Series beating the Cleveland Indians in seven games, many are starting to believe that Donald Trump can follow suit and shock the world by winning the White House.
Earlier this week, the website FiveThirtyEight published an article with the headline that read “The Cubs have a smaller chance of winning than Trump does.” The piece was posted after the Indians took a 3-1 series lead and was on the cusp of taking the title. The Elo model they used cited that the Cubs had a 15 percent chance of winning the series, as opposed to Trump who (at the time) had a 21 percent chance of winning the election.
As you and I both know, the Cubs turned 15 percent into 100 percent, and now, Trump is trending upwards as well. FiveThirtyEight currently predicts that Trump has a 33 percent chance of winning the election, his highest rating since Sept. 26th where he had a 45 percent chance of winning.
That’s good news for Trump supporters. However, historically, the results of sporting events haven’t panned out well for the GOP.
According to Ken Rudin, when the World Series goes to a Game 7, if the American League team wins, Republicans win the White House. Yet, if the National League team wins, Democrats win the White House. The Cubs play in the National League, while the Indians play in the American League.
Hillary Clinton’s fate is tied to the Cubs, according to @kenrudin pic.twitter.com/DFleSIxdTb
— Byron Tau (@ByronTau) November 3, 2016
Alternatively, in other leagues such as basketball, Democrats have only won the White House in years that an Eastern Conference team has also won the NBA Championship. This year, the Cleveland Cavaliers (East) beat the Golden State Warriors (West) in seven games to win the NBA title. I’d also like to note that both the Warriors and Indians lost their championship bids after blowing a 3-1 lead in their respective series.
Lastly, there’s the “Redskins rule,” where if the Washington Redskins win their last home football game before the election, the party that won the previous election wins the next election. Meanwhile, if the Redskins lose, the challenging party’s candidate wins.
While the Redskins beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 27-20, in their last home game on October 17th, the rule had been upheld for 19 straight elections over the course of 76 years. It was finally broken in 2012 where the Redskins lost their final home game, but President Barack Obama won re-election.
Of course, all of this doesn’t mean that Trump will lose the election, but he has more than just the rigged election system and corrupt media to fight against. He has sports history to worry about.
