On the Importance of Independent Evidence: A Reply to Graham et al.

Abstract

Do college football games influence U.S. elections? Healy, Malhotra, and Mo (2010) found that college football outcomes are correlated with election results. Fowler and Montagnes (2015) found that the estimated effects of college football games do not vary in the ways we would theoretically expect if the effect were genuine and that NFL games have no effect, suggesting that the original result was likely a chance false positive. Graham et al. (2022a) reevaluated the effect of college football games on elections by adding new data. Although the estimates weakened when a small amount of new data was added, they concluded that the evidence mostly supports the original finding. Fowler and Montagnes (2022) responded with simulations showing that the evidence in Graham et al. (2022a) is statistically consistent with the possibility that the original result was a chance false positive and statistically inconsistent with the possibility of a genuine result of the magnitude reported in the original paper. Graham et al. (2022b) have written a reply to Fowler Montagnes (2022), and as ridiculous as this all sounds, this is our reply to that reply.

Keywords: voter rationality, irrelevant events, elections