The Redskins Rule is a spurious relationship[1] in which the results of National Football League (NFL) games correlated strongly with the results of subsequent United States presidential elections. Briefly stated, there was a strong correlation between the outcome of the last home game for the Washington Redskins (now known as the Washington Commanders) prior to the U.S. presidential election and the outcome of the election: when Washington won, the party of the incumbent president retained the presidency; when Washington lost, the opposition party won. This coincidence was noted by many sports and political commentators, used as a bellwether to predict the results of elections, and held true in every election from 1940 through 2000.
Since 2004, the rule appears to have become inverted, with the performance of Washington now forecasting the fate of the challenging party rather than the incumbent. For example, the 2016 and 2020 victories heralded the respective elections of Donald Trump and Joe Biden, while the 2004 and 2012 losses were followed up by the incumbents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. However, Obama's election in 2008 followed a Washington loss, in accordance with the original rule.