Suicide and Presidential Elections in the USA

Abstract

Masterton and Platt (1989) recently reported that rates of parasuicide in Edinburgh increased in the four weeks after general elections won by the Conservative Party and decreased after elections won by the Labor Party. In the USA, presidential elections are held every four years on the first Tuesday in November (unless November the 1st is a Tuesday). The election is held, therefore, between November 2nd and November 8th. For the presidential elections from 1952 to 1984, the number of suicides in November was compared to the mean of the numbers in the November of the preceding year and of the following year. In seven of the nine elections, the observed number was less than the expected number. The two increases occurred after Kennedy (Democrat) won in 1960 and Reagan (Republican) in 1984. The mean number of suicides in Novembers with presidential elections was 1762 which was 54 less than expected (t, = 2.86, two-tailed, p < .05). A comparison for homicides showed a mean number in Novembers with presidential elections of 1215, 15 more than expected (t, = 0.75, not significantly different from zero), so no effect on homicide was observed. An examination of the number of suicides and homicides on the day of the election as compared to the preceding and the following Tuesdays for four years (in the years 1972, 1976, 1980, and 1984) yielded no consistent differences from expectations. The present data on completed suicide from the USA, therefore, differ from those in Edinburgh for parasuicide in finding that presidential elections in the USA appear to decrease the suicide rate in the month of the election regardless of the winning party.