Could monkeys predict the U.S. election?

Could three monkeys gazing at photos of Kamala Harris (D) and Donald Trump (R) predict which will win the November U.S. presidential election? Don’t be too quick to dismiss the idea. According to a preprint published this month on bioRxiv, macaques stare longer at the faces of candidates who end up losing.

The researchers wondered whether the animals would exhibit similar behavior with human faces. So they showed the monkeys candidate pairs from U.S. elections for senate, governor, and president while tracking the animal’s eyes. “We assume monkeys were unaware of the identity, party affiliation, or policies of any of the candidates,” they wrote.

The animals generally fixed their gaze on one person in each pairing. In 273 senate and governor races from 1995 to 2008 the monkeys gazed more frequently, or for the longest period of time, at the losing candidate 54.4% of the time. That’s better than chance alone, the researchers note. The animals were even more accurate when asked about races in “swing” states, choosing the winner 58.1% of the time.

For presidential elections from 2000 to 2020, however, the “gaze bias” was no better than flipping a coin: It indicated the loser in just 50.4% of the six elections.