Which Sectors Do Best After a Midterm Election? 100 Years of Returns, Ranked
Everyone quotes the same midterm statistic — stocks rise in the year after the vote. But which part of the market actually does the rising? Technology — by a wide margin, in both the 100-year record and the modern ETF era. The average post-midterm year gave tech about +30%, while energy managed about +4%. That gap is the story. The index-level pattern is well known: the S&P 500 has risen in the 12 months after every midterm since 1942, averaging about +15%, according to Franklin Templeton's analysis of S&P Global data. What gets quoted far less is the spread inside the market — the average gap between the best and worst sector in the same window is roughly 40 percentage points. This post ranks the sectors on two independent datasets, explains why the leadership looks the way it does, and ends with what the numbers can and cannot tell you about the year ahead. All figures are as of early November 2026, days after the November 3 vote. The modern scoreboard: nine midterms, ...