Republicans suffered a set back last November in more ways than one. A new study appearing today in the medical journal PLOS One shows that, in the hours after Obama was announced the 44th president of the United States, male, college-aged McCain fans experienced an immediate drop in testosterone. For the study, 183 people offered up saliva samples before and after the winner was announced on election night. Using take-home saliva collection kits provided by the scientists, each volunteer took four different samples between the hours of 8 pm and 12:30 am. Results of the study, a joint effort between researchers at Duke University and the University of Michigan, found that testosterone levels in young men who voted for McCain plummeted more than 20 percent in the wake of the defeat. (The hormone levels of Barack fans, like the man himself, remained unflappable.) “This is a pretty powerful result,” says Kevin LaBar, a Duke neuroscientist. “Voters are physiologically affected by having their candidate win or lose.”
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