Every election season, clients ask a version of the same question: “Given everything happening in Washington, shouldn’t we do something different with the portfolio?” It’s a fair question, and it deserves a real answer rather than a reflexive “stay the course.” So here is the thinking behind why we generally don’t recommend reacting to political tension — and the historical record behind it.

America is not a country that lurches. It’s a country that argues, then corrects.

Look at the last sixty years of election results and you don’t see a nation careening from one extreme to another. You see a closely and consistently divided electorate that shifts a few points one way, then a few points back, cycle after cycle. The 2024 election is a recent example of that pattern, not an exception to it: Donald Trump won the popular vote by roughly a point and a half — his best showing in three runs, but still a margin far closer to a coin flip than a mandate. That’s what an evenly divided country producing a modest correction looks like, and it’s the same story told over and over in midterm after midterm, going back generations.

The Constitution was built for exactly this kind of country. We elect a president every four years, but we get to weigh back in two years later on the entire House and a third of the Senate — a built-in mechanism for correcting course without waiting for the next presidential cycle. And on the other end, amending the Constitution itself requires two-thirds of both chambers of Congress plus three-fourths of the states — a bar high enough that no single election, however heated, can permanently rewrite the rules. Frequent small corrections, and near-total protection against permanent extreme ones. That combination is, in our view, one of the most underappreciated reasons the United States has remained investable through genuinely difficult periods.

And “genuinely difficult” is not an exaggeration. Consider what markets have actually lived through:

• Watergate (1973–74): Amid a presidential resignation, an oil embargo, and double-digit inflation, the S&P 500 fell roughly 50% peak to trough — one of the worst stretches in market history. Investors who stayed invested were rewarded with a +31.6% rebound in 1975 and another +19.2% in 1976.
• The contested 2000 election: A five-week recount, a Supreme Court decision, and a country split almost exactly down the middle. Markets were volatile through the standoff, but the episode itself was a blip against the larger, unrelated dot-com unwind already underway.
• The 2008 financial crisis, playing out during a presidential election: The S&P 500 fell 5% in 2008, then rallied 23.5% in 2009.
• 2016 and 2020, two of the most polarizing elections in modern memory, were followed by

+19.4% (2017) and +16.3%/+26.9% (2020–21) — including a global pandemic and the events of January 6th sitting right in the middle of that second stretch.

None of this means political tension doesn’t matter, or that markets are immune to policy. It means that a diversified, long-term portfolio has repeatedly absorbed shocks — assassinations, resignations,

recounts, insurrections, pandemics — that felt existential in the moment and reads, a few years later, as a bump on a longer chart.

There’s also a subtler data point worth knowing: going back nearly a century, average annual stock returns have been strong under every combination of party control — unified Republican government, unified Democratic government, and divided government under presidents of both parties. No single arrangement has a durable monopoly on growth. The market, in other words, is pricing in far more than who sits in the Oval Office.

The takeaway we’d leave you with: your investment plan should be built around your goals, your time horizon, and your risk tolerance — not around the two-year and four-year rhythms of Washington. The country will keep arguing with itself, correcting a bit left, then a bit right, exactly as it’s designed to.

History suggests the more durable move is to let that process play out in the voting booth, and let your portfolio keep compounding through it.

As always, we’re happy to talk through how this thinking applies to your specific situation.

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Carver Financial Services manages more than $3.9 Billion in assets as of August 2026 for clients globally. You can contact Randy Carver personally at randy.carver@raymondjames.com or the full team at (440) 974-0808.

Opinions expressed are those of the author/speaker and are not necessarily those of Raymond James. All opinions are as of this date and are subject to change without notice. Investing involves risk and you may incur a profit or loss regardless of strategy selected. Past performance may not be indicative of future results. Prior to making an investment decision, please consult with your financial advisor about your individual situation. Every investor’s situation is unique and you should consider your investment goals, risk tolerance and time horizon before making any investment. The forgoing is not a recommendation to buy or sell any individual security or any combination of securities.