 And because the markets tend to go up no matter who's in office. In fact, BlackRock crunched the numbers all the way back to 1926 and found that on average, stocks have risen almost 12 percent during presidential election years. That's higher than the average of 10 percent return in other years. So stocks even might even outperform. But generally speaking, whether a Republican is in office or a Democrat is in office, the market tends to go up over the long term.