Thanks to one historically accurate, if unscientific, presidential polling metric, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton may be in for a frightening Halloween.
According to reports from national retailers, sales of Donald Trump Halloween masks lead sales of Clinton masks 55 percent to 45 percent.
Spirit Halloween, one of the nation’s largest costume retailer reports via its “Presidential Mask Index”:
Inspired by the polarizing candidates, Spirit Halloween teamed up with Harris Poll to survey more than 2,000 U.S. adults, asking why they would dress up as either candidate this Halloween, given the choice between Clinton and Trump (chosen by 45% vs. 55%, respectively). Key findings include the following:
- The top reason Americans chose Donald Trump is to be funny (39%), whereas the top reason Americans choose Hillary Clinton is because they like her (31%).
- About 1 out of 4 Republicans (23%) and Democrats (27%) who indicated that they would dress up as the opposite party’s candidate would do so to frighten America.
- Twice as many Americans who would choose to dress up as Donald Trump say they would do so to mock him, compared to Americans who would choose to dress as Hillary Clinton to mock her (32% vs 16%).
“With such a historic and eventful year in politics, we are eager to track the progress of our candidate mask sales as a fun comparison to more traditional polls,” said Steven Silverstein, President and CEO. “Spirit Halloween’s Presidential Mask Index is an exciting and spirited way to bring together two American traditions – Halloween and Democracy.”
While the poll is informal and conducted in the spirit of fun, it’s also turned out to be a pretty decent indicator of how presidential elections would turn out over the years.
In fact, Spirit Halloween reports that its best-selling presidential candidate mask has correctly forecast the outcome of every election since 1996.
Clinton supporters are, of course, mocking the poll results in favor of the mainstream media’s (potentially biased) polling data which puts their candidate ahead.
Of course, the “Presidential Mask Index” isn’t the only historically accurate poll bucking mainstream media’s outcomes.
As I noted earlier this week, Helmut Norpoth, a political science professor who has correctly predicted the outcome of the last five elections, says Trump has this one in the bag.
Another takeaway from the Halloween costume presidential poll could be that Americans are less interested in going with truly terrifying themes in 2016. Trump, with his penchant for off-the-cuff remarks and lifelong dedication to media showmanship, could be said to more resemble an entertainer than a nightmare supervillain.
Clinton, on the other hand…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWkg6Cdkd10
Good luck unseeing that.
