Weird (and surprisingly accurate) ways to predict election results


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SALT LAKE CITY — The Washington Post, Dan Jones and Associates, The New York Times, CNN — everyone whose anyone in the world of politics is conducting polls, trying to predict the outcome of the presidential election.

Those are the serious pollsters, of course, but there are some more off-the-wall ways to predict the winner, and they have a good track record.

Employees at a Halloween City store in Salt Lake are keeping the political items in their store stocked up.

"In fact, this year we moved the section," district manager Clinton Mobley said. "It used to be inward-facing, but we moved it outward-facing because of the elections this year."

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The Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama masks are the stars of the display. But Bill Clinton and Sarah Palin masks are also hanging there. Managers said they make sure to stock extra politically-related masks and outfits every four years because customers do ask for them.

"They certainly have (asked)," said Jim Torres, assistant manager at Halloween City. "I think those are the kind of things people are going to wear to parties this year."

While Torres wouldn't share sales numbers, there are national statistics relating to political mask sales during Halloween.

The website buycostumes.com has tracked presidential mask sales for the last four elections, and sales have correlated with the actual winner. Right now, Obama-Biden masks are slightly outselling Romney-Ryan.

Did you know?

In 2000, as Al Gore went up against George W. Bush, while his Tennessee Titans were the last to play the Redskins at FedEx Field. Gore tempted fate by rooting for his home team, the Titans — who lost. Gore soon followed suit.

Source: TIME magazine

NFL football also plays a role in predicting who will be elected president. The so-called Washington Redskins Rule states that if the team wins their home game just prior to Election Day, then the party that won the previous election will win again. The Redskins Rule has been accurate in 17 of the last 18 presidential elections, dating back to 1937.

How about food? There's a bakery in Denver that's conducting a tasty poll with party-related cookies. They've tracked the sales of blue donkeys, red elephants and round undecideds. As of Thursday, customers like the red cookies by a 44 to 35 percent margin.

Back to the Halloween costume indicator: Here in Utah, both the Romney and President Obama masks are selling well, so the race is still too close to call.

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UtahPolitics
Keith McCord

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