PRPG:
5 Weird Presidential Election Indicators

5 Weird Presidential Election Indicators

October 20, 2016

Who will win the election on November 8? Just pay attention to the cookies, football, and the costume store…unless they’re wrong. (Prognostication isn’t an exact science, people.)
5 Weird Presidential Election Indicators

NFL

If the NFL’s team in Washington, D.C. wins its last home game that takes place before the presidential election, the incumbent—or the incumbent party—wins. Since Washington beat the visiting Philadelphia Eagles 27 to 20 on October 16, that means Hillary Clinton will win. (Or not—Washington lost this particularly game in both 2004 and 2012, wrongly “predicting” that John Kerry and Mitt Romney would win, respectively.)

Family Circle

Since 1992, Family Circle has invited the spouses of the two main candidates to send in their favorite cookie recipe, and readers then vote on the winner. This year, Bill Clinton’s “Clinton Family Chocolate Chip Cookies” defeated Melania Trump’s “Star Cookies.” Every cookie winner has gone on to be the first spouse, except in 2008 when Cindy McCain’s Oatmeal-Butterscotch Cookies beat Michelle Obama’s Shortbread.

7-11 Coffee

In the summer and fall before the election, 7-11 allows customers buying coffee to choose between cups bearing each of the two parties’ names. The company keeps tallies, and every time since 2000, the candidate who sold the most cups went on to win the presidential election.

World Series

From 1952 to 1976, if the representative of the American League won that year’s World Series, then the Republican candidate won the election that same year. (And a National League win indicated a Democratic victory.) The model broke down in the ‘80s and ‘90s (1988, 1992, and 1996 veered from tradition), but ever since it’s been right.

Halloween Masks

Whichever candidate sells the most rubber Halloween masks loosely based on their likeness has won every presidential election since 1980. (Oddly enough, a perennial seller, and a mask which has outsold the actual candidates in many election year Halloweens: Richard Nixon.)