Halloween is over, but some say the scariest holiday of the season still hasn’t passed—arguing it’s really election day. But the two could be linked. For the past four elections, Halloween mask sales have been a strong indicator for the outcome of the presidential election. Meaning traditionally, whichever candidate’s likeness has sold the most masks on the 31st that ended up being the candidate who won the vote on election day.
Does that method sound scary? According Spirit Halloween, one of the top national retailers for candidate masks—in the past it’s been scary accurate.
“After the election in 1996 we had noticed that the Bill Clinton mask had outsold Bob Dole, 71-29-percent respectively. So we started to keep track of it and every four years since then, we’ve noticed that the sales of our presidential masks in our stores in the United States have accurately predicted the winner of the actual presidential race,” Said Spirit Halloween Spokeswoman, Crystal Baxter.
She said since the company started keeping track, about four elections ago, whichever candidate mask has sold the most by the end of Halloween night, that’s who ends up in the White House.
“So in 1996 Bill Clinton outsold Bob Dole, in the year 2000 George W. Bush. In 2004 George W Bush. And then in 2008 Barack Obama,” Baxter said.
This year, Spirit’s numbers put President Barack Obama’s mask sales in the lead over Republican candidate Mitt Romney, by a fairly comfortable margin. But other companies' numbers differ. For example, buycostumes.com shows Democrat candidate masks beating Republicans by just a few percentage points. And in Florida sales, the costume website shows Republicans with a healthy lead over Democrats. Nation-wide though, Obama is in the lead, meaning if history is an indicator, Obama should a win second term. But, of course there’s not much science behind the study and it leaves some questions unanswered. For example, do people buy the masks because they support the candidates or because they’re making fun of them? Baxter said it’s a little bit of both.
“Our fans definitely like to have fun you know, cause the humor category is really big in our store. So it almost goes along with that. There are a lot of people that bought the masks during the national convention and the debates. You know to help support their candidates, but that’s not to say that somebody bought the mask and is going to pair it with one of our clown costumes," Baxter said.
Clarence Charmorro , for example, said he bought his mask as a joke.
“I’m a Romney supporter and I’m going to dress as a funny Obama caricature.”
Charmorro, a college student, is pairing his Obama face-wear with a gorilla suit – a commentary, he said, on the ridiculousness of the political system.
Meanwhile, at the Tallahassee Magic and Fun costume shop, owner Phillip Sass says candidate masks are a big seller, though not as popular as biggest seller this year – Mexican Ponchos and sombreros. Sass said he sees people buying candidate masks for a number of reasons too. Though more often he thinks maybe they’re supporting the candidate.
“Most of them say do I look like Obama when they put the mask on? And I say yeah, well your face does. I guess they’re just dressing up like their favorite candidate, I guess,” Sass said.
Sass said he’s seeing Obama masks outsell Romney masks too – although he won’t say whether he thinks that’s good news or bad news.
For more news updates, follow Regan McCarthy on twitter @Regan_McCarthy
