Tough to mask the early results
The 2016 presidential election has been so dirty, unscripted and outright frightening, there are more parallels with Halloween than in previous years.
And if Spirit Halloween is any indicator, Donald J. Trump will win next week’s election.
The largest Halloween-specific retailer in the world announced in September the results of its online survey, giving the Republican an edge. That’s in number of masks sold, of course.
Trump masks outsold Hillary Clinton ones by a 3-to-1 margin at one point, according to Rubie’s Costume Co., a large-scale manufacturer of Halloween accessories. Trump costumes overall are posting 10-point margin, with a 55 percent to 45 percent win over the Democrat.
Spirit Halloween claims to have predicted every presidential election outcome since 1996 based on the top-selling mask, certainly good news for Trump.
While this may seem spooky to Clinton’s campaign, there is good news: 39 percent of those who chose Trump did so to be funny, and twice as many selected the New York billionaire instead of the scandal-prone Clinton to mock the candidate.
The mask-themed Harris Poll, which surveyed more than 2,000 people, also found about 23 percent of Republicans and 27 percent of Democrats indicated they would dress up as the opposite party’s candidate to frighten America.
A store manager at the Spirit Halloween located on the Daniel Webster Highway told The Telegraph that its mask supply is "out of pretty much everybody," from Trump to Clinton’s primary foe Bernie Sanders.
"There’s maybe one Trump (‘Comb Over Candidate’) left," he said on Halloween.
The big seller in Nashua for adults came from the blockbuster movie "Suicide Squad." That’s a whole other kind of political statement right there.
The Boston Globe reported this week that the two presidential candidates are "easily the most popular costumes this Halloween, with blond wigs, faux pearls and orange makeup flying off the shelves." The paper noted there have been some "creative Hillarys," from costumes depicting her as a Superwoman to another in a prison jumpsuit.
Perhaps there is more in common between Halloween and Election Day – only in this cycle the Nov. 8 results are likely to scare more Americans than a little trick-or-treating on Oct. 31.