RED WING, Minnesota. — A bakery in southern Minnesota is trying to figure out who the nation’s next president will be by putting a fun spin on the political polls.
Hanisch Bakery in Red Wing launched its 2024 Presidential Cookie Poll last week, tracking how many cookies were purchased for each candidate: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump or Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
In the first week of polling, the bakery says Trump leads the poll with 314 cookies, compared to 192 cookies for Harris.
“It’s going to be a long process, it’s going to be a fun process. It’s going to be interesting and we’ll see who sells the most,” owner Bill Hanisch said. “It’s all about having fun, voting in what we call the sweetest way, enjoying a cookie and supporting your candidate.”
The bakery’s tradition goes back forty years, and the owners claim the cookie poll has accurately predicted nearly every presidential and gubernatorial election, with a few exceptions, most of which involved recent presidential elections.
In the Cookie Poll 2020Trump had a large lead over President Biden. On Election Day, however, Mr. Biden won the popular vote by about 7 million votes. And in 2012, a supporter of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney bought enough cookies to put his favored candidate ahead in the polls by one cookie.
Hanisch says the cookies will be sold and counted until the end of Election Day.
