Trump leads in Cincinnati’s “Cookie” poll, which has predicted all but one election since 1984

Donald Trump’s campaign team receives some great news from Ohio.

A popular Cincinnati bakery whose “cookie poll” has correctly predicted all but one election outcome since 1984 currently has the former president and Republican candidate ahead of Democrat Kamala Harris in its non-scientific poll.

Trump got about 54% approval (2,953 cookies) versus 39% for Harris (2,134 cookies). An “independent” smiley cookie got 7% ​​(397 cookies), according to the most recent count provided to the Post by Busken Bakery.

The cookie poll will remain open until Election Day on November 5, so the results reflect the outcome of “early voting” by those with a sweet tooth.

“We like to joke and say [customers] “The ballot box can be tampered with,” the bakery’s president and CEO, Dan Busken, told the Post.

To contribute data, customers simply purchase their preferred candidate’s cookie online or at one of Busken’s four regional stores.

Each cookie purchase counts as one vote and there is no limit to how many cookies a customer can purchase.

Despite its lack of electoral-theoretical precision, the poll has been remarkably accurate in the ten elections it has predicted so far, with the only result it missed being Democrat Joe Biden’s victory last year.

“Our results from our four retail stores cover north, south, east and west Cincinnati, so they’re pretty diverse,” Busken explained.

“It’s certainly interesting that this cookie survey has shown such accuracy over the years in a state like Ohio and in a city like Cincinnati.”

Ohio has long been considered a typical indicator state and was the winner in every election between 1964 and 2016.

That changed in 2020, when Trump – in a case of life imitating the pastry – won Ohio but lost the election.

The candidate contest was created by Dan Busken’s father and predecessor, Page, who had noticed the success of similar “polls” in the past, including a poll predicting the Super Bowl.

“We hire a local artist [Jim White] who does caricatures, and he draws a caricature of each candidate. And then we transfer that image onto a cookie,” explained Dan Busken. “It’s supposed to be fun.”

But not everyone enjoys it, as presidential politics has a controversial nature.

“Some people have been louder and less friendly this year than in any previous election,” Busken said. “But we’re making progress. We’ve been doing this for 40 years. We enjoy it.”

Several of the bakery’s partners have decided not to sell the cookies in question this year, but sales are still going well, according to Busken.

“We sold a lot more in the first two weeks than we did in the last election,” he said. “So I would say turnout among cookie voters is up.”

The battle between 78-year-old Trump and 59-year-old Harris is likely to be the closest election since the battle between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore in 2000, when the outcome was uncertain for 36 days.