It's a tough assignment but somebody had to do it. So WVXU sent Ann Thompson to get a first-hand look at the Busken Presidential Cookie Poll. She found this tabulation, with a 100% accuracy rate to the real election, has customers not only following their political affiliation but their gut.
Harrison's Joe Gammell is skeptical the Busken poll has a true representation of the political landscape, especially at the Hyde Park Busken flagship where he was shopping. (Does Gammell know this is an unscientific poll?)
But he wanted to do his part. So Gammell walked out with the likeness of the president. "It wasn't a hard decision at all. I'm very Trump," he says.
On the day WVXU interviewed Dan Busken, only 100 votes separated Trump and Biden and the Independent Cookie Party was a distant third. But just a few days later on Oct. 6, 1,000 cookies separated the Republican and Democratic candidates with the president out in front.
The cookies are also sold at 150 UDF locations. In the spirit of political correctness, WVXU went to both Republican and Democratic strongholds. At the UDF at Eight Mile and Clough Pike in Anderson Township, the Trump cookies were sold out. At the UDF in Clifton, there were no Bidens left.
"There are folks who like to stuff the ballot box, which is their stomach," Busken says. "We do get large orders from time to time."
Hyde Park Busken second shift manager Joshua Stayton says some customers are in for a rude awakening when they try to prank people. "The funny thing is they don't necessarily realize that this is them placing their vote and so they'll get the opposite side as a joke for their friends and I'll be like, 'You do realize this is counting towards your vote,' and they're like 'Oh, no' and then they'll switch it back," he says.
You can keep track of who is winning on Busken's Facebook page and on a digital billboard on I-71 north coming out of downtown.
The cookie sales will continue through the election.
