People are driving from hours away to buy cookies at Lochel’s Bakery outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And orders for its red and blue cookies are coming in from as far away as the American state of Alaska.
They come to buy the 10-centimeter round cookies in blue and white showing the name of the Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris. Or, they want the red and white cookies with the name of the Republican candidate, Donald Trump.
These are not your everyday cookies. At Lochel’s Bakery, the sale of each Harris 2024 or Trump 2024 cookie counts as a vote for the candidate. The candidate with the most cookies sold is considered the winner of its “cookie poll.”
The sale of cookies and the cookie poll began in the 2008 presidential election as a joke between the bakery owners and their customers. The cookie poll correctly predicted Barack Obama as the winner in 2008 and 2012 and Trump as the winner in 2016. But in 2020, more customers bought cookies named after Trump, who lost that year’s election to Joe Biden.
Kathy Lochel is one of the bakery’s owners. She said the cookie poll is meant to be fun. “It’s definitely not scientific. It’s just a… way… to take the pressure off with what is going on with the election,” Lochel added.
Helene Moran recently bought Trump cookies on her 82nd birthday. Moran said she bought each time Trump ran for election. “He’s my sweetheart, I love him so much,” she said.
Lochel said the bakery is selling even more cookies this year than in 2020. “These cookies are being shipped all over the United States right now, so much so that they’re on back order, so we’re about three to four weeks back,” Lochel said.
It helps that Lochel’s Bakery is in the moderate and heavily populated suburbs of Philadelphia. The bakery is also in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, where support for Trump and Harris is evenly split among voters. Whichever candidate wins more battleground states will likely win this year’s election.
The sale of Trump cookies may have increased after he shared a story about the cookie poll on social media. As of September 24, Trump was leading Harris in cookie sales, 12,558 to 889 — a far bigger lead than real election polls of likely voters have found.
Lochel says that while the real election includes attack advertising and name-calling, the cookie-buying public has been much nicer.
“The people that are coming into our store, whether they’re buying red or blue cookies, they’re friendly, they joke, they laugh, they buy other things,” Lochel said.
I’m Andrew Smith.
Andrew Smith adapted this story for VOA Learning English from reporting from The Associated Press.
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Words in This Story
poll -n. a survey in which people are asked their opinion or what they will choose to do
customer -n. a person who buys things from a physical or online store
back order -n. things customers have bought but the seller cannot yet deliver to them
suburb -n. an area, typically with many homes, located immediately outside a city