As political scholars and pollsters try to predict the winner of the U.S. presidential election, some outsiders believe insight into the results can be found in a less conventional way — by looking at the sales of campaign merchandise.
“It's nine out of the last 11 elections. Our sales of the successful candidates’ [campaign merchandise] outpaced that of the candidates who lost in the elections,” Steve Ferber, co-owner of Lori Ferber Collectibles, told VOA Mandarin.
“We found that pretty amazing — that there is a direct correlation between the items that are most popular of campaign items and the final result of the elections, and that goes back as far as Ronald Reagan,” he said.
The U.S. president-themed store in Arizona has been selling election merchandise since 1973. Its products are sold on the store's official website and on e-commerce sites, including Amazon and eBay.
The only two times when the store’s sales didn’t match the election results were when Al Gore ran against George W. Bush in 2000 and Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump in 2016.
“Our customers purchased more merchandise for Al Gore and Hillary Clinton, and that was two times out of the 11 that that result was wrong in the end, although some people would say, for instance, that in both those elections, Al Gore and Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, just not the Electoral College vote,” Ferber said.
In the 2020 election, which Joe Biden won, the total number of Biden merchandise orders outpaced Trump merchandise orders by 8.3%, he said. He said anti-Trump buttons represented more than 30% of the Biden orders the store received, which was also the most anti-candidate orders it had ever received.
Ferber is not the only one who sees a correlation.
In September, the British newspaper The Telegraph reported that sales of U.S. election goods produced in Yiwu, China, in 2016 correctly predicted Trump's unexpected victory that year, something expert pollsters failed to do.
The report said that although Clinton was ahead in the polls in the final weeks of the campaign, sales of pro-Clinton goods made in Yiwu were declining. On the contrary, strong sales of pro-Trump merchandise bonded well for his election.
A report released in June said a majority of Americans believe political merchandise influences election outcomes.
The report, released by EverythingBranded, a global promotional products company, was based on a poll conducted by an independent market research consultancy, Censuswide, among 1,000 voting-age adults in May.
According to the survey, 70% of people said they bought political merchandise in the hope of influencing others to support the same candidate, and 68% said they believed that purchasing political merchandise would influence the outcome of the election.
Rob Mobsby, the digital director of EverythingBranded, said in the report, “When it comes to political merchandise, people not only want it to showcase their beliefs, they want to help their candidate win, one purchase at a time.
“This being an election year, political merch is everywhere. Regardless of age, location or even political affiliation, political merch represents the ultimate tribal belonging and may just be the difference in a tight race,” he added.
The report said clothing, such as T-shirts, sweatshirts and jackets, is the top choice for buyers of campaign merchandise, followed by headwear and car signs. Many of the campaign items flooding the U.S. are cheaper versions made in China and unofficial as both candidates vowed to only sell made-in-America promotional products.
According to research released by e-commerce marketing platform Omnisend, Trump-branded merchandise outsold Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris merchandise by more than a 5-to-1 margin on Amazon from April to September.
During that time frame, the platform’s data showed Amazon sellers made $140 million on pro-Trump merchandise, compared with $26 million by those selling pro-Biden-Harris merchandise. Even after Harris entered the presidential race in late July, Trump merchandise still sold more than Harris merchandise.
Ferber’s shop, however, saw a “major reversal” in election merchandise sales after Biden dropped out and Harris became Trump’s opponent and the two met in their only debate on September 10.
“Prior to that, the majority of the audience we were selling to were pro-Trump,” he said. “I think Trump merchandise was outselling the merchandise for Joe Biden 2-to-1. And amazingly, the day after the debate ended, that completely flopped in the other direction. And now we find that items that are promoting Kamala for president are outselling Donald Trump items 3-to-1.”
But political experts note that predictions based on campaign merchandise sales are unscientific.
Bruce I. Newman, a professor in the Department of Marketing at DePaul University, is an expert in political marketing.
“If there is a correlation between sales going up and a candidate doing better in the polls, correlation does not infer causality,” he told VOA Mandarin. “We do not know if it’s a high correlation with respect to the sales of merchandise and the success in the polls of the candidates. We don't know if it's the merchandise that's causing that.”
Newman said the leadership skills of the candidates and the emotional connections with the voters are the most important factors in winning an election, followed by the issues and policies, voter demographics and whether a candidate creates a unique movement for more hope in a positive, better society.
He said political merchandise has a minimal impact on election outcomes.
