Did you know that our candles sales have accurately predicted the winner of every U.S. presidential election (and every Canadian federal election1) since 2016?
And that in the time since then, we’ve grown to be the country’s largest manufacturer of candles based on Democratic primary candidates2?
Wow! After you pull your jaw up off the floor, you’ll find yourself wondering, “Does this mean you can tell me who the nominee will be? Because if so, I can go ahead and start putting bumper stickers on my neighbors’ cars in the middle of the night.”
Well, the answer is yes. And here you go! A glimpse into the dimly seen future of American politics, through the dark glass of candle sales3:
Pete Buttigieg – 44%
Bernie Sanders – 21%
Elizabeth Warren – 18%
Joe Biden – 17%
1 Literally no one asked us to make an Andrew Scheer candle and we consider that a candle sales win for Trudeau.
2 I mean, probably. We certainly SHOULD be the largest one.
3 Please note: These figures might not add up to 100% due to rounding and also due to the fact that I might have done the math wrong.
So there you have it! It’s all pretty clear and definitive. Yet I suppose you might have some questions about our methodology.
Frequently Asked Questions About Our Suspicious Methodology
Q: Couldn’t this ranking be the result of which of your candles do better in search engine results, rather than which candidate is the most popular?
A: Oh yeah, definitely. Also, someone posted our Buttigieg candle on Reddit, and that resulted in a bunch of sales.
Q: How does Etsy’s search engine algorithm work? What would make one candle appear higher in a search on Etsy than another?
A: Lordy, I wish we knew. Do YOU know? If you do, would you like to be our marketing intern? The good news is that the internship is paid. And the EVEN BETTER news is that it’s paid in candles rather than U.S. dollars. (Just between you and me, dollars are an increasingly iffy place to allocate your assets. Safer to go with a durable commodity, like candles.)
Q: Could I game your candle primary by buying a bunch of candles, giving a boost to my preferred candidate?
A: It’s worth a try.
Q: Did you spend money advertising each of the candles equally?
A: I have no idea. Our advertising is a mess. We didn’t intentionally push some candles over others. But our advertising strategy cannot really be characterized as “intentional,” or even as a “strategy.” It’s more like a gauzy dream where lots of things happen, one after another.
Q: Do you think it’s possible that the candidacies of Beto, Kamala, Cory Booker, and Marianne Williamson were unsuccessful because you didn’t make a candle for them?
A: Yes, almost certainly. That’s something Bloomberg should think about. He’s already spent over a hundred and fifty million dollars. But for just ONE million dollars we would make him…oh, let’s say 10,000 Michael Bloomberg-Scented Candles. That would rocket him into an unassailable first place in the all-important candle primary, and he’d be the proud owner of 10,000 candles.
Q: What about the critical swing states in the electoral college? That’s really what counts, since we don’t elect the president by a national popular vote.
A: Good point! What’s going to matter is which candidate does best against Trump in places like Wisconsin or North Carolina, not which one does best against him overall. But the bad news is that determining state-by-state candle sales is a huge pain and I’m not going to do it. If you’re interested in how candidates might match up head-to-head against Trump in key electoral college states, I would refer you to polls.
