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One company says Trump masks are outselling the Clinton ones this Halloween

Kai Ryssdal Oct 27, 2016
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CHICAGO, IL - OCTOBER 19: Masks depicting Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton are offered for sale at Fantasy Costumes on October 19, 2016 in Chicago, Illinois.  Scott Olson/Getty Images

One company says Trump masks are outselling the Clinton ones this Halloween

Kai Ryssdal Oct 27, 2016
CHICAGO, IL - OCTOBER 19: Masks depicting Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton are offered for sale at Fantasy Costumes on October 19, 2016 in Chicago, Illinois.  Scott Olson/Getty Images
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The National Retail Federation says we’re gonna spend some $8.4 billion on Halloween this year.

That’s a whole lot of candy corn and costumes. And when it comes to those costumes — the Pokemons, the Batmans and the name-brand characters — there’s one company that’s making a whole lot of money on what used to be a pretty simply kids holiday.

Claire Suddath wrote about Rubie’s Costume Company for Bloomberg and spoke with Kai Ryssdal.

On why Rubie’s Trump masks might be outselling the Clinton ones: 

Rubie’s has seen a number of presidential elections now and according to [co-owner] Howard [Beige] in the past they can always predict the outcome of the presidential election based on who’s mask sells best… But this year is different. This year Donald Trump’s mask is outselling Hillary’s in an absolute landslide. But Howard thinks that the reason behind this is a little bit different and it may not be predictive of the actual election because people are actually dressing up as Donald Trump both to support him and to make fun of him. And on top of that, women rarely wear full masks for Halloween. So you would have men buying the Hillary mask and dressing up as Hillary, which most men would come up with a different costume that they would rather do. So those things together, I think you can’t predict the election based on Halloween anymore. 

Click the audio player above to hear the full interview.

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