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Some of the most accurate polls around might be a little on the unconventional side. For the last several campaign cycles, the winner of the Presidential election has always been the character whose Halloween mask has sold the most, according to costume seller “Party City!” School children taking part in the Scholastic Kids’ Election have predicted the President correctly every year since 1940, save for twice (Dewey v. Truman in 1948, and Nixon v. Kennedy, in 1960). And at 7-11 stores, the choice of coffee cup factors in to how the coffee tastes… or does it?

The Takeaway’s culture contributor Mary Elizabeth Williams went on assignment in New York to investigate how coffee cups, Halloween masks and school children predict the outcome of the 2008 election.