Costume preference may predict Eagle Mayor mayoral race

Which Eagle Mountain mayoral candidate would you rather be for Halloween: incumbent Heather Jackson or challenger Regan Bolli?

Tom Groark, president of the Utah Media Group, believes the answer to that question will accurately predict the city's next mayor.

"I've heard for the last couple of election seasons that sales of Halloween masks have been 100 percent reliable in predicting who will be the next president," Groark said.

To test his theory, Groark created a 10-second survey and e-mailed it to all Eagle Mountain residents. Three hours after Groark pushed "Send," 20 people had already taken the survey.

Groark's idea might seem far-fetched, but some costume companies swear by the same system. During last year's presidential election, the chief executive officer of buycostumes.com noticed a trend in sales and after some analysis concluded that whichever presidential candidate's likeness sold more costumes would win the election.

"(For 2008), we even made it more apples-to-apples and created paper-mask likenesses of each candidate that were only 99 cents," said Karen Van Ert, director of marketing for buycostumes.com.

After the results were in, the company predicted Barack Obama would win the election, since 55 percent of the masks sold bore his likeness. The "Presidential Mask Poll" also correctly predicted the results of the presidential primaries and the past three presidential races.

Unlike buycostumes.com, Groark isn't interested in making money. He said he just wants to encourage people to vote.

"It's a fun way to (encourage voting) in a neutral, candidate-free way," Groark said. "Without having real masks made up, I did it in a virtual way."

He said he's hoping enough people participate in his survey to give an accurate prediction of which way the vote will go.

To cast your vote on which candidate you would rather dress up as, visit utahmediagroup.com/boo.htm. Results will be determined Monday.

e-mail: ashaha@desnews.com