The Great American Pickle & Pimento Loaf National Supermarket Presidential Poll

If you are like me, you get annoyed seeing a new presidential poll come up every time you turn to a news program on the TV. There are polls conducted by CNN, CBS News, NBC News, ABC News, Fox News, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The New York Times, Quinnipiac University, Monmouth University, Fairleigh Dickinson University, and just about every other TV/radio station, newspaper and college out there. And they all do the same thing. They poll some ridiculously small number of people, something like 1,167 voting-age adults, to decipher how a nation of 300-plus million is going to vote.

I am proposing what I believe is a more accurate and influential poll—polling supermarket shoppers. And conducting it would be very easy. In fact, it is something FMI and NGA could work on putting together. Each supermarket would simply have two covered canisters at the deli counter—one for Hillary Clinton and one for Donald Trump. After placing their deli orders, shoppers would dispose of their number ticket in the canister of whichever candidate they would like to see win. At the end of the day, the store manager simply has to count the number of tickets in each canister and call it in to an 800 number established by the trade associations.

This way tens of thousands of shoppers all across the country would be having their voices heard, in a safe, non-partisan confidential way. That is why I also propose the canisters be covered, so shoppers cannot see how many “ballots” are in each candidate’s jar.

Of course, in a crowded field of polls, this supermarket poll would need a catchy name, something that just rolls off the tongue—like The Great American Pickle & Pimento Loaf National Supermarket Presidential Poll.

I can picture tuning in to Fox News and seeing Megyn Kelly with a “BREAKING TONIGHT” graphic and saying, “According to the latest results of The Great American Pickle & Pimento Loaf National Supermarket Presidential Poll (followed by her trademark little giggle), it looks like an overwhelming number of Americans are favoring…” Then she could turn to her panel of talking heads to decipher the information.

This poll could also be sliced any number of ways. Want to know how rich suburbanites in New Jersey will vote? Just dissect the numbers from Kings. In L.A., it would be Gelson’s. Want to know how shoppers in the Midwest Rust Belt cities will vote? Look at data from Kroger, Meijer, Giant Eagle and the Spartan Nash family of stores. In the coalmines of Appalachia, look at Food City’s numbers.

When I travel the country researching for my Retail Spotlight features, and when waiting on line at the deli counter back home in New Jersey, I often hear shoppers griping about politics at the supermarket deli counter, so I am sure shoppers would be thrilled to have their voices heard.

Of course, there is the risk of having people stuff the ballot box by voting more than once, but they would be required to keep coming back into the store and buying more service deli products. So unlike politicians, this poll has the ability to get more Americans working again through shovel (in their mouths) ready jobs, since meat processing plants and salad factories across the land will be hiring more workers to meet the stepped up demand.   

I really think The Great American Pickle & Pimento Loaf National Supermarket Presidential Poll has all the makings of a winner and would beat Quinnipiac in a landslide!