Obama, Romney Halloween masks hot sellers in election year

Every four years, Halloween gets a little scarier.

More profitable, too, for the holiday's merchants. Each presidential election year, there's an uptick in sales of candidate masks and other political paraphernalia to go with all the monster props, superhero suits and sexy maid outfits that sell this time of year.

"Sales easily quadruple in an election year," Jennifer Gracia, a product brand manager for Poway-based Disguise Inc., said regarding the Politically Incorrect line of masks of political figures the company makes.

The national Spirit Halloween chain, which has three locations in Long Beach, for example, has not only set up a mock voting booth in its stores to display candidate masks; there are QR codes on the booths that, when scanned by smartphones, link customers to the company's politically themed page where they can cast a straw poll vote for Obama, Romney or hot-selling costume characters like foul-mouthed stuffed bear Ted.

At the Marina Circle Center location, 4640 E. Pacific Coast Highway, Assistant Manager Rachel Durbin said the company partnered with Rock the Vote to promote voter registration.

"We have a link on our website so our customers can easily access Rock the Vote to register for the vote online," she said. "Voting is on everyone's minds during an election year, so we not only sell candidate masks, which are always in high demand, we encourage our customers to vote."

Spirit also runs a

So far this year, Obama leads Romney in the index, 65 to 35 percent, although that represents a 3 percent drop for the president since the first televised debate. Things are trending the same way on Disguise and the SoCal-limited Halloween Adventure's metrics.

Of course, there isn't a direct correlation between mask buyers and likely voters.

"Four years ago, we had a lot of Sarah Palin and John McCain masks," Durbin said. "This year it is all about President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney - we get a lot of customers coming in and asking. They are definitely a hot seller."

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Obama, Romney Halloween masks hot sellers in election year