00:00Recently, Elon Musk offered incentives for people to sign petitions and point him in
00:04the right direction of undecided voters, laying down a million dollars a day to win in Pennsylvania.
00:09Election scholars agree that these payments would fall in a legal gray area, as it's illegal
00:13to pay someone to vote.
00:15In fact, it's even illegal to offer free gifts in exchange for something even as small as
00:19an I Voted sticker.
00:20That has led some companies like Uber and Lyft to give discounts instead, offering cheap
00:24rides on election day, or Krispy Kreme offering free donuts to every guest, and an I Voted
00:29sticker to early voters.
00:30But election merch is a big business that goes beyond stickers, and in fact American
00:34election merch sales might be able to tell us more about who will win than political
00:38analysts can.
00:39Steve Ferber, who co-owns a company that sells election merch, says that in 9 of the last
00:4411 elections, their sales successfully predicted the outcomes of the elections.
00:48The only outliers were in 2000, when Gore sold more merchandise, and it's worth mentioning,
00:52also attained more of the popular vote while losing on an electoral college technicality.
00:57And in 2016, when Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump.
01:00Ferber adds that Trump was outselling Biden more than 2 to 1, but after Harris took over
01:04the ticket, she began outselling the GOP candidate 3 to 1.
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