PA Bakery's Trump Vs. Biden 'Cookie Election': Who Won?

UPDATE: In the bakery's final tally, announced Wednesday, there were a total of 37,554 political cookies sold — 31,804 for Trump and 5,750 for Biden.

HATBORO, PA — The presidential race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden may come down to the wire in Pennsylvania, with the final result not known for days. But in a Pennsylvania bakery's election-themed "cookie poll," we have a landslide.

At the end of the day Sunday, Lochel's Bakery had sold 27,903 red-and-white Trump cookies, compared to 5,114 blue-and-white Biden cookies. That's the last tally the family-owned bakery in Hatboro plans to release before Election Day.

Trump supporters were celebrating the blowout as a good omen. Since the tradition started in 2008, the bakery's cookie contest has accurately predicted the election's eventual winner.

But everything about this year's contest has been different — from the whopping 33,017 cookies already sold to a visit from a First Family member to national, and international, publicity for the bakery where things had gotten rough during the early months of the coronavirus shutdown.

Owner Kathleen Lochel told Patch that this year's contest, which started in early September, took off "like an erupting volcano."

"Never in my wildest dream did I think we would hit 5,000 cookies, let alone 31,114 so far," she said in a post on Saturday, before selling a couple thousand more.

After some local news reports, outlets like Good Morning America and Fox News picked up the story, followed by the likes of PBS, satellite radio talk shows and even Vogue magazine. In the past few days, Lochel said, she's done interviews with journalists from Norway, Japan, Australia, Italy, Taiwan and Canada and did a phone interview as a possible guest with a "well known nightly talk show that's under wrap."

The race got a big boost in Republican circles last month when Eric Trump, the president's son, stopped in to buy some cookies during a campaign swing through the area. Since then, he's continued to post updates on numbers from the race to social media.

"Kudos to him for taking the time to actually look at our Instagram and reshare it, right?" Lochel said in a video posted Sunday.

The bakery had been shipping the cookies, which sell for $4.49 each, and getting tons of orders from across the country, but eventually had to stop because demand got too high to handle.

In her interview with Patch, Lochel said she considered not doing the cookie poll this year because of how nasty this year's election had gotten among some. Unfortunately, that surfaced in a handful of situations during what's intended to be a light-hearted and fun contest.

For a while, Lochel's stopped posting sales tallies to social media because people would fight and make nasty comments on those posts. A handful of patrons have threatened to stop shopping there, she said, and the family-owned shop has even received hateful, threatening messages that led Lochel to report them to police.

In the middle of Sunday's video, Lochel called out a commenter she said had harassed her repeatedly because the bakery didn't offer cookies for Libertarian candidate Jo Jorgensen in the contest.

In the end, Lochel said, this year's crazy contest has been a boon not just for her bakery, but other Hatboro businesses that have gotten support from customers who traveled from hours away for the contest.

While there's been some ugliness, she said the majority of customers have approached the contest in the spirit that was intended.

"Today was the prime example of unity, cheerful and American pride," she wrote Saturday. "Everyone was there for one common thing, supporting a small family owned business ... . All got along, laughed, joked and, for that time, it wasn't about your candidate ... . These cookies, for one short time, bring people together."

Lochel's Bakery, at 57 S. York Rd. in Hatboro, will continue the cookie contest on Monday and Tuesday, when it will be open 6 a.m.-7 p.m. Election cookies will be available as long as supplies last both days.