Can Online Sales of T-Shirts and Coffee Mugs Predict Who Will Win Super Tuesday?

Can the sales figures of T-shirts, coffee mugs and bumper stickers accurately predict political elections? Yes they can, says online retailer of custom-made swag CafePress.

CafePress users have created an abundance of 2012 candidate-themed swag, from "Plan 999" shirts celebrating former candidate Herman Cain's economic plan to the classic "hope" Obama gear.

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CafePress considers itself a "cultural barometer" because it believes its sales figures can indicate cultural trends. In 2008, the company successfully predicted Barack Obama to win the presidential election.

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“Our sales matter, because everything is user-generated, which is why trends in political culture strongly correlate with product sales on CafePress," says Marc Cowlin, director of marketing at the company. "When something is popular nationally, it’s most likely popular on our site and vice versa."

Throughout the 2012 election season, the online retailer has been keeping track of how much of each candidate's gear has been sold in each state, collecting the results in an "election meter." Based on those figures, says CafePress, they can accurately predict the results of Tuesday's Republican primaries, dubbed "Super Tuesday" because of how many states (and delegates) are up for grabs. 

For its Super Tuesday predictions, CafePress took a look at the top two candidates in each contested state based on the most recent statewide polling data. The company then compared those two Republicans' sales as a percentage of total candidate-themed gear sold in each of those states.

CafePress made the following predictions based on the results:

Mitt Romney:
Tennessee
Massachusetts
Idaho
North Dakota
Alaska
Vermont

Rick Santorum:
Ohio
Oklahoma

Newt Gingrich:
Georgia

Ron Paul:
Virginia

The results are interesting because late February's data showed that Ron Paul gear was by far and away the top political seller on the site, not Mitt Romney apparel. Of course, these results aren't scientific, but it's certainly interesting to see if there's any correlation between swag sales and election results.

CafePress isn't associated with any candidate. No profit from campaign swag sales on CafePress will find its way into the coffers of any of the presidential hopefuls.

Do you think t-shirt and button sales can predict tomorrow's Super Tuesday primaries? Stay tuned to find out!

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Source & Image : Yahoo