The Monogram Shop sells cups, Cieslak's Modern Bakery cookies for a presidential poll

Long Island has its own presidential poll this election year — The Monogram Shop/Cieslaks Modern Bakery humorous and wholly unscientific survey.

When legitimate polling shows a presidential race so close it’s within the statistical margin of error, informal polling could be as good a predictor. And two Suffolk County stores selling items branded for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump show a divided local electorate.

At The Monogram Shop in East Hampton, which sells household goods, owner Valerie Smith in every presidential election year since 2004 has sold plastic cups printed with candidates’ names — accurately predicting the winner every time except 2016. In Lindenhurst, the 90-year-old Cieslaks Modern Bakery this year began selling cookies emblazoned with the name of either Democratic nominee Harris or Republican nominee Trump.

"We thought it would be fun to watch what happens," said Eileen Biggs, 72, of Lindenhurst, who with her sister, Lauren Zacher, runs the family-owned bakery begun by their late grandfather in 1934. The politically themed black-and-white cookies, which are colored red for Trump and blue for Harris with the candidate's name in white frosting and the year 2024, began selling in October for $2.49 each. "We don’t have them every day, usually just weekends, but if people ask for them, we will make them up."

Biggs said she stopped keeping track of which candidate was "winning" the sales shortly after launching the cookies but that "Trump was ahead at that point."

The Monogram Shop year-round carries stackable, shatter-resistant 16-ounce plastic cups for $3 each, but adds the candidates' names — and posts a running tally of sales — during presidential election cycles. The shop's website describes its cup count as a means to "gauge the temperature of the elections."

"We started during the primary [in 2004] when there were several contenders, and we had cups for each, just to see where the enthusiasm lay in the run-up to that election," said Smith, 75, of East Hampton, who runs the 27-year-old shop with her granddaughter, Sophie Mengus. "Once we had the two candidates, [George W.] Bush and [John] Kerry, we just kept on going. And we've done it every year since."

This year, Trump was outpacing Joe Biden 2,610 to 847 as of July 21. The shop introduced Harris cups July 24, after the vice president became the presumptive Democratic nominee. As of Oct. 30, Harris cookie sales topped those of Trump, 14,124 to 4,942.

Such informal buy-a-product polls by retailers are not uncommon, said Erica Chase-Gregory, director of the Small Business Development Center at Farmingdale State College. Although they may or may not have an effect on sales, the novelty can help keep a store in people’s minds, she said.

"I wouldn't think it's going to move the dial too far one way or the other," she said of such efforts’ sales potential. "Maybe somebody will pick up an extra cookie if they're buying a cake. Or maybe someone goes in and they love the cups and say, ‘Oh, I’d like 20 of these for a picnic.’ ”

"It doesn’t translate into a sales bonanza," Smith agreed. "Many people buy just one cup." But the effort has had "a huge effect," she said, on expanding her store’s reach. "People who would never dream of coming into the shop — read: men — come in solely to buy the cups."

She added, "I did not start doing this as a marketing ploy. I began selling cups in 2004 simply because I was curious about who people were supporting, rather than cooking it up as a clever way to drive foot traffic."

The critical thing, Chase-Gregory said, is for a store to stay neutral. "If you’re bipartisan, no one's leaving saying, ‘I was turned off.’ No one's feeling attacked. And it's showing that the business is just having fun."

In the case of cookies and cups, Harris leading in one Suffolk locality and Trump in another seems reflective of the county itself: The 2020 election saw a razor-thin 232-vote difference between the two major-party candidates, according to the county’s Board of Elections, with 381,253 for Trump (49.40%) and 381,021 (49.37%) for Biden.

Yet in this highly heated 2024 election, said Smith, her store has faced online vitriol no matter how evenhanded her poll has been. Through 2020, she had posted daily counts online without incident. This year, "We got all kinds of really nasty comments online that never happen in the store. ... We just thought it was unpleasant and so we took [the daily counts] off the site."

At the bakery, some such unpleasantness was face-to-face, Biggs said. "You get some people who get incited if their [candidate’s] cookie isn't there," she said. "We always have to keep at least one of each [displayed] on the shelf" on days the cookies are available. "Otherwise, they get insulted. It's amazing."

Smith — who gets her cups printed at a factory in Texas — is unsure when she will stop selling this year’s items. After the election on Nov. 5, she may put the leftovers "in a box out on the street and it’ll say 'free.' "

Or perhaps not. "I will not be surprised," she said, "if people want to come in afterward and continue to buy them to have as a keepsake. It's been a pretty historic election year, let's face it."