Traditional first lady cookie contest won't happen ahead of 2020 election
FILE - First Lady Melania Trump attends an event to mark National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month in the East Room of the White House on September 3, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES - As Joe Biden and Donald Trump hit the campaign trail to win over voters with policy, a tradition aimed at winning over voters’ taste buds has been canceled this year: the annual first lady cookie competition.
Since 1992, the presidential bakeoff consisted of a cookie recipe published in Family Circle magazine which readers could bake, taste and vote on which first lady’s sweet tooth was most aligned with their own.
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But now, with Family Circle Magazine having published its last issue in December of 2019 after 86 years in publication, that tradition has officially crumbled.
A spokesperson for the Meredith Corporation, which owned Family Circle, told FOX News Wednesday that the publishing company does not have plans to bring the contest back to its other brands at this time. The Washington Post first reported the end of the cookie competition.
While the cookie contest had long helped Americans know which White House residents would bake the most delicious cookies, it was never useful in predicting the next president.
In 2016, the Clinton family’s chocolate chip cookie recipe claimed victory over now-first lady Melania Trump’s sour cream star cookies, and in 2008, Cindy McCain’s butterscotch oatmeal cookies were the crowd favorite over Michelle Obama’s shortbread cookie recipe.
But when Bill Clinton won two terms in 1992 and again in 1996, he and Hillary Clinton’s recipe trumped Barbara Bush's chocolate chip and Elizabeth Dole’s pecan cookie varieties.
FOX News contributed to this story.