It’s official: This presidential election is pretty much a car wreck in the making.
Well, that probably depends on what you think about automobiles where literally no one's behind the wheel. Swapalease.com, the nation's largest car lease marketplace, polled 2,500 drivers nationwide for its new 2016 Election & Cars survey.
When asked to describe the personality of this year's election in vehicular terms, a majority of respondents — 34 percent — chose "A driverless car." That just edged out "A four-wheel SUV going off road wherever it wants" at 29.8 percent.
As optimistic Americans, we’d like to think both those choices say something about the current electorate’s appreciation for the innovative and adventurous spirit of this great nation of ours. But then we remember the debates and we think, “Nah! They totally think it’s careening out of control.”
(Meanwhile, proving that the folks at Swapalease.com have a sense of humor and of current events, another personality descriptor they included was "A Volkswagen where what you see may not be what you get." That came in third at 18.4 percent, trailed by "Battle of the hummers" at 16.3 percent and Chevy Volt at 1.40 percent).
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Equally intriguing was what the September survey revealed about drivers/voters’ own personality types. As much as a car can reveal about personality type, anyway. Registered Republicans, who accounted for 41 percent of all those surveyed, were most likely to choose a Chevrolet Corvette as best matching their own personality type. Registered Democrats (27 percent of those surveyed) were most likely to choose a Tesla.
As for the two candidates themselves, well, there’s not much difference in how America thinks they ride. Top vote getters to the question, “What kind of a car do you think Hillary Clinton prefers to drive” were Mercedes-Benz GL Class (13.3 percent) and Cadillac Escalade (12.6 percent). The same question about Donald Trump brought the same top two responses, just (you should pardon the political term) flip-flopped: Cadillac Escalade came in at No. 1 for The Donald at 28 percent, followed by Mercedes-Benz GL Class at 16.75 percent.
Headquartered in Cincinnati, Swapalease.com describes itself as a “pioneer in facilitating lease transfers online … Swapalease.com matches individuals who want to get out of their lease with people who are looking for short-term lease agreements.”
No word on whether they can help us get out of this election season early!
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