Editorial cartoonists often draw election day cartoons that predict a winner in advance, so that editors have a cartoon ready when the news breaks on election night. Here’s mine.
Almost twenty years ago I was just switching careers from being a Muppet and advertising cartoonist to being a political cartoonist and I was drawing local, Hawaii state cartoons for the Midweek newspaper. There was a big election for governor between the incumbent Ben Cayetano and Linda Lingle. The polls showed that Lingle would win and my cartoon deadline was the Monday before election day, so I drew this Lingle wins cartoon and the paper went to press on it’s regular schedule, sampling that single would win.
All the predictions were wrong and Cayetano won (Lingle won the governor’s seat in a later election). I got a frantic call from the Midweek editor, Don Chapman, on Wednesday – they had to throw out the papers that were already printed and set to be delivered on Wednesday (perhaps now they are collectors items) and they were holding the presses for me to draw an emergency “Cayetano Wins” cartoon immediately. I drew the emergency cartoon at the left as fast as I could.
Now that I don’t have a newspaper home I don’t think anyone will be gambling on my Hillary Wins cartoon for tomorrows editions. I was going to draw a Trump Wins cartoon with the characters switching places. Maybe I’ll scramble to draw a Trump Wins cartoon late tonight.
No. I’m too lazy.