CAROLINE GRAHAM: Why this crazy Halloween costume could help predict who wins the US election

With Halloween falling just five days before the most hotly contested presidential race in living memory, it is little wonder that politically themed costumes are proving popular.

But theres one outfit flying off the party store shelves that might seem a little unlikely.

For, while glamor-puss Barbie turned out to be last years most popular Halloween costume, partygoers can expect a visit from a very different character on Thursday – when The Childless Cat Lady knocks on the front door.

The outfits are, of course, a joking reference to the words of JD Vance, the Republican nominee for Vice President who outraged millions when he claimed in 2021 that the Democratic Party is run by, a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable in their own lives... so want to make the rest of the country miserable too.

Look at Kamala Harris, he continued. The entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children.

Glamor-puss Barbie was last years most popular Halloween costume, but partygoers can expect a visit from a very different character on Thursday – when The Childless Cat Lady makes an appearance. (Pictured: Costume sold by Target for $55.99).

Its a reference to the words of JD Vance, who stated that the Democratic Party is run by, a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable in their own lives…so want to make the rest of the country miserable too.

He certainly caught the zeitgeist. Cat ladies have spawned an explosion of memes on social media and its no coincidence that New Yorks biggest Halloween parade has Meow! as this years theme.

We cant keep crazy cat lady costumes on the shelves, said a worker at Spirit Halloween in Los Angeles, which has pop-up stores across the country.

Its by far our biggest seller and its the same in our stores everywhere. Nothing even comes close, not even Taylor Swift.

Cat lady costumes and t-shirts are tipped to be the number one bestseller for online retail giants like Amazon and Etsy, too.

Not that everyone will see the funny side between now and the election on November 5.

In fact for Donald Trump and JD Vance, his Yale-educated running mate, the childless cat ladies – and the female fury they provoked – could prove dangerously spooky.

Thats certainly what Kamala Harris is hoping as she desperately courts older female voters in the final days of a campaign now neck and neck in the national polls.

For while Harriss overwhelming support amongst young women and women of color has barely wavered since she replaced Joe Biden on the Democrat ticket in the summer, there is one section of voters who appear to be still in play: Republican women over 50 could prove critical even at this late stage.

As one major Democratic donor told me: Every single vote counts and we have found there is a swath of Republican women, over 50, geographically all over the country and from all walks of life, who might change their minds.

These are life-long Republicans who held their noses last time and voted Trump. But this time around we are hearing from our grassroots canvassers that these women are open to change. They dont like Trumps vulgarity and lies.

They dont like his stance on abortion, either.

By encouraging the Supreme Court to abolish Roe v Wade – the federal guarantee of abortion rights – Trump had already galvanized a powerful section of the female vote against him.

This TikToker is among the thousands planning to become a Childless Cat Lady on Halloween.

One party store said cat lady costumes are flying off the shelves: Nothing even comes close, not even Taylor Swift.

Abortion is a big issue, confirmed the Democrat donor. And, while many Republican women are pro-life, they also say they believe women should have autonomy over their own bodies.

The idea of telling women what they can and cant do with their own bodies repulses them. The childless cat lady comment enraged all women but particularly Republican women of a certain age because it was such a dumb and insulting thing to say. And that specific demographic could well make a difference in a race this tight.

So important are these women that Harris spent Monday this week in the crucial battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin launching a direct appeal to Republican women alongside former Congresswoman Liz Cheney.

During a town hall meeting in Michigan, lifelong Republican Cheney – whose father Dick Cheney served as vice president to George W. Bush – framed the election as, a choice between right and wrong.

Cheney said: I have many Republicans who say to me, I cant be public. They do worry about a whole range of things, including violence, but theyll do the right thing. I would tell them (Republican women) you can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody.

Canvasser Anne Brown, 54, is in the crucial Pennsylvania suburb of Chester County, where Harris and Cheney appeared on Monday night.

She said: You see yard signs where Kamalas name is spelled out in cat motifs. I think with a lot of these women it comes down to basic decency and wanting to protect the Constitution. Trump is an existential threat to democracy and thats why I believe you will see Republican men and women voting for Kamala, but particularly women. Chester County voted Republican for 150 years. But when I am speaking to my Republican friends, they are telling me they are voting for Kamala.

In the latest New York Times/Siena College poll, Kamala is winning as many as four per cent of voters registered as Republican.

Melanie Barton-Gauss, a retired teacher from Florida, is a member of Republican Voters Against Trump.

I grew up pro-life, but I am very firm in my stance that my views on abortion are my personal views, she said. Nobody has any right to impose our personal religious views on somebody else. Our nations founders never intended for this country to be a theocracy.

Referring to Vances childless cat ladies comment she added: What does he think? That women are supposed to be barefoot and pregnant? That our whole lives are nothing but as child bearers and carers? I did not go to college to be relegated solely to that role.

Will older women turn against Trump and Vance? Kamala Harris spent Monday in the crucial battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin launching a direct appeal to Republican women alongside former GOP Congresswoman Liz Cheney (pictured).

Trump, meanwhile, can look to his own surge in male voters in what has become one of the most markedly gendered elections of all time.

Harris has huge lead of around 13 percentage poinst among women according to a poll by the Wall Street Journal, yet the same research shows that Trump has a substantial ten-point lead among men.

In fact, Trump is thought to be eating into the Democrats traditional support from black and Latino males, which could itself tip the election in his favor.

Now, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) has launched a campaign titled, Shes the Difference: Women voters 50+.

AARP Vice President Nancy LeaMond said: We got very interested in older women voters when nobody else was focusing on them.

There are 63 million women voters over the age of 50 and 97 percent of them say they are going to vote.

The AARP says its own polling has shown a clear shift among 50-plus women in the past two weeks - and theyre moving towards the Democrats.

We know that women over 50 are very plugged in said AARP pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson.

They are focused on the news, they are educated, they are motivated, they are ready to participate.

A lifelong Republican friend from Texas who didnt want to be named – like many Ive spoken to  because, she explained, I would be ostracized by my church, my community and my family – is one of of those abandoning Trump.

I voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, she said, but this time I will secretly vote for Kamala and never tell my husband.

My friend had already been appalled by Trumps infamous 2016 comments caught on a hot mic by Access Hollywood that he was so famous he could grab women by the p*ssy.

Now, following the abortion legislation and JD Vances comments, shes finally had enough.

It would be a little ironic, she suggested, if the man who said that ends up getting defeated by a bunch of Republican cat ladies