"Coffee continues to be a top favorite product among our customers," said Nancy Smith, 7-Eleven's marketing vice president. "I think it's one of the reasons 7-Election has been so successful over the years. CofFREE Day gives our stores an opportunity to thank their coffee customers for their patronage. It's an added perk that National Coffee Day happens during the election season this year. We expect turnout to be strong – just like our coffee."
Also on Friday, 7-Eleven's "Mobile Oval" political party bus featuring a mini-presidential Oval Office on wheels begins its nonpartisan cross-country journey. The highly visible vehicle will make campaign stops in select U.S. cities, with the 7-Eleven grassroots team offering free coffee samples, handing out coupons and taking photos of visitors in the Mobile Oval or with their favorite candidate. Tweets from the road will appear on Twitter (#mobileoval), and a map highlighting the bus route will be updated regularly on the 7-Election website. The Mobile Oval tour runs through Election Day, Nov. 6.
In past years, millions of everyday Americans have participated in the 7-Election vote as they go about their daily routines. Billed as unabashedly unofficial and unscientific, 7-Election invites customers to vote by selecting specially marked coffee cups. Patriotic coffee-drinkers can vote at participating 7-Eleven stores as early and as often as they want in the remaining weeks leading up to the national election – but only for free this Friday from 6 to 10 a.m. Since 2000, 7-Eleven "coffee cup-voters" have successfully predicted the winner in each presidential election, giving 7-Election a better track record than some well-known statistically valid polls.
Special campaign cups are tabulated at the register when the sale is made, and the retailer posts national and state results daily on www.7-election.com. Poll tallies reflect the percentage of candidate cups sold to date, not including 7-Eleven's regular cups.
While coffee is a nonpartisan beverage enjoyed by Democrats and Republicans alike, it does have deep political roots in American history. In 1607, Captain John Smith in Virginia introduced coffee in America, and the First Continental Congress named it the national beverage after the Boston Tea Party.
7-Eleven was the first U.S. retailer to offer fresh-brewed coffee in to-go cups back in the mid-1960s. It proved an instant success. Customers liked fixing their coffee the way they wanted it – choosing cup size, regular or decaffeinated, and adding sweeteners and creamers to suit their tastes. Today, 7-Eleven sells more fresh-brewed coffee than anything else – 1 million cups per day. In each of the past 7-Election polls, more than 6 million candidate cups were cast.
