“A lot of people just thought I was a Republican,” she said. “They asked me if I actually had voted for Bush.”

And while many students donned political attire, few decided to imitate the candidates themselves.

Jess, a saleswoman at Hootenanny, a punk clothing and costume shop in the Garage, said that she had only sold a few Bush masks.

“Someone bought a Bush mask to wear with a gynecologst’s lab coat,” she said. “But that’s really it. We only had two Bush masks and we didn’t sell Kerry masks.”

Kathleen M. White, the owner of the quirky consignment shop Oona’s on Mass Ave. has sold Halloween costumes to Harvard students for years and said she doesn’t carry political masks because there isn’t any demand for them.

“No one really wants to be the candidates,” she said. “I sold a lot of pimp hats but no political accessories.”

Even though students in the Square may have had difficulty getting their hands on candidates masks, some say mask sales in the past have been an accurate indicator of the outcome of the election.

According to polling on buycostumes.com, Bush is currently in the lead with 53 percent of sales as opposed to Kerry’s 47 percent of the market.

At Harvard, 73 percent of eligible voters surveyed by The Crimson last week said they would vote for Kerry if the elections were held today, while only 19 percent said they would support President George W. Bush.

If buycostumes is correct, these students may find Election Day spookier than Halloween.

—Staff writer Wendy D. Widman can be reached at widman@fas.harvard.edu.