The Best Chocolate Candy To Get On Halloween According To 31% Of People

Before every Halloween, we start seeing these really baffling surveys that purport to tell us each state's "favorite" Halloween candy (via Candy Store). They inevitably leave us scratching our heads and wondering wtf, Louisiana, Lemonheads? Seriously, Georgia, Swedish Fish? Well, the only thing that makes sense of this data is to realize that it's based on what people are buying rather than what they like to eat. In short, it bears as much resemblance to people's actual candy preferences as would a list of top Christmas gifts that includes gifts people purchase rather than gifts they really want to receive.

There's no need to poll the populace to find out that the very best kind of Halloween candy is chocolate candy. Duh, that's a given. What type of chocolate tops the list, though ... well, that's where things get sticky. And also gooey. Some favor Snickers, others are more into M&Ms, while still others crave Kit-Kats. Milky Way, Reese's, Twix, and Butterfinger also have their fans. Well, we don't have the patience to poll people in all 50 states and then break down the data on that basis, but we did conduct one of our patented Mashed polls of 609 randomly-selected candy lovers to come up with the following definitive ranking.

Don't have a cow, Bart Simpson, but not everyone's dying to lay a finger on your beloved Butterfinger. This candy, although alleged to be the favorite of South Carolina and Wisconsin according to Candy Store, earned less than 6% of the vote in our poll. M&Ms barely rated 7%, possibly from voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, and the District of Columbia. Milky Way did a bit better but still failed to hit even an 8% approval rating with us, though it's still tops in Missouri. Twix topped 11%, surprising since it's the favorite of tiny Rhode Island and no other state. Kit Kat, aka Twix without the caramel, earned almost 17% of the vote despite being no state's top choice.

So now it comes down to the final showdown we all saw coming: Snickers vs Reese's. Sweet and chunky vs smooth and slightly salty, which one will win? The numbers are in, and ... it's Reese's, by a mile. Or at least 11 percentage points, since it beat out Snickers 31% to 20%. As the official favorite candy of California, Florida, and four other states, Reese's couldn't lose. Oddly enough, Snickers was another candy that was no state's number-one, although it did rate a silver medal in Idaho, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Virginia. "Second place Snickers" does have a nice ring to it.