M&M's or Skittles? Here's What Your Favorite Candy Says About Your Politics

Does your choice of candy have any bearing on your politics?

Pollsters Jennifer Dube and Will Feltus of National Media Research, Planning and Placement LLP previous charted the politics of beer and Americans' favorite TV shows. Now on Valentine's Day week, they've released this chart showing whether Americans' political preferences have any bearing on their favorite sweets.

This chart, though, isn't as easy to decipher as their previous work on brands that marketed themselves as lifestyle choices (like hybrid cars, or Budweiser and Chik-fil-A). When's the last time you saw candy marketed as a way to reinvent yourself?

There are a few minor trends that are easy to identify. Republicans really like dark chocolate (which makes sense, considering their taste for dark liquors), while Democrats tended to prefer their candies filled with extras like almonds and rice. Republicans preferred peanuts and creamy fillings. And everyone, left and right on the spectrum, liked M&M's — though M&M's Peanut Butter was the decisive favorite of the extreme right. Life Saver Gummies was the most leftist candy identified, narrowly beating out Hershey's Kisses Almond.

As to why, your guess is as good as mine. Perhaps it has something to do with the location certain candies are manufactured, or the class image associated with certain candies (Ghirardelli comes to mind). But mostly this survey seems to be a delicious, nougat-filled enigma.