Moo Deng the pygmy hippo picks her president
Pygmy hippo baby Moo Deng has predicted her 2024 U.S. presidential election winner in a video that has gone viral.
Her debut in the electoral forecasting business was impressive, and she showed no hesitation as she made her selection.
Posted Monday, the Thailand-based hippo had to choose between two watermelon cakes, one bearing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump‘s name, the other representing Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.
Moo Deng, which translates as Bouncy Pork, chomped on Trump pretty much immediately, while a bigger hippo in the pen tucked in to the Harris cake.
Housed at the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Chonburi, southern Thailand, four-month-old Moo Deng became famous after playful images of her on Facebook went viral in September.
Her name was chosen by fans in a social media poll, and since she shot to fame, many have made fan art depicting her.
The zoo’s director, Narongwit Chodchoi has begun the process of trademarking the name “Moo Deng the hippo” to prevent others from commercializing her. He said, “After we do this, we will have more income to support activities that will make the animals’ lives better. The benefits we get will return to the zoo to improve the life of all animals here.”
Newsweek reached out to the Khao Kheow Open Zoo for comment via email outside of business hours.
Moo Deng has even become a popular Halloween costume this year, and starred on Saturday Night Live, when actor Bowen Yang featured her on the show’s Weekend Update in October, discussing her perspective of newfound fame.
Moo Deng’s prediction is probably as valid as anybody else’s 2024 U.S. presidential election forecast, as the race appears too close to call. Trump is ahead in Arizona, according to opinion polling, but the races in swing states including Michigan, Georgia, and Pennsylvania are tight.
Polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight placed Harris ahead of Trump by just 1.2 points.
Ahead of Election Day, more than 78 million people had cast their vote.
Many took to X to voice their thoughts on Moo Deng’s prediction after Insider Paper posted the video of her chomping on the Trump cake.
One user, Paulina Mangubat, a digital content creator for the Democratic National Committee, humorously wrote, “WOW moo deng coming out as a magapilled trump supporter was NOT on my 2024 bingo card.”
Another user, GL, a self-described patriot, jokingly wrote, “False. As a scholar of Rousseau Moo Deng was using the invocation of free will to delineate that when the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich.”
Moo Deng is not the only animal to predict the outcome of the presidential election, as in a test conducted by John Antonakis, Professor of Organizational Behavior at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, a dog named Joy was shown pictures of the candidates with treats in front of them, and she ate the one in front of Trump’s picture.
Not all animals favor Trump as victor, as a squirrel named Gnocchi Jr. chose Harris as the winner after deciding between two bowls of nuts labeled with the candidates’ names on them.