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The arfs have it.
As a divided United States finished casting its ballots for its next president on Tuesday in a race that’s still too close to call three days later, a Kentucky hamlet elected a French bulldog as its new mayor.
Wilbur Beast, a 6-month-old rescue, will be the fifth dog mayor of Rabbit Hash, an unincorporated community of just under 400 residents on the Ohio River.
And similar to how the U.S. presidential race has seen record-breaking early voter turnout, the latest Rabbit Hash mayoral race also had its highest turnout ever this year.
The 17 critters campaigning for the post featured a few other dogs, including therapy beagle Jack Rabbit and Poppy the golden retriever, who came in second and third place, respectively. There was also a donkey named Higgins, and even a rooster.
But Wilbur Beast handily beat them all with 13,143 votes out of 22,985 total votes. He will be replacing Brynneth Pawltro, a pit bull who has served as mayor since 2017.
As fact-checking site Snopes notes, however, Rabbit Hash is not a legitimate town, so its residents can’t really elect any legitimate political officials, including (dog) mayors. But the Rabbit Hash Historical Society (RBHHS), the nonprofit that owns the unincorporated community, began holding this fundraiser for a four-legged mayor in 1998, which tends to loosely coincide with the U.S. presidential election every few years. Voters cast their ballots by donating money — with each vote costing $1 and all proceeds going toward costs associated with operating RBHHS. And residents are encouraged to vote “early and often,” and they generally elect mayors “based on the candidates’ willingness to have their belly scratched.”
A fundraising page for the mock mayoral race pokes fun at current events while promoting the local contest. “Are you sick of the Political Nonsense? Sick of the Covid talk? So are we! So let’s have some fun while we raise money for the town of Rabbit Hash,” it reads. “Here in Rabbit Hash we make and break the laws as we see fit (just like Washington DC).”
And the page shows that Wilbur Beast’s mayoral campaign raised $6,170.
So how is Wilbur Beast handling the attention? His human, Amy Nolan, told NBC News that he’s taking it pretty well. “He’s done a lot of interviews locally, he’s had a lot of pets, a lot of belly scratches and a lot of ear rubs.”
