Imagine spending millions of dollars running for president.
Months of campaigning. Endless speeches. Awkward handshakes. Kissing babies who absolutely did not consent to being involved in politics.
And then discovering you lost votes to a cartoon mouse who doesn't even wear pants.
Welcome to American democracy.
Mickey Mouse has been showing up as a write-in candidate for decades. And the best part? He hasn't even been campaigning.
In Orange County's 2016 elections, Mickey reportedly collected 1,103 write-in votes across multiple races.
In 2020, 555 people wrote Mickey Mouse in for sheriff, while another 391 wanted him as property appraiser.
Sheriff Mickey Mouse.
Imagine getting pulled over. “License and registration, pal! Ha-ha!”
And Mickey's presidential ambitions apparently weren't finished.
In 2024, a Central Florida news investigation found 83 Mickey Mouse write-in votes for president across five counties.
Eighty-three people looked at the presidential ballot and decided the White House needed a mouse infestation.
Which raises some serious constitutional questions.
Would Minnie be First Lady? Would Donald Duck become Secretary of Defense? Would Goofy be trusted with classified documents?
Actually, scratch that last one. Absolutely not.
So how many elections has Mickey Mouse been in?
We don't know.
There's no single national database tracking every fictional write-in candidate. Some election offices publish individual names, others combine them into broader categories, and some don't report novelty write-ins separately.
The historical examples we've collected suggest more than 2,000 reported Mickey Mouse votes, but that's not a complete count, and not every write-in vote is legally valid.
Still, Mickey has managed something remarkable.
He's received votes for public office without holding a rally, making a campaign promise, or explaining a single policy position.
And after all these years, he’s never had to answer the question every politician dreads:
“Mr. Mouse, where exactly do you stand on taxes?”
Character note: Mickey Mouse is associated with The Walt Disney Company. Today's Rabbit Hole is not affiliated with or endorsed by Disney.
