A closer look at the winner

The presidential election may be months away, but this satirical take on the Republican candidate’s brain — seen as a command center like the one in the 2015 Pixar film “Inside Out” — was a yuuuge winner, garnering more votes than all the other entries combined. It depicts a moment during the Aug. 6 Fox News Republican debate, as Trump is looking at moderator and nemesis Megyn Kelly.

Between the characters Fear and Disgust, an Anger Peep is poised to press a large red button, while Joy and Sadness are corralled behind a fence. Portraits of former wives Marla Maples and Ivana Trump adorn the interior, which has been trimmed in marble and gold.

According to Alex Baker, who spoke on behalf of the three-person creative team, several ideas were batted around before the group settled on a caricature of The Donald (who was, unsurprisingly, a popular source of inspiration this year).

“It just made us laugh,” he says. “[That] is an important consideration when you spend a lot of time on a Peeps diorama that you should probably be using for office work.”

Baker is no stranger to the Peeps winner’s circle. In 2014, he and his pal, Mary Clare Peate, were members of a team that took top prize for a much more sober submission, inspired by the 1963 March on Washington.

Along with girlfriend Leslie Eldridge, they’re part of a circle of D.C. friends who met in graduate school for public policy and get together once a year to work on a Peeps diorama.

Baker works for the Department of Health and Human Services, Peate is in economics education and Eldridge toils for an international-aid non-governmental organization. “Lots of only-in-Washington jobs,” Baker jokes.

For the division of labor here, Baker oversaw the interior architecture, including the wall of memory balls (represented by bulk marbles that florists use to anchor flower arrangements). Peate sewed the costumes, and Eldridge sculpted and painted the head, which was topped with blond hair extensions. “Leslie spent 12 hours staring at pictures of Trump,” Baker says. “She gave up her time and her sanity.”