Best Hot Dog Hudson Valley: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Best Hot Dog Hudson Valley round is and who runs it

Best Hot Dog Hudson Valley is the hot dog round of Battle of the Best, a favorites series run by WPDA, the radio station behind wpdh.com, for listeners across the mid-Hudson region of New York. The round sits inside a broader battle in which the station's hosts, Boris and Robyn, ask the audience for favorites among mid-Hudson region restaurants and breweries. The 2019 ballot page carries the title Battle of the Best 2019: Best Hot Dog, and the station's own summary of that round reads, "Boris and Robyn asked for your favorites among the mid-Hudson region restaurants and breweries -- and man, did you deliver."

The ballot is hosted on wpdh.com itself, with no third-party contest platform in between, at https://wpdh.com/best-hot-dog-hudson-valley-2019/, and supporters simply pick the spot they want to win the hot dog title. The vertical is best-of, the contest type is an audience-decided award, and the market is the Hudson Valley region of New York rather than any single town.

For a restaurant in the region, the practical meaning is that support comes from the station's broadcast audience and from the customers a nominee can reach directly. Neighbouring best-of programs on this site, such as Best of Hudson Valley, answer to a different publisher, so a nomination in the radio round carries no weight in any other ballot.

The dated history of the WPDA hot dog round

The hot dog round has confirmed editions in 2019, 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026, which is why Battle of the Best counts as an annual series on this site. The 2019 ballot is the edition whose page still carries the round's title and the hosts' call for favorites, and the station's promotion for the current cycle states, "The Boris Show's Battle of the Best is back in 2026, and after weeks of polling the votes are IN!" That phrasing describes a cycle that moves through a polling stretch before results land.

Within a running year, the nomination phase falls between March and May. That spring window is the one dated span the round's history supports; WPDA has not printed the precise dates when the hot dog ballot opens and closes, nor any rule limiting how many times a person can vote; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

Two further gaps sit alongside that one. The station does not publish platform round dates for the series' other food rounds in a form tied to the hot dog ballot, and no eligibility text for nominees or voters accompanies the round page. None of these gaps change the picture: an annual radio favorites series with a spring nomination stretch, five confirmed editions, and a results announcement the station makes on air and on wpdh.com once the polling stretch closes.

How a supporter votes in the hot dog round today

Voting is a plain public action on the station's own site. A supporter loads the Battle of the Best hot dog page on wpdh.com, checks that the live round rather than a past edition is on screen, picks the mid-Hudson region spot they want to win, and submits the pick. No registration step, fee or entry form is described on the round page; the ballot is framed as listeners answering the hosts' call for favorites.

Timing matters more than technique. Because the nomination phase falls between March and May, the useful window for a supporter is spring, and the useful place is the station's contest category, where the hot dog round appears alongside the series' other food battles such as sandwich, coffee, diner, burger, taco and brewery rounds. Those neighbouring round names appear on the series' pages as candidate phrases, not as a published full category roster for any single year, so the exact slate for a given cycle is something WPDA leaves to the live ballot.

The same caution applies to voting frequency. The round page carries no printed per-supporter limit, and the station publishes no rules text beside the ballot, so a supporter who plans to return daily should follow whatever instruction the live page gives in that cycle rather than assuming a pattern from a previous edition.

How this ballot sits beside its New York neighbours

The Hudson Valley hot dog round is one of several New York ballots on this site, and it differs from most of them in who answers for it. WPDA is a radio station, so the round is promoted on air to a broadcast audience, while the best-of programs beside it are run by publishers with a print or web readership. Best of Hudson Valley covers the same region under a magazine's banner, which means a restaurant can face two separate regional ballots in the same state without either one affecting the other.

The city-scale neighbours are wider in scope. Best of Brooklyn, Best of Queens and The City's Best, Best of New York City each cover a different part of the New York metro under their own publishers, and none of them is a food-only round. The hot dog ballot is narrower: one food title, one region, one station's audience.

The remaining siblings are animal-rescue photo contests rather than best-of ballots. Buffalo CARES Animal Rescue Calendar Contest and the Chautauqua County Humane Society Hot Dogs Cool Cats Photo Contest raise money and awareness through pet photos, a different vertical with a different supporter base. What the hot dog round shares with all five is the public-vote mechanic and the New York market, and what sets it apart is the radio promotion behind it.

Strengthening support for a nominated Hudson Valley hot dog spot

A nominee's real advantage in this round is the audience WPDA already hands it. The station promotes Battle of the Best on air, so the customers who hear the hosts talk about the hot dog title are the same people the ballot counts. A spot that wants the title should put its own channels to work while the spring nomination phase runs: a sign at the counter, a post with the ballot link, and a staff reminder to mention the round to every table.

Because the ballot is a public favorites vote on wpdh.com, nothing about outreach needs to be complicated. Ask regulars directly, name the round the way the station names it, and repeat the ask while the March through May window is open rather than after it closes. WPDA's round page carries no statement on outside assistance, so a nominee who wants certainty about automated or bought support should read the live ballot's own terms before committing to any tactic beyond ordinary customer outreach.

Frequently asked questions

The questions below cover what listeners and nominated restaurants ask most about the round, from the spring window to the position on bought votes.