Survey Says is a weekly collection rounding up an important polling tendencies or information factors you want to find out about, plus a vibe test on a pattern that’s driving politics or tradition.
At first, there have been turkeys.
Benjamin Franklin, of Founding Father and hundred-dollar-bill fame, supposedly needed them because the nationwide chook. He misplaced that struggle (if it isn’t only a fantasy), however within the many years that adopted, turkeys descended upon the White Home, gifted to the president yearly for Thanksgiving. With few exceptions, the birds confronted the carving knife. The pardons got here later.
This week, if historical past is any precedent, President Donald Trump ought to pardon two extra, elevating the quantity to 76. Nonetheless, as of Friday, it stays to be seen whether or not the 2 birds can scrounge collectively the requisite donation to his future presidential library to safe their pardons.
Although pardoned turkeys are actually given good Christian names like Apple, Marshmallow, and Carl, the primary turkey to obtain a grant of clemency from a sitting president was a gobbler whose title is misplaced to historical past. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln spared the chook’s life on the behest of his son Tad, who didn’t need to see his feathered pal face the dinner desk, in line with well-liked lore documented by the White Home Historic Affiliation.
Precisely 100 years handed earlier than the subsequent turkey discovered reprieve. President John F. Kennedy pardoned a chook 4 brief days earlier than he himself was assassinated in Dallas, in 1963.
Two turkeys pardoned by two assassinated presidents precisely 100 years aside … coincidence?
Then-President John F. Kennedy is introduced with a turkey carrying an indication that claims, “Good eating, Mr. President,” days earlier than Kennedy’s assassination.
After Kennedy, Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan have been gifted birds and allow them to reside, however it was underneath President George H. W. Bush that our trendy custom started, with its ceremony and pun-laden speech and all that. And but … in 1992, mere days after dropping reelection and maybe feeling scorned, Bush stared down that 12 months’s affable gobbler and informed it that it was “overweight.” The gang met his slight with shocked silence.
Regardless of Bush fat-shaming a chook, he could have been on to one thing. Reside male turkeys high out at round 41 kilos on common, in line with the Agriculture Division. However pardoned toms common a girthy 45 kilos, Each day Kos finds.
The largest on file was an unnamed fella in 1997 that thudded in at 60 kilos. The slimmest was the 30-pound Katie, the primary feminine turkey to obtain a pardon. However 30 kilos is heavy for harvested hens, which, at their heaviest, common 17 kilos whereas alive. In different phrases, a thicc queen broke the glass ceiling of turkey pardons.
As President Barack Obama mentioned in November 2016, “Yes, we cran.”
Within the Nineteen Eighties, pardoned turkeys clocked in at 52 kilos on common, among the many 4 birds whose weights Each day Kos might confirm. However the Nineteen Nineties noticed the turkeys dabble within the new Atkins craze, with the typical weight dropping to 48 kilos. Within the 2000s, because the South Seaside Weight-reduction plan took off, they dropped one other 4 kilos, hitting 44 kilos on common.
The 2010s noticed them drop to 42 kilos on common, which they’ve maintained to this point within the 2020s. Their weight-loss journey, like so lots of ours, seems to have stalled out in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Whether or not their slim-down is a optimistic step towards higher avian well being or one other poisonous results of a tradition that shames massive our bodies, right now’s pardoned turkeys nonetheless face a greater life than their ancestors.
In 1914, two turkeys gifted to President Woodrow Wilson have been compelled to struggle on the White Home South Garden. The winner was served as Thanksgiving dinner.
On second thought, perhaps issues haven’t gotten that significantly better.
Any updates?
Earlier this month, Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik introduced her intentions to lose New York’s governor’s race to Gov. Kathy Hochul. Stefanik should be deluded to assume she stands an opportunity in a state as blue as New York, in a 12 months that’s anticipated to be unhealthy for Republicans—and polling now confirms that suspicion. She trails Hochul by 20 proportion factors, per a brand new Siena College ballot.
RIP the penny, the final of which was minted on Nov. 12. And a brand new YouGov ballot finds America break up: 39% help killing the penny, and 39% oppose it, with the rest uncertain. The difficulty has additionally comparable ranges of help throughout the political spectrum—bipartisanship!
Vibe test
Thanksgiving is arguably the meals vacation, however what winds up in your plate varies fairly a bit based mostly on the place you reside.
Naturally, turkey tops the general listing of what Individuals count on to eat at Thanksgiving, per a brand new YouGov ballot. And it is available in first or second throughout each area within the nation.
However inexperienced beans? Solely 23% of Individuals within the Northeast plan to eat it, whereas 50% within the South do. That 27-percentage-point hole is the most important discrepancy between areas, although two different meals come shut—and in each circumstances, the gaps are additionally between the Northeast and the South.
There’s a 24-point hole on macaroni and cheese (22% Northeast, 46% South) and a 22-point discrepancy on ham (19% Northeast, 41% South).
Altogether, these within the Northeast are much less prone to eat quite a lot of meals at Thanksgiving. Throughout all of the meals, the area averages simply 38%, effectively beneath the others on what they plan to eat. The largest selection—a median of 47%—comes from our greatest meals area: the South. (Battle me.)
Fortunately, YouGov’s survey additionally finds that solely 11% of Individuals say they count on to face political arguments throughout Thanksgiving celebrations. And hey, if that occurs to you, perhaps you may carry up every little thing you now find out about pardoned turkeys.
Otherwise you inform them the very true story about how, in 1926, then-President Calvin Coolidge acquired a raccoon as a substitute of a turkey for Thanksgiving. He spared the raccoon’s life, named her Rebecca, and stored her as a pet.
Then-first woman Grace Coolidge walks the household’s pet raccoon, Rebecca, in 1927.
