A new poll has found that over 60 percent of registered voters are hoping to avoid discussions of politics at this year’s Thanksgiving dinner.
The Quinnipiac University national poll released on Monday found 61 percent of registered voters want to avoid the subject, while just 29 percent look foward to talking politics while visiting with family and friends.
“A healthy dose of ‘zip it’ will be on the menu as voters acknowledge that if they plan on ‘talking turkey’ over the big meal, it will be about the food and not about politics,” said Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy.
The survey found that the results were similar among all ages and across the political spectrum.
According to the poll, 59 percent of voters say politics in the United States over the last year has not changed how they feel about discussing it with family and friends, while 30 percent say it has changed for the worse, and 9 percent say it has changed for the better.
The results are similar to the findings from an Axios-Ipsos Two Americas Index poll conducted last year.
The pollsters had found that 77 percent of voters said Thanksgiving dinner is not the time or place to discuss politics with family.
However, 41 percent of Democrats and 29 percent of Republicans said that they would probably be doing it anyway.
“Arguing about politics may be Americans’ least favorite Thanksgiving activity, but it may actually serve an important function in our body politic,” said Cliff Young, Ipsos’ president of U.S. Public Affairs, at the time the survey was published.
“People who engage in these kinds of discussions across the aisle are more likely to accept the legitimacy of elections.”
Quinnipiac surveyed 1,574 self-identified registered voters nationwide from November 9th through the 13th with a margin of error of +/- 2.5 percentage points.
