Talking turkey
Welcome to YouGov's weekly newsletter The Surveyor, with new polling data, insights, and charts on politics, life, and other topical issues — from our U.S. News team.
This week, we're spotlighting surveys about Thanksgiving, Donald Trump, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, "woke" language, the British royal family, and movie theater etiquette.
There will be no newsletter next week due to the Thanksgiving holiday. We look forward to sending you more poll data on or around December 6!
Meat and potatoes
Next week is Thanksgiving here in the U.S., so let's set politics aside for now and focus on the feast.
Overall 81% of Americans plan to celebrate Thanksgiving this year. In a presidential election year full of partisan division, there's no significant difference between Democrats (83%) and Republicans (84%) in their likelihood of celebrating Thanksgiving.
There's also a lot of consensus about the main dish: 84% of those who plan to celebrate Thanksgiving — and 67% of Americans overall — expect to eat turkey at Thanksgiving this year, more than any other food surveyed.
Other dishes that at least half of Americans expect to eat at Thanksgiving are mashed potatoes, bread or rolls, pie, stuffing, and gravy.
While turkey is a popular Thanksgiving dish everywhere, there are some regional variations in Thanksgiving cuisine: Midwestern tables are more likely to feature mashed potatoes, breads, and pie, Southerners are more likely to serve ham and macaroni and cheese, and people from the Northeast are more likely to have cranberry sauce. (Brussel sprouts, alas, aren't particularly popular anywhere.)
OK, back to politics. What about that other Thanksgiving staple, political debates? While we can't speak for what opinions about Donald Trump or Kamala Harris your proverbial uncle might uncork after a few glasses, most Americans say they're not expecting political arguments over their turkey. Just 18% expect political fights at Thanksgiving, while 76% don't.
This does depend somewhat on the makeup of each dinner table, though. Americans who expect their Thanksgiving celebrations to be attended almost entirely by Trump voters or almost entirely by Harris voters are the least likely to expect political arguments among their similarly minded guests. But even among those who expect their Thanksgiving guests to be equally split between Trump and Harris voters, 58% don't expect political arguments while only 34% do.
Talking Trump
For those of you who do plan to talk politics over Thanksgiving Dinner, YouGov has you covered! Here's some YouGov polling data you can use for your pre-pie pontification:
51% of Americans have a very or somewhat favorable view of Donald Trump this week, the highest ever since he first became president in 2017
70% of Americans support a commission to audit the government and cut spending; 38% support a 60% tariff on goods from China, 30% support eliminating the Department of Education, and 15% support prosecuting politicians who've been critical of Trump
66% of Americans describe Donald Trump as a strong leader
55% say Trump cares some or a lot about the needs and problems of military veterans and service members
60% of Americans sympathize more with Ukraine in the war than with Russia; only 3% sympathize more with Russia
33% of Americans want to decrease U.S. military aid to Israel, 18% want to increase it, and 28% want to keep it the same
70% of Americans strongly or somewhat support an immediate ceasefire in Gaza
See more from the November 17 - 19 Economist / YouGov Poll
Charting opinions
Few Americans regularly use social-justice terms such as antiracism and toxic masculinity
Many headline-grabbing social-justice-oriented words and phrases are not part of most Americans' everyday vocabularies. Among the 30 terms included in the survey, the one that Americans most often say they use regularly — safe space — is only used often by one in five (20%). Other terms included that Americans are most likely to say they regularly use are woke (19%), lived experience (16%), white privilege (15%), and body positivity (15%). (Taylor Orth)
What Americans think of the British royal family in 2024
Americans are most likely to hold a very or somewhat favorable view of Diana, Princess of Wales (76%), who died in 1997. Majorities also have favorable opinions of Queen Elizabeth II (67%) — who died in 2022 — and Prince William, Prince of Wales (58%). Around half have favorable views of Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex (53%), Catherine, Princess of Wales (52%) and Princess Anne, the Princess Royal (47%). Only 42% view King Charles III favorably. (Jamie Ballard)
No talking and no texting: Americans' rules for movie theater etiquette
The theater-going behaviors among 26 asked about that are most divisive — meaning they come the closest to splitting opinion evenly about their acceptability — are singing along to music in a movie (33% say it is acceptable and 47% say it is unacceptable), making out (32% vs. 52%), and texting (36% vs. 50%). (Taylor Orth)
Quick takes
Bathrooms: 50% of Americans say transgender people should use the bathroom that corresponds with their assigned sex at birth; 20% say they should use the one that corresponds with their current gender identity
Buffering: When streaming video has technical problems, 34% say the problem is usually the user's internet connection, while 15% say the fault is usually with the streaming company, and 33% say both equally
Third term: 44% of Americans say Donald Trump will attempt to serve a third term as president; this includes 62% of Democrats and 28% of Republicans
Fluoride: 52% of Americans say it's either very safe (24%) or somewhat safe (28%) to drink water containing fluoride; 33% say it's either not very safe (20%) or not safe at all (13%)
Elsewhere
Polling partnerships
Yahoo + YouGov on the election aftermath and appointees to the new administration
The Economist + YouGov on Trump's appointments and policy proposals, wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and Thanksgiving
Polling abroad
Three quarters support assisted dying law (YouGov UK)
Polling in the press
Poll: One in five Americans or fewer use ‘woke’ terms (Semafor)
Lots of Republicans suddenly think the economy wasn’t that bad after all (Washington Post)
How immigration swung voters of color to Trump (ABC News/538)
What’s stopping you from achieving the American dream? Money — and here’s how much people say they need. (MarketWatch)
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This newsletter is compiled by David Montgomery and Carl Bialik.