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https://www.dailykos.com/story/2025/11/23/2353441/-Why-the-flock-do-presidents-pardon-turkeys?pm_campaign=blog&pm_medium=rss&pm_source=

Survey Says is a weekly series rounding up the most important polling trends or data points you need to know about, plus a vibe check on a trend that’s driving politics or culture.

In the beginning, there were turkeys.

Benjamin Franklin, of Founding Father and hundred-dollar-bill fame, supposedly wanted them as the national bird. He lost that fight (if it isn’t just a myth), but in the decades that followed, turkeys descended upon the White House, gifted to the president every year for Thanksgiving. With few exceptions, the birds faced the carving knife. The pardons came later.

At least 74 turkeys have been pardoned by sitting U.S. presidents, according to Daily Kos’ analysis of decades’ worth of government archives and news reports. This includes “vice turkeys,” or alternates that are also pardoned and that tag along in case tragedy befalls the main bird en route to Washington.

This week, if history is any precedent, President Donald Trump should pardon two more, raising the number to 76. However, as of Friday, it remains to be seen whether the two birds can scrounge together the requisite donation to his future presidential library to secure their pardons.

Though pardoned turkeys are now given good Christian names like Apple, Marshmallow, and Carl, the first turkey to receive a grant of clemency from a sitting president was a gobbler whose name is lost to history. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln spared the bird’s life at the behest of his son Tad, who did not want to see his feathered friend face the dinner table, according to popular lore documented by the White House Historical Association. 

Exactly 100 years passed before the next turkey found reprieve. President John F. Kennedy pardoned a bird four short days before he himself was assassinated in Dallas, in 1963.

Two turkeys pardoned by two assassinated presidents exactly 100 years apart … coincidence?

After Kennedy, Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan were gifted birds and let them live, but it was under President George H. W. Bush that our modern tradition began, with its ceremony and pun-laden speech and all that. And yet … in 1992, mere days after losing reelection and perhaps feeling scorned, Bush stared down that year’s affable gobbler and told it that it was “overweight.” The crowd met his slight with shocked silence.

Despite Bush fat-shaming a bird, he may have been on to something. Live male turkeys top out at around 41 pounds on average, according to the Agriculture Department. But pardoned toms average a girthy 45 pounds, Daily Kos finds. 

The biggest on record was an unnamed fella in 1997 that thudded in at 60 pounds. The slimmest was the 30-pound Katie, the first female turkey to receive a pardon. But 30 pounds is heavy for harvested hens, which, at their heaviest, average 17 pounds while alive. In other words, a thicc queen broke the glass ceiling of turkey pardons.

As President Barack Obama said in November 2016, “Yes, we cran.”

Despite their heft, pardoned turkeys have also slimmed down since 1984, when news reports more reliably mentioned a bird’s poundage. 

In the 1980s, pardoned turkeys clocked in at 52 pounds on average, among the four birds whose weights Daily Kos could verify. But the 1990s saw the turkeys dabble in the new Atkins craze, with the average weight dropping to 48 pounds. In the 2000s, as the South Beach Diet took off, they dropped another 4 pounds, hitting 44 pounds on average.

The 2010s saw them drop to 42 pounds on average, which they have maintained so far in the 2020s. Their weight-loss journey, like so many of ours, appears to have stalled out during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Whether their slim-down is a positive step toward better avian health or another toxic result of a culture that shames large bodies, today’s pardoned turkeys nevertheless face a better life than their ancestors. 

In 1914, two turkeys gifted to President Woodrow Wilson were forced to fight on the White House South Lawn. The winner was served as Thanksgiving dinner.

On second thought, maybe things haven’t gotten that much better.

Any updates?

• Earlier this month, Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik announced her intentions to lose New York’s governor’s race to Gov. Kathy Hochul. Stefanik must be deluded to think she stands a chance in a state as blue as New York, in a year that’s expected to be bad for Republicans—and polling now confirms that suspicion. She trails Hochul by 20 percentage points, per a new Siena University poll. 

• RIP the penny, the last of which was minted on Nov. 12. And a new YouGov poll finds America split: 39% support killing the penny, and 39% oppose it, with the remainder unsure. The issue has also similar levels of support across the political spectrum—bipartisanship!

Vibe check

Thanksgiving is arguably the food holiday, but what winds up on your plate varies quite a bit based on where you live.

Naturally, turkey tops the overall list of what Americans expect to eat at Thanksgiving, per a new YouGov poll. And it comes in first or second across every region in the country.

But green beans? Only 23% of Americans in the Northeast plan to eat it, while 50% in the South do. That 27-percentage-point gap is the biggest discrepancy between regions, though two other foods come close—and in both cases, the gaps are also between the Northeast and the South.

There’s a 24-point gap on macaroni and cheese (22% Northeast, 46% South) and a 22-point discrepancy on ham (19% Northeast, 41% South).

Altogether, those in the Northeast are less likely to eat a variety of foods at Thanksgiving. Across all the foods, the region averages just 38%, well below the others on what they plan to eat. The biggest variety—an average of 47%—comes from our best food region: the South. (Fight me.)

Luckily, YouGov’s survey also finds that only 11% of Americans say they expect to face political arguments during Thanksgiving celebrations. And hey, if that happens to you, maybe you can bring up everything you now know about pardoned turkeys. 

Or you tell them the very true story about how, in 1926, then-President Calvin Coolidge received a raccoon instead of a turkey for Thanksgiving. He spared the raccoon’s life, named her Rebecca, and kept her as a pet.

https://www.dailykos.com/story/2025/11/23/2353441/-Why-the-flock-do-presidents-pardon-turkeys?pm_campaign=blog&pm_medium=rss&pm_source=