Episode 158: Talking Turkey

11/25/20-- Happy Thanksgiving Horse Race listeners! Get ready to talk turkey (and Jell-O?), but first, some #mapoli news. Former Secretary of State and Senator from Massachusetts John Kerry was tapped to serve as a special presidential envoy for climate for the Biden administration. “I’ve been kind of surprised at how little arguing there’s been about the Biden cabinet so far,” Stephanie Murray says. “His choices aren’t big leaders on the progressive side of the party, but progressives have expressed support for them.” Steve points out this is a very traditional selection of cabinet picks, contrasting from the current makeup of the Trump administration, as Jenn describes, “a totally bonkers array of picks for people to be in charge of anything.” Later, MassINC Polling Group Research Director Rich Parr stops by the virtual bunker this week to share some interesting trends he noticed in comparing statewide voting data from 2016 and 2020. While most of the state went deeper blue in 2020, and Biden received more votes than Hillary Clinton, there were a few places where this wasn't the case, and where Trump still lost, but where he got a higher percentage of the vote than in 2016. Those places are cities: Boston, Fall River, New Bedford, Haverhill, Lawrence, Lowell, Worcester, Springfield and Holyoke, cities that have a significant Latino population, Rich says. "That tracks with something that people have been seeing in the county results nationally." And to end on a festive note without excluding Steve's favorite topic (polling), the hosts talk turkey. The first comes from Dynata and looks at who plans to gather and with how many other people for Thanksgiving. Jenn points out that the Cape is expecting lots of people to gather together for the holiday, and the region is also experiencing relatively high infection rates. Broken down by political party, the people most likely to eat Thanksgiving dinner with people outside their household are members of the Libertarian party, followed by Green Party members, Republicans, Independents, and Democrats. As far as what Americans eat on Thanksgiving, the meals vary region to region. While New Englanders eat a surprising amount of fruit salad, the Midwest criminally consume, among other things, chicken and Jell-O on Thanksgiving. Our Midwestern representative Steve Koczela had no comment on the matter.