Most Americans will return to pre-pandemic Thanksgiving celebrations, poll shows

The CDC is outlining ways to stay safw during the Thanksgiving holiday.

Two in three Americans are set to celebrate Thanksgiving with gatherings returning to pre-pandemic levels, according to a recent national poll released by Monmouth University.

“Break out the extra card table. Thanksgiving is back, at least for most people. Some are still cautious, however, and will be having a virtual gathering again this year,” Patrick Murray, director of Monmouth University Polling Institute, said in a statement.

The poll shows a sharp contrast between the upcoming holiday and Thanksgiving celebrations last year — in 2020, just under half of the country planned to spend the holiday either alone or only with their
immediate household. That dropped to 1 in 4 this year.

About 63% of Americans plan to spend Thanksgiving with around the same number of people as they did before the pandemic, and 5% plan to celebrate with even more people around the table.

Nearly 1 in 5 Americans (18%) are set for some overnight travel during the holiday, up from 10% who said the same in 2020.

Almost one-third of those polled anticipate this year’s Thanksgiving will include fewer people compared to the pre-pandemic holidays. However, that’s still down from 53% in a 2020 pre-holiday poll who said they were planning smaller-than-usual gatherings.

In all, 26% of Americans will be spending Thanksgiving either alone or with just their household, which is down from 45% who similarly limited their event size last year. Additionally, 16% of Americans plan to have family or friends join them remotely via Zoom or video, which is down from 24% who did this last year.

The poll also examined America’s partisan divide, finding that the share of Democrats who plan to spend Thanksgiving alone or just with their immediate household has dropped by 32 points since 2020 (from 58% to 26%). The poll found smaller drops among independents (from 48% to 30%) and Republicans (from 29% to 19%).

The poll also found race-based differences in the size of this year’s get-togethers. About 40% of people of color are planning on hosting fewer people than normal, down from 53% last year. The number of White Americans who plan on hosting smaller gatherings has more than halved (25%, down from 54% in 2020).

And, those who are planning on hosting or attending gatherings outside of their immediate household don’t seem to be too worried about COVID-19 or vaccination status.

Nearly two-thirds of those who plan on hosting guests (64%) say they will not ask whether their guests have received a COVID-19 vaccine and just 27% will require their guests to be vaccinated.

Similarly, 60% of those visiting someone else’s home say it does not matter to them if the other guests are vaccinated and just 23% will actually ask their hosts about the guest list’s vaccination status.

The poll found that both hosts and guests who do not care about vaccination statuses are less likely than the overall public to be vaccinated against COVID-19 themselves (67% compared to the national average of 80%). A majority of this group identifies with or leans toward the Republican Party (62%) and half are non-Hispanic Whites without a college degree (51%).

Among those who will be asking their guests or hosts about attendees’ vaccination status, 99% report being vaccinated themselves. And, compared to the overall public, this group is more likely to identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party (77%), more likely to be college graduates (46%) and more likely to be African American (20%).

The Monmouth University Poll was conducted by telephone with 811 adults in the United States. The question results have a margin of error of +/- 3.5 percentage points.