Mainers among the most likely in America to ‘have a miserable Thanksgiving,’ analysis finds

When you tell someone in Maine to have a happy Thanksgiving, you may be asking them to beat the odds.

According to a data analysis by real estate blog Estately, Mainers are among the most likely people in the country to “have a miserable Thanksgiving.”

File this under “There’s a data analysis and color-coded map for everything.”

Estately used six criteria to gauge how terrible a time people in different states typically have on Turkey Day:

  1. The frequency with which people get salmonella from their turkey (or other poultry), as roughly determined through U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics.
  2. The likelihood of family members “getting drunk and making a scene,” again, as approximated through CDC numbers on binge drinking.
  3. The estimated probability of political arguments, as figured by how evenly split the populations are by political parties.
  4. The percentage of people who can’t or won’t eat much of what’s on the table, as determined through the CDC’s diabetes data and Facebook self-identifications of dietary restrictions.
  5. The likelihood of residents’ favorite professional football team losing on Thanksgiving, based on historical holiday winning percentages.
  6. The probability of guests or cooks being preoccupied by Black Friday sales, as figured by the prevalence of topical Facebook posts.

Once all the numbers were crunched… well, Maine ended up as the eighth worst place in America for Thanksgiving, with people here having a “miserable” time due in part to high food poisoning and binge drinking figures.

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Ohio — with the most dietary restrictions and among the country’s most contentious political scene — takes the cake as the most miserable Thanksgiving state, followed in order by Iowa, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nebraska and Alaska.

After Maine, all of the other New England states are among the happier places for Turkey Day, with Connecticut as high as the seventh best state for Thanksgiving.

The happiest Thanksgivings are found, at least by these metrics, in Hawaii, New Mexico, Arkansas, Utah and New Jersey.

Massachusetts, home of what’s considered the first Thanksgiving back in 1621, was ranked No. 30 — with No. 1 being “most miserable” and No. 50 being “least.”

The Bay State was pulled in the negative direction by a high binge drinking number, but that was more than balanced out by low salmonella figures and minimal enthusiasm for Black Friday deals.

Featured main page photo by Steven Depolo, used under Creative Commons license.