We study the zero set of polynomials built from partition statistics, complementing earlier work in this direction by Boyer, Goh, Parry, and others. In particular, addressing a question of Males with two of the authors, we prove asymptotics for the values of $t$-hook polynomials away from an annulus and isolated zeros of a theta function. We also discuss some open problems and present data on other polynomial families, including those associated to deformations of Rogers-Ramanujan functions.