Public opinion research has impact on the region
Volunteers canvas a Naples, Fla., neighborhood during a 2018 campaign. (Photo: Author’s collection.)
June 20, 2023 by David Silverberg
Southwest Floridians could be forgiven if they don’t pay attention to polls. After all, there’s an avalanche of polling going on right now.
Every day political news junkies can see a spectrum of headlines: Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) or former President Donald Trump up or down in polls measuring sentiment in different states; good news or bad news for presidential candidates in increasingly exotic and narrow slices of Republican potential primary voters; approval and disapproval ratings for President Joe Biden and Democrats versus Republicans, are just a few.
Most times, national pollsters don’t bother with Southwest Florida. It’s too obscure and unpopulated to make a decisive difference in any election or have an impact as a market (as compared, say, to Miami).
But popular sentiment in Southwest Florida is important and deserves to be measured regularly, scientifically, apolitically and objectively. Right now there are no reliable, public sources of information about Southwest Florida public opinion. What is more, regional public sentiment will become more important as the area’s population grows.
Southwest Florida should have a better finger on the pulse of the region’s people. Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) could provide an academic, non-political center for such polling and surveying that would be an asset to the region and potentially to the nation. What is more, it could provide a source of income to the school, boost its national reputation and train students for future jobs.
Two examples explain why public opinion research is important in Southwest Florida and the impact it can have.
On the Table and the Conservancy of Southwest Florida
(Terminology note: This article distinguishes between “polls” and “surveys.” A “poll” or “polling” examines choices, whether between candidates or anything else, for example, between different products. A “survey” or “surveying” gathers information to determine attitudes and opinions. Both use representative samples to extrapolate conclusions and probabilities about larger populations.)
Two surveys conducted in Southwest Florida have provided significant insights into the region’s public thinking.
On the Table
One survey was just released yesterday, June 19, by the group On the Table for Southwest Florida. It sought opinions on the area’s most urgent social challenges.
Started in 2014 by the Chicago Community Trust, On the Table is a non-profit organization that attempts to bring communities together to discuss issues of common interest and concern. It claims to have involved over half a million residents in over 25 communities across the country.
In Southwest Florida’s case, the Charlotte Community Foundation, the Collier Community Foundation and the Collaboratory, a community problem-solving network based in Fort Myers, collaborated to hold a community forum on March 30. The forum consisted of networked but physically remote conversations by participants across the region, including people in Glades and Hendry counties. According to On the Table, over 4,000 people participated.
Of those participants, 811 completed a survey on the area’s social problems. FGCU participated in processing the results.
By 70 percent across all counties, the participants ranked the need for affordable housing and the problem of homelessness as the area’s most urgent need.
That was followed by mental health and substance abuse issues at 61 percent, healthcare access and cost at 52 percent, employment and economic development at 49 percent and kindergarten through high school education also at 49 percent.
Other issues mentioned included hunger and food insecurity, transportation and traffic, crime and violence, social justice and equality, environmental issues, services for the disabled and senior citizen issues.
Regional social issues listed by On the Table participants, grouped by county and priority.
These results are not statistically authoritative; there are many arguments that could be made about the sample and the methodology and On the Table acknowledged this. “Respondents constitute a non-random sample, as such conclusions cannot be scientifically generalized beyond the collected survey,” it stated in its final report.
However, it added: “Yet, even with that caveat, data provided powerful insights into the most important social issues facing the region.”
That is absolutely true. The On the Table survey was significant in providing insight into people’s concerns about the challenges to the region. In the absence of any authoritative, dedicated think-tank comprehensively analyzing the region’s needs, this was a good start. The results can be used by lawmakers and government officials in shaping solutions and proposals and setting priorities.
It was a significant surveying initiative in a region that has too little such insight as it moves forward.
The Conservancy of Southwest Florida
On Feb. 20, 2019, the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, an environmental advocacy organization, released The Southwest Florida Climate Metrics Survey.
It was a survey of 800 adults over 18 years of age that had been done the previous October. It covered 401 respondents in the Fort Myers area, with proportions in Charlotte, Collier, Glades, Hendry and Lee counties.
This survey was significant in revealing that Southwest Floridians understood and believed that climate change was real and was happening—in contrast to their public officials and politicians who until then denied it as an article of faith.
According to the respondents in that survey:
76 percent noticed more severe weather and changing seasonal weather patterns over previous years;
75 percent believed climate change was happening;
71 percent were concerned about climate change;
59 percent believed the effects of climate change were already happening.
The survey found that public attitudes changed after 2017’s Hurricane Irma, which Rob Moher, president and CEO of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, characterized as “a wake-up call for Southwest Florida.”
It also revealed that residents supported government action to deal with climate change, with 93 percent calling for more government protection of mangroves and wetlands and 67 percent saying the government needed to protect everyone from the impacts of extreme weather.
It cannot be overstated just what a revelation these results were at the time. They helped change attitudes throughout the region. On Sept. 11 of that year, then-Rep. Francis Rooney, the Republican representing the 19th Congressional District, published an article in Politico magazine: “I’m a conservative Republican. Climate change is real. It’s time to stop denying a crisis that our constituents are already seeing every day.”
The Conservancy survey was a solid example of how the revelation of citizen attitudes can inform official actions and positions.
It would be very interesting to see the results of a follow-up survey on attitudes in the wake of Hurricane Ian.
A modest proposal: A public opinion research center at FGCU
Given the importance of public attitudes on regional issues, public surveys shouldn’t be as infrequent and sporadic as they are in Southwest Florida.
The region has an institution in FGCU that could serve as an impartial, politically neutral center for public polling.
In this, it can look to the example of Monmouth University in Long Branch, NJ. A liberal arts institution founded in 1933, in 2005 it created its own Polling Institute and recruited Patrick Murray, a professional New Jersey pollster, as its founding director.
“At small schools, the idea is to use the poll as a loss leader for visibility for the institution,” Cliff Zukin, a Rutgers University professor who taught Murray, said in a 2018 New Jersey Monthly magazine interview. The idea, according to Zukin, is to hire good pollsters, then watch them and their numbers flash across screens, emblazoned with the institution’s name. Quinnipiac, Siena, Marist, Fairleigh Dickinson—all are schools that followed this playbook.
Today, Monmouth University is not only highly respected for its polling, which is considered some of the best in the country, it monitors public opinion, works with faculty and students on public opinion research and provides input into government decisionmaking. What’s more, it trains students for jobs in public survey research.
There is no reason that FGCU could not also follow this playbook. Not only would it raise the school’s profile, it would provide regular insight into Southwest Florida public opinion. With time and as its reputation grows, it could expand its reach throughout Florida and the Southeastern United States and then nationally. It could take on commercial, non-political polling and surveying, creating a revenue stream for the University. It could partner with other established academic polling centers like Monmouth University. And it would do this while training students for jobs in public opinion research, which is a field in much demand.
Whether FGCU decides to go this route or not, there is a real need for insight into public opinion in Southwest Florida. The two major surveys done to date have shown how this kind of research can have a real impact. For a growing region, knowing how people are thinking and feeling would provide a useful tool and be an asset both for FGCU and for all of Southwest Florida.
Liberty lives in light
© 2023 by David Silverberg
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