Florida voters are ready for Puerto Rico and Washington, DC statehood

Latino voters are slightly more supportive of adding states than other voters

Throughout the 2019–2020 cycle, YouGov Blue has fielded a daily Core tracking service throughout the 2020 electoral cycle, including regular oversamples in battleground Presidential and Senate states, as well as other demographic groups of interest. We recently fielded a couple of items to assess voters’ attitudes toward granting statehood to Puerto Rico and Washington, DC.

We asked voters,

Would you support or oppose granting statehood, including full representation in Congress, to Washington, DC, currently a Federal District?

and

Would you support or oppose granting statehood, including full representation in Congress, to Puerto Rico, currently a US Commonwealth?

While we covered some of our battleground state results with our friends at Data for Progress, here, we focus on the specific case of Florida,² and how it compares to the national situation.³ Puerto Rico statehood is considered a particularly important issue in Florida, where Latino voter registration has risen faster than in other places and Florida’s Puerto Rican population growth has risen in the past few years.

While Florida voters feel no differently from voters elsewhere about DC statehood, they are slightly more in favor of Puerto Rico statehood than others. Overall, about 43 percent of Florida voters and 43 percent of US voters overall currently support DC statehood, with 35 percent of Florida voters and 34 percent of US voters overall opposing statehood. In other words, both in this contentious battleground state (net difference: 8 percentage points) and nationally (net difference: 9 percentage points), voters favor DC statehood.

In both cases, Puerto Rico statehood is more popular. About 54 percent of US voters support, and just 26 percent oppose, Puerto Rico statehood — a net difference of 28 percentage points. A slightly higher share of Florida voters overall — 56 percent — support Puerto Rico statehood, with 26 percent opposing (net difference: 30 percentage points). In both cases, the national electorate and the state electorate align closely.

While voters on net support both DC and Puerto Rico statehood, support for Puerto Rico statehood is slightly higher. Florida voters are slightly more supportive than US voters overall of Puerto Rico statehood.

Notably, the gap is wider among Latino voters. In Florida, Latino voters are more supportive of both DC and Puerto Rico statehood than are other voters. About 56 percent of Florida Latino voters, compared to 40 percent of Florida non-Latinos, support DC statehood. Fully 63 percent of Florida Latino voters, compared to 55 percent of Florida non-Latino voters, support Puerto Rico statehood.

Nationally, the gap between Latino voters and others is much smaller. In the national sample, about 44 percent of Latino voters and 42 percent of non-Latino voters support DC statehood. Similarly, about 56 percent of US Latino voters overall support Puerto Rico statehood and 54 percent of non-Latino voters agree.

Nationally and in Florida, Latino voters are more supportive of Puerto Rico statehood than Dc statehood, but support statehood for both slightly more than non-Latino voters in both cases.

With respect to both DC and Puerto Rico, Florida’s Latino voters are slightly more supportive of statehood than are Latino voters in the US overall. And Florida’s non-Latino voters are not statistically distinguishable from the national electorate on these issues. Floridian Latino voters are particularly responsive to Puerto Rico statehood compared to others.

Over the past year, voters have moved in favor of both DC and Puerto Rico statehood. Here, we focus on the case of Florida voters. In addition to being about as supportive of statehood policies as US voters overall, Floridian Latino voters are particularly supportive of Puerto Rico statehood. This makes sense in the context of recent events.

[1] For more information on the YouGov Blue Core, please contact alissa.stollwerk@yougov.com or john.ray@yougov.com

[2] The Florida sample fielded on the YouGov Blue core tracking service from 8/14–8/27 on a sample of 808 Florida registered voters on YouGov’s panel. The sample was weighted to be representative of Florida voters by age, race/ethnicity, sex, education, and 2016 Presidential vote choice.

[3] The national sample fielded from 8/26/20–9/1/20 on a sample of 1,025 US voters. The sample was weighted to be representative of Florida voters by age, race/ethnicity, sex, education, US Census region and 2016 Presidential vote choice.