The biggest issue facing Floridians today is the economy. And the biggest obstacle to fixing that is government partisanship.
Those were the primary findings of this year’s Sunshine State Survey, a collaboration between the University of South Florida and the A.C. Nielsen Co. It’s based on 1,875 telephone interviews conducted between July 30 and Aug. 15, compiling a random sample of adults 18 and older who reside in Florida.
Formerly known as the Leadership Florida survey, these are the first results released since USF and Land O’ Lakes native Susan MacManus took over the process earlier this year. Of those surveyed, 30 percent said the biggest issue facing Florida right now is everything involved in the economy, including jobs and unemployment. Well behind it, at 12 percent, was public schools and education, with crime and immigration tied at 5 percent.
However, while the concern about the economy may seem high, it’s down significantly from the 44 percent it scored during the 2012 Leadership Florida survey, which pollsters says reflects the state’s gradual economic recovery from the Great Recession.
But how should lawmakers address those issues? The first thing might be for politicians to stop fighting based on which political party they belong to. The poll shows that 28 percent feel the battle between Democrats and Republicans represents the biggest stumbling block to achieving Florida’s goals. The divide between elected officials and their constituents was cited by 17 percent of those surveyed, while the divide between rich and poor was the main issue for 16 percent.
The survey showed that 45 percent of those polled believe politics is creating the largest roadblock to progress in the state, more than race, religion, gender, age, sexual orientation, or even citizenship status.
A telephone sample of 120,000 listings was randomly drawn from, and did not include known businesses, cell phones, or numbers listed on the Do Not Call registry. It has a sampling error of plus-2.2 percentage points.
For more information on the survey, and other results, visit SunshineStateSurvey.org.
