I’m visiting another state, and nothing in the grocery store is where I expect to find it. There’s no complimentary cookie for my nephew, no ‘pub sub’ station, and no BOGO bins. The Publix-loyal Floridian in me can’t separate this disorientation from disappointment, but the researcher in me had to know: Is this really a less pleasing experience or am I just out of practice?

So I deployed two surveys at the same time – a national sample of 500 U.S. adults and another of 1,000 Florida voters – asking one question: Thinking about the experience of walking through the aisles at your grocery store, how satisfying do you find it to be?

The word choice in this question was intentional. Publix built its motto and brand image around the promise that shopping there is a ‘pleasure’. For years, this pledge was borne out in data released by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) placing Publix at the top of the food chain (or at least the grocery one). In January, however, Publix was bumped down to second among grocery chains, surpassed by Trader Joe’s. But the ACSI score reflects a lot of things at once: value for the price, merchandise availability, mobile app reliability, checkout speed, store hours, even call center satisfaction.

So our survey wanted to know one thing: How did it feel just to be there?

Cutting to the results:

• Publix’s promise bears out in the state where it was founded, with a hint of the same beyond Florida.

• And one thing I didn’t set out to learn: your politics may be riding along in the cart.

Plenty of stores get people to ‘pleasant.’ Publix is the one getting them to ‘pleasure’.

Some people talk about grocery shopping like it’s jury duty, but it turns out that most find it to be at least mildly appealing. This sets a pretty high bar, because when the baseline is already pleasant, “a pleasure” has to mean something more.

Nationally, more than 4 in 5 Americans (82%) find walking the aisles of their household’s primary grocery store at least somewhat satisfying (30% very, 52% somewhat). About 1 in 7 say it’s not too satisfying, while 4% don’t care for it at all. Overall satisfaction within Florida sits slightly lower at 77%, with 7% saying it’s not at all satisfying.

Just 5% of Americans overall shop primarily at Publix, which is respectable for a chain with stores in just eight states. In Florida, 4 in 10 of our sample do so, a finding that’s consistent with independent market share data.

Among Florida Publix shoppers, 85% find the aisles at least somewhat satisfying to walk through, compared with 69% of non-Publix Florida shoppers. More notably, 40% of Publix shoppers find it ‘very’ satisfying, nearly double the 21% among Floridians who shop elsewhere.

Looking at the numbers a different way, Publix shoppers run 16 points higher in satisfaction than Floridians who shop elsewhere, with double the share of people who report it to be ‘very’ satisfying. That pattern holds Democrats (83% satisfaction among Publix shoppers to 69% for others), independents (86% to 64%), Republicans (86% to 73%), women (81% to 65%), men (87% to 73%), and across age groups.

Our national sample of Publix shoppers is far too small to support any reliable claims, but even if for only descriptive purposes: 96% of national Publix shoppers say the experience of being there is satisfying, compared with 82% of shoppers at all other chains.

A detour down a political aisle

For a completely unrelated project, I asked this national sample how closely their views align with those of their governor. And then, just for fun, I crosstabbed those responses against satisfaction with one’s grocery store. (Maybe I need to find a new definition of “fun,” but if you’ve got the data, why not use it?)

Among those who feel closely aligned with the politics of their governor, 87% find the grocery aisles satisfying (38% very). Among those who don’t feel aligned, 75% find the aisles satisfying (20% very). On the flip side, those who feel politically distant from their governor’s policies are seven times more likely to say their grocery shopping experience is ‘not at all’ satisfying, 7% against 1%.

Partisanship can’t explain it, since the sample spans governors and voters of both parties.

Florida offers a closed version of the test: one state, one governor, and a partisan split that closely tracks how aligned people feel with his policies. Sure enough, Florida Republicans are significantly more likely than Florida Democrats to call the experience ‘very’ satisfying (35% to 27%), and the gap holds even when looking only at Publix shoppers – so it isn’t just a matter of which party shops where.

Could the feeling of political at-homeness – the comforting sense that the place you live is run by people who see things roughly as you do – follow people into the cereal aisle?

The correlation could be spurious. It could be that cheerful people report satisfaction with everything, or that generally negative people take issue with their state’s politics and peanut butter placement alike. But the effect was pronounced enough that it felt right to share, even if only to inspire someone else to test or explain it more thoroughly.

A lesson for marketing execs

Bill Schroter was Publix’s ad director in 1954. He thought the existing motto, “Florida’s Finest Food Stores,” sounded like bragging, so he listened to how customers described the stores and wrote down what he heard.

Founder George Jenkins said he liked the promise, and told Schroter to adopt it. “Where shopping is a pleasure” was a description first, only later to be printed on every bag.

Many companies build slogans, taglines, and brand promises backward from what they want customers to feel. But listening to what people already say can hand you the exact words you were trying to invent.

There are more tools to do this brand-building work today than there were seven decades ago, from polling to focus groups to social media comment monitoring to simply chatting with people who come in. And what could be more believable (or self-fulfilling) than leaning into the descriptions that are organically offered up for free?

Ringing it up

This mental traipse through the aisles of my mind leaves me with two shelf-stable observations:

1. Publix seems to have earned its slogan the old-fashioned way: by putting words to something its customers already felt. That’s a lesson other brands may be well-served to replicate.

2. If the political finding holds up, what we carry into the store may matter almost as much as what we carry out. Feeling at home where you live may spill over into the smaller satisfactions of daily life. . . If only “voting with one’s feet” toward that feeling of belonging didn’t risk sorting us even farther apart.

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Somewhere in America this week, a county clerk is stamping a fireworks permit, a hardware store is restacking red-white-and-blue bunting, and some dedicated dads are repurposing trailers into parade floats.The occasion is the nation’s 250th birthday. And whatever Americans recall or misremember about the date itself, it turns out they agree, almost without exception, on what’s worth celebrating.

Conviction in the principles

In a survey of 1,500 American adults fielded by our team at Sachs Media June 12-14, we read respondents the core ideas of the Declaration of Independence and asked how important these principles feel to them personally. The most heartening finding is that we remain largely united on the things that define us as a nation.

More than 9 in 10 (92%) called the principles important, with 2 in 3 saying very important. That nearly unanimous number was a unified sentiment across the fault lines that usually divide us today. Democrats came in at 93%, independents at 86%, Republicans at 98%. City, suburb, and small town landed within 2 points of one another. Men and women, young and old – all in relative agreement.

Asked which specific ideas mattered, 4 in 5 pointed to the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Nearly as many embraced the proposition that all people are created equal. Consent of the governed and the right to alter a failing government followed close behind. Republicans and Democrats look remarkably alike on each of these, with only somewhat greater apathy among nonpartisans. Considering that it took root 250 years ago, the Declaration clearly still articulates values that Americans widely value and still hold dear.

Americans enthusiastic to co-sign the Declaration today, for varying reasons

As part of the 250th anniversary celebration, imagine that Americans were invited to add their own name, a personal signature, to the Declaration of Independence as a symbolic digital show of shared commitment.

That’s precisely what my mentor and friend Ron Sachs is bringing to life with a nationwide initiative. It’s called Sign ON 250 – under the leadership of the National League of Cities in partnership with America’s Newspapers, the Bob Graham Center for Public Service, and the James Madison Institute. It’s sponsored by Walmart, with other sponsors expected to join soon.

Sign ON 250 will invite Americans of all ages – at school, home, workplaces, and military bases, on tablets and cellphones, here and globally – to click on a simple link and add their own “John Hancock” to the document that lays out our nation’s founding principles. Millions are expected to “Sign ON” during the year-long campaign running through July 4, 2027. If you want to embrace and rededicate yourself to those guiding principles, you can click here: signon250.org.

Our survey shows that Americans’ appetite for this invitation is widespread: More than 3 in 4 (76%) said they’d gladly add their name to the Declaration as a stamp of approval for the values it embodies. Another 7 in 10 said they would encourage friends, family, and neighbors to add their names, too.

The most eager would-be signatories are the newest Americans. Among respondents born outside the United States, more than 4 in 5 (84%) wanted to sign, versus 74% of those born here; 80% of foreign-born respondents would urge others to follow, compared with 68% of native-born.

Their reasons also differed. Where native-born Americans leaned on patriotism, unity, and personal legacy, foreign-born respondents were markedly more likely to frame signing as a civic duty – doing their part as an engaged citizen (named by 35% of this group, compared with 25% of the native-born). The people who made a choice to be part of this country tend to treat its founding promise as an obligation they’re honored to shoulder.

Zoom out, and the fuller picture is striking for its breadth

We offered eight reasons someone might sign and asked respondents to say which two would be most motivating. The first thing that stands out is how evenly they landed: Each option drew between roughly a quarter and a third of respondents, with no single motive running away with it. People want to sign – they simply arrive at the pen from different directions.

Patriotism led the list (37%), followed closely by unity and cohesion, the sense that despite our differences Americans still share core values (34%), and the pull of a historic moment – a once-in-250-year milestone (34%). Heritage, personal legacy, belonging, renewal, and civic duty filled out the rest, each within a few points of the previous one.

A unifying gesture can hold many private meanings at once, which is more or less the founding premise of a self-governing people. That explains why some philosophical differences show up, even amid all the unity.

Republicans gravitated toward patriotism, heritage, and the chance to leave a personal legacy; Democrats leaned toward renewal and belonging – the sense that these ideals are worth recommitting to, and that they belong to Americans of every background.

Men were somewhat more moved than women by the historic-moment framing (39% to 29%), while unity resonated most with Republicans (43%) and the native-born; the more education someone had, the more reasons they tended to find, with graduate-degree holders citing unity, patriotism, and heritage each at about half. Same document, and same invitation to sign on oneself, but different doorways in.

Confusion in the details

Of course, for all that enthusiasm, there’s a teachable moment hiding in plain sight. Plenty of Americans would be hard-pressed to say precisely what they’re so eager to sign.

Return to the fireworks and the bunting. If you stopped the people buying the sparklers and other festive items and asked them what, exactly, is happening on July 4, a healthy share would pause. About 2 in 3 (66%) correctly identified the upcoming milestone as the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The remaining one-third, however, spread their guesses among several incorrect answers: 18% thought the day commemorates the signing of the U.S. Constitution, roughly 1 in 10 split the difference and called it the 200th anniversary, and a stubborn few pegged it to the end of the Civil War.

Knowledge about the meaning of the Declaration itself fares a little worse. Asked the main purpose of the foundational document, only half (51%) got it right – to announce the American colonies’ separation from Britain. About 1 in 4 believed it created the Bill of Rights, and the rest credited it with ending the Revolutionary War or setting up the three branches of government. So the document we’re preparing to honor with great fanfare and ceremony remains, for at least half of Americans, a bit of a blur.

The fog is thickest among the young. Americans 45 and older named the Declaration’s purpose correctly 58% of the time; among those under 45, the figure fell to 39%. Formal schooling moved the needle hard, too: Among those with a high school education or less, just 1 in 3 correctly identified the purpose – a number that doubled to 65% among those with at least some college or more.

So a country that struggles to name precisely what we’re celebrating agrees, almost without exception, on the values being commemorated. Confusion in the details, conviction in the principles.

56 signatures, with room for many millions more

The Declaration of Independence carries 56 signatures. Every one belonged to a white man of standing, because in 1776 the room was only open to such men. The signers declared that all are created equal, then established a country that took the better part of 200 years to begin to behave that way. This survey suggests that the rest of us have been waiting just outside that room, ready to come in.

Picture those 56 names joined by several million more – foreign-born and fourth-generation alike, city and small town, every political party or none – each adding a hand to a page first written without them.

That gesture would cement the document’s meaning, widen its authorship, and make good on its promise. And that’s certainly something worth celebrating this July 4, and always.

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My last post was inspired by a question from my dad. This one was prompted by my sister. Technically, hers was less a question than a frustration, vented last week when we found ourselves at a new gym where every treadmill faced a TV broadcasting the news.

“The gym should be an escape from all of that,” she said (only way more colorfully). “Why can’t they show sports or HGTV or literally anything else?”

It was a fair question.

I’ve previously looked at whether exercise is related to political tolerance and found a positive correlation between workout frequency and the likelihood of a person accepting the input of people who vote differently than they do.

But just because people who engage in regular physical activity appear to get along a little more agreeably with those on the other side of the political spectrum, it doesn’t mean they want to bring that stuff into the gym.

So I ran an experiment built into a survey of 2,500 American adults to find out: Given the choice, do gym-goers feel as turned off by politics invading their sweat space as my sister does?

I won’t make you wait for it: Yes.

The experiment itself was simple. Respondents were randomly assigned to view one of two images:

• Group A saw a lineup of treadmills facing a row of four televisions, all broadcasting neutral programming – two with a DIY/home improvement theme and two with basketball.

• Group B saw the same lineup of treadmills, but with Fox News on the leftmost television and CNN on the far right. The neutral programming remained in the middle.

Respondents were then asked which treadmill they would choose.

Going in, I hypothesized that most people would prefer a treadmill on the edge of the line, where they would have a little more elbow room and less chance of being squeezed between sweaty strangers.

Treadmill A was especially well-situated for people who would rather not feel boxed in as the image suggested it was closer to the entry.

That hypothesis mostly held up.

In the control group, where all of the TVs featured non-political content, a majority of respondents selected a treadmill on the edge. Overall, 61% chose either the leftmost or rightmost treadmill, with the plurality, 44%, selecting Treadmill A.

But when news appeared on the outer screens, there was a significant migration away from the edges and toward the middle.

In the news treatment group, just 19% selected the leftmost treadmill facing Fox News, while 66% selected one of the center treadmills facing basketball or HGTV. The remaining 15% opted for the treadmill facing CNN.

This aversion to news was especially pronounced among Democrats and women.

Among Democrats, 36% selected Treadmill A in the control group. But when that treadmill faced Fox News, just 2% chose it.

Admittedly, Democrats aren’t likely to go out of their way to watch Fox News, period. But importantly, they also did not migrate toward CNN. In the control group, 13% of Democrats chose Treadmill E. In the treatment group, where that same treadmill faced CNN, 16% chose it. Instead, the overwhelming movement was toward the middle. A strong majority of Democrats, 81%, preferred a treadmill facing basketball or HGTV, a 30-point jump from the non-news control group.

Among nonpartisans, the pattern was similar. In the control group, 45% selected Treadmill A. In the treatment group, that dropped to 7%. Their preference for the CNN-facing treadmill remained identical at 13%, while preference for one of the inner treadmills nearly doubled, from 42% to 81%.

Republicans were less likely to abandon the Fox-facing treadmill, but they were not immune to the overall pattern.

In the control group, 57% of Republicans selected Treadmill A. When Fox News was on, that dropped to 46%. Meanwhile, 16% of Republicans in the control group had chosen Treadmill E when it featured basketball. When that same treadmill faced CNN, support dropped by half, to 8%. GOP preference for a center treadmill rose from 33% to 44%.

Women of all parties were especially averse to politics in the gym.

Overall, the preference for Treadmill A among women dropped from 43% in the control group to 10% in the news treatment group. Among female Democrats, it fell from 36% to 2%; among female nonpartisans, from 53% to 6%; and among female Republicans, from 66% to 34%.

There are a few ways to read this.

The most obvious is that many people don’t want news in their immediate line of sight while they’re trying to exercise, even when the screen features their ‘own side’ of the political divide.

Based on this quick, imperfect1 experiment, it seems my sister isn’t alone. For many people, the gym is one of the few places where they can temporarily mute the rest of life – algorithms, headlines, outrage bait, and the constant invitation to have an opinion about everything.

And this observation may not be specific to gyms, either. There are other shared spaces where people arrive carrying some combination of stress, fatigue, or obligation – such as medical appointments, airport gates, break rooms, or coffee shops. In these places, news may not be neutral background noise but serve as one more prompt to tense up or pick a side.

But as far as gyms go: If tolerance really is a muscle that can be grown through activity, maybe the most pro-social thing a recreational facility can offer is a screen no one has to argue with.

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“You need to ask this on a survey,” my father insisted as I pulled into the Circle K with the gas gauge at E. “How many people actually wait until the last possible minute to fill up?”

My sister and I have long made a game of this, a tradition to torment our admirably prepared parents. Stopping for gas isn’t inherently enjoyable, and there’s a small but undeniable thrill in waiting as long as possible and still making it to the pump before the car calls your bluff.

My dad’s insistence led me to do as he requested: ask 1,000 Florida voters how they handle their gas tank.

More than 1 in 4 (26%) say they wait until the last possible moment. Among Democrats, that’s 1 in 3 (32%).

Democrats, it turns out, are also more likely to put off other household tasks, including dishes and laundry. This is true even after we control for age, gender, and income. The partisan procrastination gap largely disappears, though, with higher-stakes tasks such as for scheduling medical appointments (which Republican men are particularly avoidant of), filing taxes (delayed mostly by the young), and making a dreaded phone call (which, notably, tops the list of things we all say we’re inclined to avoid).

All of this got me wondering: What does the pile of unopened mail on the counter have to do with the politics of an economic safety net?

More than I expected, it turns out.

What began as a question about gas tanks became something with perhaps broader reach: preliminary evidence that the small ways people manage daily life may shape their broader expectations or assumptions about what they and others need from government.

Personality and politics

It’s long been established that personality is correlated with political ideology. In a 2008 paper I coauthored with my graduate mentor, Jeff Mondak, published in the British Journal of Political Science, we found that all five dimensions of the Big Five personality framework matter for political behavior.

The Big Five – openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism – are the most widely used model in personality psychology for describing how people differ in the ways they think, feel, and behave. Among our findings: Conscientiousness predicts conservatism and agreeableness predicts Democratic partisanship.

Procrastination, though, is a behavior rather than a personality trait alone, and I suspected it might tell us something that personality measures alone cannot.

Here’s the theory: People’s politics may be shaped not only by abstract ideology or personality traits, but by the lessons daily life has taught them. If your experience tells you that problems are usually solved by planning ahead and following through, limited government and personal responsibility feel intuitive. If your experience tells you that even capable, well-intentioned people fall behind, a stronger safety net feels less like indulgence and more like necessity. The difference, in other words, between someone who sets their clocks five minutes fast and someone who is always running late — and what each has quietly concluded about everyone else.

Within an hour of contemplating this theory, I had a survey in the field with a fresh random sample of Florida voters. (Yes, I play that game of chicken with my gas tank, but I am not, for the record, a procrastinator about much else.)

The effort question

Overall, about 9 in 10 Florida voters (88%) believe most problems in life can be solved if people put in enough effort. The other 12% lean toward the view that life’s biggest problems are beyond people’s control, no matter how hard they try.

Republicans (92%) are only somewhat more likely than Democrats (83%) to believe in the effectiveness of individual effort, but procrastinator status turns out to be a stronger predictor of this view than party affiliation.

Among those who don’t consider themselves procrastinators, 93% believe most problems are solvable with effort. Among self-identified procrastinators, just 75% feel that way, and the gap holds within every partisan group:

• Among Democrats, 88% of non-procrastinators hold this view, compared with 72% of procrastinators; and

• Among Republicans, the gap is even wider: 98% of non-procrastinators compared with just 61% of procrastinators.

The pattern also holds across gender and age groups. In other words, the divide is not simply red versus blue but also “I already handled that” versus “I’ll get to it eventually.”

Procrastinators in all parties are more likely to support government safety net policies

So what about economic policy preferences?

When asked about the proper role of government, procrastinators are significantly more likely to say government should play a large role in regulating business and reducing economic inequality: 72% of procrastinators hold this view, compared with 53% of non-procrastinators.

The gap holds within each party – among Democrats (92% vs. 77%), nonpartisans (70% vs. 50%), and Republicans (45% vs. 34%). The same pattern is seen when it comes to whether government should do more to reduce the gap between rich and poor – procrastinators in every group say yes at higher rates than their partisan or demographic peers.

In sum: People who self-identify as procrastinators are more likely to believe problems are hard to solve through personal effort alone and more likely to want the government standing by when people fall short. Maybe not because they reject effort, but because they have learned that efforts aren’t always evenly timed, supplied, or successful.

The conscientiousness twist

Of the Big Five personality traits, the “conscientiousness” scale is most closely linked to procrastination. In this model, “conscientious” people tend to be disciplined, organized, and goal-oriented. Consistent with that, in this latest survey, people who score high on conscientiousness are half as likely to self-identify as procrastinators (20%) as those who score low on this trait (40%).

Given this, you’d expect conscientiousness to also predict economic policy preferences. If low conscientiousness predicts procrastination, and procrastination predicts support for government intervention, the chain should hold all the way through.

It doesn’t.

Equal portions of those who rate high in conscientiousness (58%) and those who don’t (59%) say the government should play a meaningful role in regulating business and reducing economic inequality. About equal shares, 52% compared with 57%, say government should do more to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor. And nearly identical shares of those who are coded as “conscientious” or not, 87% and 90%, believe most problems in life can be solved with effort.

Conscientiousness tells us almost nothing about economic policy preferences, but procrastination (a behavior closely associated with low conscientiousness) tells us quite a bit. Somehow, the way you handle your laundry, your dishes, or your gas tank may say more about your economic worldview than how you’d score on a personality inventory.

The surprising finding here is not just that procrastination predicts policy preferences. It is that conscientiousness, the personality trait most associated with procrastination, does not.

This suggests that when it comes to predicting political ideology, how people act in their daily lives may carry independent information beyond what their personality scores capture.

“When I shared these findings with Mondak, he pointed me to his own recent work where he found that behavioral constructs like “grit” predict political outcomes better than broad personality traits do. We arrived at parallel conclusions from different angles – what you do may say more than who you are.

The politics of a backup plan: Giving government the wheel?

Economic policy is just one dimension of political identity, of course, and this is just one survey of Florida voters. But the consistency of findings across parties, genders, and age groups is hard to dismiss: People who tend to procrastinate on the small things in life are more likely to embrace economic policies that provide a safety net for others, too.

And lest this all sound like a referendum on personal responsibility, consider this: 71% of procrastinators also consider themselves optimists. This suggests that putting things off may not be a reflection of fatalism or apathy, but may instead reflect a genuine belief that things will work out fine, even if the path getting there involves a blinking dashboard light and a basket of unfolded towels.

Giving behavior a seat at the table

People’s politics may be shaped not only by abstract ideology, group identity, or personality traits, but also by the lessons they draw from managing their own lives. If your daily experience tells you that problems are usually solved by planning ahead and following through, then limited government and personal responsibility may feel intuitive. If your daily experience tells you that even capable, well-intentioned people often fall behind, then a stronger safety net may feel less like indulgence and more like necessity.

Personality frameworks have shaped the field of political psychology; and this analysis supports an argument that behavioral measures deserve a seat at that table, too. Everyday self-management behavior may act as a bridge between personality and politics.

Nobody will quite fit any mold, but the pattern is worth exploring.

So until that time, I’ll be out in the field – specifically, driving right past the Marathon station on Mahan – a conservative who loads the dishes daily

but coasts in on fumes and votes like she filled up at half a tank.

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In an important, biting column for Florida Politics, publisher Peter Schorsch warns that this year’s Jewish American Heritage Month “could be the last.”

He points to a serious crisis of extremism emerging on both sides of the political aisle – “from cosplay in keffiyehs to larping with ‘goyim’ tropes” – and cautions that if institutions fail to respond seriously, the dire consequences may arrive before many people even recognize the problem.

Heritage months are a familiar part of the American civic calendar. February recognizes Black history, March recognizes Irish American heritage, April recognizes Arab American heritage, and October includes recognitions for Filipino, Polish, and Italian Americans.

So how do Americans feel about recognizing Jewish Americans in May? And how do those feelings compare with another heritage month recognized at the same time, Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month?

As usual, to get some answers I approached the question through an experiment embedded in a scientific survey of 1,200 Florida voters, fielded May 9-11, 2026. Prior studies have shown Florida to be a strong bellwether for national sentiment.

In this experiment, respondents saw one of four messages about a presidential proclamation honoring either Jewish American Heritage Month or Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. To reduce the potential effect of responses being influenced by a person’s feelings about the president, half of each treatment group were told President Trump issued the proclamation while the other half were told each of the last five presidential administrations had made the same recognition.

The results reveal something deeper than approval or disapproval of a presidential statement. They point to how voters react to the specific groups being honored.

Overall, nearly identical shares of Florida voters approve of a proclamation honoring the history of Jewish Americans (58%) and Asian Americans (59%). But when it comes to opposition, negative feelings are more than twice as high for Jewish American Heritage Month (14%) as for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (6%). The rest are uncertain, at 28% and 35%, respectively.

The difference in opposition is especially pronounced among Democrats and nonpartisans. Among Democrats, 21% oppose recognizing Jewish American Heritage Month, compared with just 2% of Democrats who oppose recognizing Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Among nonpartisans, the gap is similar: 18% oppose recognition of Jewish Americans compared with 2% who oppose recognition of Asian Americans.

Republicans show the reverse pattern: Just 5% oppose recognizing Jewish American Heritage Month, while 13% oppose recognizing Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

Age differences are also striking. Among voters younger than 45, 21% oppose recognizing Jewish American Heritage Month compared with just 3% who oppose recognizing Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. The divide continues among voters ages 45-64, at 17% and 9%, respectively, before narrowing and reversing slightly among those ages 65 and older, at 8% and 5%.

Significantly, the presidential cue itself did little to change the pattern. Democrats were about as likely to support or oppose Jewish American Heritage Month whether the proclamation was attributed to Trump or to the last five presidential administrations. Republicans were similarly unmoved on Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, regardless of whether the recognition was framed as coming from Trump or from multiple administrations.

Nobody was asked about Israel or any Asian countries

The experiment did not ask voters how they feel about Israel, the Israeli government, the war in Gaza, or any foreign policy issue. It also did not ask how they feel about the politics or conflicts underway in any Asian or Pacific Island nation.

It asked only whether they approve or disapprove of a presidential proclamation recognizing the heritage and contributions of Jewish Americans or Asian American and Pacific Islanders.

That makes the gap harder to explain away. One of the most common defenses against charges of antisemitism is that opposition to Israel should not be conflated with hostility toward Jews.

But when opposition to recognizing Jewish American history runs more than twice as high as opposition to recognizing Asian American and Pacific Islander history, the finding becomes difficult to explain as anything other than antisemitism, or at minimum, a willingness to hold American Jews accountable for feelings about a Jewish state (which, by definition, is also antisemitism).

How do Americans perceive Jewish American contributions to U.S. History?

To better understand why some support and others oppose recognizing Jewish American Heritage Month, we asked how Floridians view the role of Jewish Americans in U.S. history. Overall, 75% say Jewish Americans have played a generally positive role, while 9% disagree and 16% are unsure.

Here again, party and age matter. About two-thirds of Democrats (66%) say Jewish Americans have played a positive role, while 11% disagree and 23% are unsure. By comparison, 86% of Republicans view Jewish Americans’ impact as positive, while 7% disagree and 7% are unsure.

By age, the perception that Jewish Americans have had a positive impact on U.S. history rises from 60% among those under age 45, to 77% among those ages 45-64, and 90% of those ages 65 and older.

Who are the Jewish Americans that people think of, anyway?

We also asked voters to name at least one Jewish American, living or historic, whom they respect or believe made a positive impact on the country.

About 3 in 4 respondents (74%) provided at least one name. The remaining 26% either couldn’t think of one, left the question blank, or offered offensive responses not worthy of repeating.

The names offered covered science, law, culture, entertainment, politics, religion, business, and public commentary. Some responses were factually off target – a few named people who are not American (such as former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin or Sigmund Freud) – while others named people who are not Jewish, including Anthony Fauci, Mike Huckabee, and Jimmy Fallon.

But for the purpose of reporting on perception, if not reality, here’s what shook out:

Figures from science and medicine led the list, accounting for about 29% of all mentions. That category, however, was overwhelmingly driven by Albert Einstein, who alone accounted for about 24% of all mentions. Without Einstein, science and medicine would fall to about 5%, represented by figures such as Jonas Salk, Robert Oppenheimer, and Isaac Asimov.

The next major cluster was legal, social, advocacy, and public-commentary figures, at roughly 22% of mentions. Ruth Bader Ginsburg led this category, joined by Ben Shapiro, Alan Dershowitz, Mark Levin, Louis Brandeis, and Elie Wiesel. This suggests many voters associate Jewish American impact not simply with fame, but with civic, legal, intellectual, and moral influence.

Politics and government figures accounted for about 20% of mentions. That group included Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright, Josh Shapiro, Golda Meir, and a few Florida names, including Jared Moskowitz and Randy Fine. Just three named Haym Salomon, who significantly helped finance American Independence.

Entertainment, arts, sports, and literature were close behind, at about 19% of mentions. Names included Steven Spielberg, Mel Brooks, Jon Stewart, Jerry Seinfeld, Barbra Streisand, Adam Sandler, Irving Berlin, Bob Dylan, Sandy Koufax, Leonard Bernstein, and a member of my own family tree, George Gershwin.

The remaining mentions were more scattered. Business, finance, economics, and philanthropy accounted for about 4%, including economists Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan. Religious or biblical figures (albeit non-American) accounted for about 3%, mostly Jesus and Moses. The remaining were miscellaneous, personal, or difficult to classify.

Taken together, the results show a complicated mix of recognition, uncertainty, admiration, and resistance. Most Florida voters say Jewish Americans have made a positive contribution to the country. Most can name at least one Jewish American they respect.

Those findings offer real cause for optimism. But they sit alongside other more troubling realities: opposition to formally recognizing Jewish American Heritage Month is meaningfully higher than opposition to recognizing Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, especially among some groups.

And the discomfort is not limited to heritage-month recognition. Multiple conspiracy theories about Jewish Americans remain very much alive in Florida. About 1 in 4 voters say it is at least possible that Jewish-owned food companies intentionally make food unhealthy to weaken non-Jews. Another 1 in 4 believe it is at least possible that global banks are secretly controlled by Jewish elites. Around 1 in 3 believe Jews control too much of the media. And in roughly the same range, 1 in 4 say Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel was at least somewhat justified.

So, yes, there’s admiration. But significant portions of people, whose responses represent millions, are also willing to admit to pollsters a mix of suspicion, hostility, and conspiratorial thinking that shouldn’t be minimized.

From recognition to shared observance?

This Friday night marks what President Trump has called for as a “National Shabbat” from sundown on May 15 to sundown on May 16.

The proclamation says the observance recognizes the Jewish tradition of setting aside time for rest, reflection, and gratitude, and calls on all Americans to celebrate faith and freedom, especially on Shabbat.

Asked if they’d consider participating in this observation, fewer than 1 in 3 (31%) say they definitely would not (including half of Democrats, 1 in 4 nonpartisans, and 1 in 8 Republicans).

I take this as a sign of possibility: Even in a hyperpolarized environment, a majority of Floridians remain open to honoring a Jewish tradition framed not as a political statement, but as a shared civic invitation to rest, reflect, and give thanks.

And that’s something we can all use more of.

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Florida lawmakers return to Tallahassee this week for a Special Session called by Gov. Ron DeSantis to address three issues: congressional redistricting, artificial intelligence protections, and medical freedom and vaccine policy.

On paper, that may be one agenda. But in public opinion, it’s three very different conversations with three very different messages for legislators.

Sachs Media conducted original data analysis and a statewide, scientific survey of 1,200 Florida voters via random sample of the Florida Voter File to understand not only which issues Floridians care about most, but also how urgently they want lawmakers to act on each.

The short version: Floridians are not applying one speed limit to everything in the Governor’s call.

What Floridians think about the three agenda issues

First, we asked which of the three issues interests people the most.

A majority, 54%, said congressional redistricting is most interesting to them. This was followed by AI protections and regulations at 27%, with medical freedom and vaccine policy lagging at 19%.

Asking it slightly differently, we wanted to know which issue those Floridians believe would have the greatest impact on their family or community.

Interest and perceived impact are highly correlated, but not identical. When framed in terms of impact, congressional redistricting rises slightly to 56%, while AI protections decline to 21% and medical freedom and vaccine policy increases to 23%.

There are some notable differences by party and age.

Democrats (61%) and Republicans (57%) are significantly more focused on redistricting than are nonpartisans (44%). For their part, nonpartisans are paying greater attention to AI regulation (32%) than Republicans (21%) or Democrats (16%). All three groups are about equally focused on medical freedom and vaccine policy (a bit less than 1 in 4).

Floridians over age 45 are also significantly more focused on redistricting (60%) compared with those age 44 and younger (47%). Younger Floridians are more interested in AI regulations (26% compared with 19% among older Floridians) and medical freedom and vaccine policy (27% vs. 21%).

Same session, different speeds

We also wanted to understand how urgent Floridians consider these issues to be.

Should lawmakers move quickly during the Special Session, or is more caution and time warranted?

On congressional redistricting, the answer is clear: Voters may be interested, but they’re not eager for speed.

While a majority of Floridians say congressional redistricting is the issue that interests them the most and is most likely to affect their lives, only about 1 in 4 (27%) want the Legislature to “move quickly” and finish maps during the Special Session. A majority (59%) would prefer to see lawmakers take their time, even if that delays a final set of maps. The remaining 14% are unsure.

In other words, Floridians are watching the maps, but don’t want them drawn hurriedly with a Sharpie.

On the other hand, regulation of artificial intelligence produces almost the opposite response.

Seven in 10 Floridians would prefer lawmakers to “move quickly” to create guardrails for the use of AI, even as the technology continues to evolve. Just 22% would rather they take more time to see how AI develops before passing new laws, with the remaining 8% unsure.

That finding is striking because AI ranks behind redistricting in both interest and perceived impact. Voters may not be following every detail of AI policy, but they appear to understand, instinctively, that the technology is moving faster than the rules around it.

Indeed, when asked what worries them more about AI, a majority of Floridians (53%) say they are more concerned that government will do too little to protect people from harm. Just 9% are more worried that government will overregulate AI and slow innovation. Another 38% are unsure which concern weighs more heavily.

Further, 8 out of 9 Floridians (88%) support the Legislature codifying an “Artificial Intelligence Bill of Rights.” This level of consensus may help explain why Floridians are more comfortable with an expedited approach to AI policy. They may not know exactly what every regulation should look like, but they broadly agree that new protections should exist.

The public’s mixed mandate

These competing priorities may be the central tension heading into this Special Session.

Floridians aren’t applying one standard of urgency across all three issues. They are distinguishing between questions that feel consequential and require deliberation, and questions that feel fast-moving and require proper guardrails before the train is fully out of the station.

For lawmakers, that creates a useful warning: The public may tolerate a Special Session – after all, Florida has had plenty of them – but voters aren’t necessarily asking for the same kind of action on every item on the agenda.

On redistricting they want prudence, but on AI they want guardrails. And on medical freedom and vaccine policy, they are watching, but less intently than the other two issues.

How ‘special’ are these sessions, really?

Before treating this week’s Special Session as a political earthquake, it’s worth asking how unusual these gatherings really are.

This marks the 81st Special Session since 1972, making it an occurrence that has happened in 2 out of every 3 years over that stretch of time. Sometimes, it’s happened more than once in a single year.

Over the last 55 years, lawmakers have come back to Tallahassee for non-regular session business an average of 1.47 times per year. In other words, “Special Session” may sound rare and dramatic, but in Florida politics it’s less comet sighting and more seasonal allergy (you may not get one every year, but you’re never exactly shocked when it arrives!)

So when are Special Sessions more or less likely to occur?

We looked at the data to find out.

Predictably, Special Sessions are less likely to be called in election years, when campaign season, fundraising limits, political risk, and the general instinct for self-preservation all diminish the appetite for dragging lawmakers back to Tallahassee.

Since 2006, Special Sessions have been called in 45% of election years, making them over one-third less likely than in off-cycle years. That gap widens even more dramatically when comparing presidential election years to midterm or non-election years. Special Sessions have been called in just 20% of presidential election years, compared with 69% of all other years (a 71% difference).

Similarly – and directly related to those campaign-season dynamics – the Legislature reconvenes for Special Sessions 57% more often when the regular session begins in January. These are even-numbered years, when lawmakers have already wrapped up their regular work earlier and still have more calendar space before campaigns fully consume the oxygen. In March session years, the window is narrower, the weather is warmer, and everyone’s patience is thinner.

Beyond these calendar-related patterns, we looked for one less obvious dynamic: Are Special Sessions more, or less, likely when the leaders of either chamber are lawyers?

The answer is mixed, but entertaining.

Special Sessions are 52% more common when the House Speaker is a lawyer, 33% less common when the Senate President is a lawyer, and 92% more common when the Speaker, Senate President, and Governor are all lawyers.

Make of that as you will, counselor.

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The Florida Legislature is hosting ‘Israel Day at the Capitol’ this coming Monday and Tuesday (January 26 and 27). The event includes advocacy for the Florida-Israel relationship and is a chance to highlight issues affecting the Jewish community locally and abroad.

I’ve been given the honor of introducing a panel of Israeli business leaders whose technologies are already improving the lives of Floridians in the areas of security, defense, water quality, and medical innovation. To prepare for this, I did what I have done on a regular basis for the past 8 years – conduct a random sample survey via the Florida Voter File to understand current sentiment on Israel sentiment and antisemitism.

Our polling on Israel usually yields results I find disheartening. Large shares of respondents demonstrate significant misunderstandings about the world’s only Jewish state, particularly when it comes to its history, culture, ethnic and religious diversity, and system of government.

Across repeated survey experiments, we also observe clear double standards applied not only to Israel but to American Jews as well, with expectations and judgments that are not imposed on other nations or groups.

These surveys consistently reveal a strong connection between knowledge gaps and antisemitic attitudes. That relationship is not confined to respondents who answer factual questions incorrectly. It’s even more pronounced among those who say they simply don’t know. In practice, the less people know about Israel, the more negatively they tend to view it – and the less they know, the more likely they are to express hostility toward Jews both globally and here in the United States.

In message tests tied to the Israel-Gaza war, new information almost never shifts opinion in a meaningful way. Across multiple experiments testing whether specific facts might lead Americans to view Israel more factually or favorably, attitudes remain largely fixed. In some cases, the effect is counterproductive: The more positive the information about Israeli actions, the greater the skepticism it generates.

This week’s survey revealed something different. Not a magic fix, and not a consensus on geopolitics, but a clear bridge: When Floridians can see and name specific ways Israeli innovation is operating here at home, attitudes shift dramatically.

A challenging baseline reality: Ask about Israel with no additional context, and people divide quickly

First, respondents reacted to a hypothetical scenario: How they would feel if Florida leaders held a meeting in Israel to learn about water quality technology and security and to strengthen relationships.

Just 40% said they would feel positively overall, while 33% said they would feel negatively and 26% were neutral. The partisan divide was pronounced: Half of Democrats (50%) reacted negatively, compared with 19% of Republicans. Republicans were also more likely to react positively (52%) than Democrats (23%). Age differences were also evident: Voters under 45 were the most skeptical, with 41% reacting negatively and 34% positively, while seniors were far more open, with 49% of those ages 65 and older expressing a positive reaction.

When respondents were asked what specifically concerned them about engagement with Israel, several themes emerged. About 29% said meeting with Israeli leaders would send the wrong signal, 42% said Israel already has too much influence, and a majority (57%) felt that such a trip would probably be a waste of taxpayer dollars. In contrast, 43% believed Florida leaders would learn useful things.

This is the baseline reality: When it comes to Israel, many voters default to skepticism or worse. The very mention of the country in a survey question triggers political baggage and entrenched narratives before any details are even introduced.

Replace abstraction with real examples, and the tone changes

Respondents were then shown a short list of technologies currently in use in Florida that were pioneered or developed in Israel, and asked whether each is valuable for the state.

Strong majorities rated every one of these innovations as valuable. Nearly all (96%) rated Israeli innovations in medicine – such as capsule endoscopy, advanced imaging, and robotic surgeries – as valuable. More than 8 in 10 (84%) said Israeli innovations used in Florida cancer care, including radiogenomics, immunotherapy, and precision oncology tools, are valuable. A similar share, 83%, said Israeli-pioneered desalination technologies, water filtration, algae bloom remediation, and leak detection systems operating in Florida are valuable, while 77% said Israeli-developed cybersecurity tools used by Florida governments and utilities provide value.

Notably, even where partisans disagree sharply about Israel in the abstract, they converge around outcomes in practice. Majorities of Democrats rated each of these technologies as valuable, generally in the low to mid-70% range, while Republican support was even stronger, often approaching 90%. Older voters were especially persuaded once the examples became concrete. Among Floridians age 65 and older, net “valuable” ratings reached the mid-90s across most of these technologies.

Revisiting the same question after facts are given

After reviewing these real-world applications, respondents were asked two broader questions that pulled the findings together. First, they were asked whether Israeli-developed technologies have had a positive or negative effect on Florida. Nearly 8 in 10 Floridians (78%) said the impact has been positive, including 43% who described it as very positive. Just 13% said the impact has been negative, while 10% said these technologies have had no impact.

Respondents were then asked whether they would support Florida continuing or expanding partnerships with Israeli technology companies in areas such as health, water, and security.

Three-quarters (75%) expressed support, including 41% who said they strongly support such partnerships, while 25% opposed them. The support is broad, even if the degree of intensity varies. About two-thirds of Democrats (66%) support continuing or expanding partnerships, as do 70% of nonpartisans and 86% of Republicans. Support also increases with age, rising from 62% among voters under 45 to 78% among those ages 45 to 64, and reaching 92% among Floridians age 65 and older.

There’s surely still room to grow, but the shift within a single survey is unmistakable. When Israeli collaboration moves from the abstract to the tangible, public sentiment responds.

The takeaway I didn’t expect to find, but can’t look away from

This is not a story about Floridians suddenly agreeing on Middle East politics. It’s a story about something more practical, and maybe more promising.

When Israel is treated as a symbol, the public response is polarized and often reflexive. Simply enter the word “Israel” into an experimental question and it changes the outcomes significantly. But when Israel is encountered as a source of solutions already improving life for people close to home, sentiment moves toward agreement.

That matters for public opinion, but it also matters for something deeper: Partnerships in water, health, and security create lived points of connection. They make Israel relatable in the daily lives of Americans – not merely as an idea people fight about online, but as a place producing tools that help keep drinking water cleaner, harden infrastructure against cyber threats, and improve outcomes for cancer patients.

If you’re looking for a rare silver lining in a very hard public opinion environment, this is it. There is a path to shared ground.

Expanding the Florida-Israel economic relationship may ultimately shape far more than outcomes in technology, water, or medicine. These shared successes can quietly influence how the world’s only Jewish state is understood as an economic, social, and political ally.

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People talk all the time about “the lobbying world” around Florida government, but we rarely stop to measure what it actually looks like. Things like how many lobbyists are in the system. How many principals are buying representation for their interests? How often the same players show up on both the legislative and executive sides. And whether the structure has changed in a meaningful way over time.

So our team at Sachs Media pulled the official Florida lobbying directories for 2006 and 2026 to map the architecture of influence in Tallahassee two decades apart. Who is in? Who is hiring? How dense is the network? Where is there overlap?

What we found was more surprising than I expected. The headline is not “there are more lobbyists.” In fact, the lobbyist headcount barely moved over the 20-year period.

The surprises were structural: Over the last two decades, the overlap between legislative and executive lobbying has become the norm, the number of principals has surged, and the average relationship load has gotten much heavier on both sides. Florida has become a “full coverage” policy environment, where serious players increasingly operate across both branches at once.

That matters for Florida, obviously. But it also matters beyond Florida. As states become the front lines for national policy fights, Florida functions as a proving ground – and its influence infrastructure is part of the story. If you want to understand why Florida’s policy choices travel, you have to understand the machinery behind them. What follows is an attempt to make that machinery more visible.

Two branches, one market

In Florida, lobbying used to look like two related but distinct businesses – one aimed at the Legislature, the other aimed at the executive branch. That line still exists on paper in 2026, but the modern practice looks much more like a single, integrated marketplace where most of the serious players show up in both.

Let’s start with the people doing the lobbying. In 2006, 48% of legislative lobbyists also appeared in the executive branch directory, while 68% of executive lobbyists also appeared in the legislative directory. Put differently, about 2 in 5 (39%) of all lobbyists were operating in both arenas, but even more (42%) were legislative-only and only half as many (19%) were executive-only.

Fast forward to 2026 and the overlap has become the rule, not the exception: 72% of legislative lobbyists do double duty as executive branch lobbyists, 91% of executive lobbyists are also legislative lobbyists, and fully two-thirds of all lobbyists (67%) show up in both directories. The “single-branch” lobbyist is now the minority, with 26% legislative-only and just 7% executive-only.

Lobbyists stayed, principals multiplied

What makes this shift even more striking is that it is not being driven by a booming headcount of lobbyists. The number of legislative lobbyists actually declined over the two-decade period, from 1,988 in 2006 to 1,883 in 2026 – a 5.3% drop. The number of executive lobbyists ticked up slightly, from 1,412 to 1,483, a 5.0% increase. So the lobbying corps itself is roughly the same size – the real explosive growth is on the client side and in the structure of relationships between the two.

From 2006 to 2026, the number of legislative principals surged from 3,138 to 5,052 – a 61% increase. Executive principals grew even faster, from 2,557 to 4,869, a whopping 90.4% increase. So Florida didn’t really become a place with more lobbyists. It became a place with far more entities that believe they need representation, and increasingly, representation that spans both branches.

That “both-branches” point isn’t just a lobbyist story; it’s even more dramatic when you look at principals. Two decades ago, 52% of legislative principals also had an executive lobbyist, while 63% of executive principals also had a legislative lobbyist. By 2026, those numbers jump to 87% and 91%. The typical principal is no longer choosing a lane. They are buying full-spread coverage.

Another way to see it is to look at how principals sort into three buckets: represented only in the Legislature, only in the executive, or in both. In 2006, principals were relatively evenly divided: 37% were legislative-only, 23% were executive-only, and 40% were in both. By 2026, the middle swallows the chart: Only 12% are legislative-only and 8% are executive-only, while a massive 80% appear in both. The overlap is no longer a feature of the system … it IS the system.

This is also a story of capacity and competition, because the work per lobbyist has climbed sharply. In 2006, each legislative lobbyist represented an average of 4.0 legislative principals. In 2026, that average has more than doubled to 8.5. Executive lobbyists saw an even bigger portfolio jump, from 4.4 executive principals per lobbyist in 2006 to 10.1 in 2026. Even without dramatic growth in their numbers, the average lobbyist is carrying a much heavier client load.

At the same time, principals are also hiring more lobbyists. The average legislative principal had 2.5 legislative lobbyists in 2006. Twenty years later, that number sits at 3.2. Executive principals moved from 2.5 lobbyists in 2006 to 3.1 in 2026. So the market is tightening from both ends: Lobbyists are representing more principals, and principals are staffing up with more lobbyists. The obvious takeaway is that influence is being pursued more aggressively, and often with larger teams of advocates.

In a classic supply–demand model, one might expect the number of lobbyists to grow alongside a massive expansion in the universe of prospective clients. One explanation for why we see virtually no growth in the lobbying corps may have less to do with clients and more to do with the ultimate target of lobbying: lawmakers themselves. The size of the Legislature remains fixed at 160 members, and the executive branch has not meaningfully expanded over time. Each public official can sustain only so many meaningful relationships, and lobbyists are often hired precisely for that access. So while the demand for representation has exploded, the supply of truly valuable access has remained capped, forcing the system to respond by intensifying, not expanding.

You can see that “team” dynamic in the share of solo lobbyists. In 2006, 50% of legislative principals had just one lobbyist and a similar 49% of executive principals had just one lobbyist. In 2026, both of these drop to 33%.

There is also an important divide within the lobbying population itself. In 2026, 43% of legislative lobbyists have just one client. That means a big chunk of the legislative roster is still made up of single-client or in-house representation, while the rest of the market consists of lobbyists with multi-client portfolios that are getting larger over time – as of this writing, 17 legislative lobbyists boast client rosters of more than 100 principals.

Longevity and a shifting long game

Longevity of lobbyists in the process looks decidedly different depending on which branch you focus on. Currently, 38% of legislative lobbyists have represented clients for 20 or more years, compared with 14% of executive lobbyists. And among 20-plus-year legislative lobbying veterans, fewer than 4% retired between 2024 and 2026. In other words, the cast is fairly stable, even as the client lists grow.

The data also points to a noteworthy cultural tell. In 2026 ,women account for 41% of the field, up from 33% in 2006. One curious (if inconsequential) detail: The most common first names for lobbyists are David among men and Jennifer among women. In both cases, those names show up within the lobbying corps at more than twice the rate you’d expect based on their share of the U.S. adult population.

Geography of influence

Geography tells its own part of the story. The Florida Capitol still functions as the gravitational center of the lobbying industry, even as influence work spreads across the state. In 2026, 84% of those who lobby in Florida are based in the state, and 59% of those Florida-based lobbyists are headquartered in Tallahassee. But that’s only, well, six-tenths of the story. Florida lobbyists live in 36 other states, too. This includes 88 lobbyists based in D.C. or Virginia, 50 who live in California, 21 Texans, 18 from Georgia, 14 New Yorkers … and the list goes on.

On the principal side, 79% of legislative principals have offices in Florida, but the rest span 45 other states and nearly a dozen other countries, too. There are 328 principals based in D.C. or Virginia, 197 based in California, 138 in Texas, and 127 in New York. (And I can’t help but also give a shoutout to the team from Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, who provide Florida representation for a principal based in Hawaii).

Florida’s lobbying ecosystem is still predominantly Floridian, but it is also meaningfully national in reach and participation.

Tracking the largest teams

Finally, if you want a snapshot of who sits at the center of attention, look at the principals who engage the most lobbyists. On the legislative side, the 2006 top five were BellSouth, Miami-Dade County, The Florida Chamber, Associated Industries of Florida, and Florida Power & Light. Now the legislative top five are Broward County, Palm Beach County, AT&T, Southern Group, and Florida Power & Light. One interesting through-line: AT&T completed its $86 billion acquisition of BellSouth in 2006, and it is still one of the most heavily represented players in Florida today.

On the executive side, the 2006 top five were Miami-Dade County, The Florida Chamber, Dosal Tobacco, the Florida Association of Counties, and the Florida Home Builders Association. In 2026, the executive top five are Southern Group, Palm Beach County, Broward County, Walt Disney Company, and TECO.

The specific names shift over time, but the pattern is consistent: Large local governments and major corporate interests, especially in communications, energy, and tourism, are the ones most likely to build big lobbying teams to carry their issues across both branches of Florida government.

What does this mean for Florida and beyond?

Florida has matured into a “full coverage” policy environment, and the consequences ripple well beyond Tallahassee.

Influence is increasingly won by organizations that can operate on multiple fronts at once. If the Legislature is establishing a policy while agencies are writing the rules and implementing it, then the winners are those principals who can apply and maintain pressure on both tracks. That raises the bar for participation. Small organizations and local coalitions can still win, but they have to be smarter and more targeted – because the default on the other side is now a coordinated, two-branch operation.

This also changes how policy gets made – or at least, how it gets seen by outsiders. When more principals hire bigger teams, and more lobbyists carry bigger client books, the system becomes faster, denser, and harder to follow from the outside. More conversations happen earlier, more decisions get shaped before a bill is drafted, and implementation becomes part of the legislative strategy, not an afterthought.

In practice, that can mean fewer surprises at the end of session, but it can also mean that ordinary Floridians, and even many stakeholders, feel like they are hearing about decisions only after the real debate has already moved on.

Beyond Florida, the trend is a preview. States are becoming the main arena for major fights in education, tech, health care, energy, and social policy. Florida has become the go-to state for where those battles get tested first, then copied elsewhere. A more integrated lobbying marketplace, where the same actors work both the legislative and executive lanes, is exactly what you would expect in a state that’s functioning like a national policy laboratory.

The bottom line is not “more lobbying” in a simplistic sense. It is a more professionalized, more integrated influence ecosystem. If you want to understand Florida’s policy trajectory, or why Florida’s ideas travel, you have to look at the machinery behind the scenes. And the machinery, increasingly, is built for scale.

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In just the past couple of years, AI chatbots have gone from novelty to everyday companions. For many, what began with “draw pop art of an elephant dressed as Abraham Lincoln walking on the moon while smoking a cigar!” is now a full-time colleague, mental health therapist, and fact-checker all in one.

The risks have escalated just as quickly. Families in multiple states have sued AI companies, alleging that chatbots encouraged vulnerable teenagers toward self harm or suicide rather than steering them to real help. Researchers have also documented AI systems that, when pushed, readily produce antisemitic slurs, praise for Hitler, or other bigoted content – making the technology feel less like a neutral tool and more like a force that might deepen problems we already have.

Against this backdrop, the Florida Legislature is holding its first official AI Week in Tallahassee. House Speaker Daniel Perez has directed committees to devote their December 8-12 interim meetings to examining artificial intelligence and its impact on the state. Governor Ron DeSantis has proposed an Artificial Intelligence Bill of Rights for Floridians, with provisions on data privacy, parental controls, and limits on exploitative uses of people’s images and voices.

So what do Florida voters actually think about AI?

To answer that, our team at Sachs Media conducted a statewide survey in November and compared it with the results of an identical survey in September 2023. Each polled over 1,000 voters through a random sample of the Florida voter file. The results show a public that is more engaged with AI but more uneasy about where it’s going – and very clear about wanting guardrails.

Adoption is soaring. Enthusiasm is not.

Between 2023 and 2025, Floridians’ contact with AI exploded. Two years ago, 85% said they were at least somewhat familiar with AI; by 2025 that had climbed to 95%. Over the same period, the share who have tried an AI tool rose from 57% to 75%. AI use is broad across party lines: Around three-quarters of Democrats, Republicans, and nonpartisans all now say they have used an AI tool.

Unsurprisingly, younger adults lead the way, with about 86% of those under 45 reporting hands-on experience. But even roughly 62% of seniors have dabbled.

Yet when we look at how those users rate their experiences, optimism has cooled. Positive ratings of AI sagged from 43% in 2023 to 37% in 2025, while negative ratings nearly doubled.

In other words, AI has moved into the mainstream faster than public comfort. Voters still see usefulness and novelty, but in their interactions with AI are colliding with glitches, biased answers, alarming headlines, and new worries about how their data is being used.

This combination of high usage and growing skepticism is exactly when people start looking to policymakers for help.

Florida vs. the feds on regulating AI: Voters want homegrown rules

President Trump is soon expected to issue an executive order with a national AI framework, including talk of limiting state-level regulations. But if there is a single clear message from our survey data, it is this: Floridians want AI regulated – including at the state level.

In 2023, 80% said the government should regulate the development and application of AI, a number that remains essentially unchanged at 81% in 2025.

Importantly, the share of Floridians who believe the state government should have a role in AI regulations rose from 60% to 66%. In other words, Florida lawmakers do have a mandate from their constituents to develop a state role in regulating AI. That said, while Florida voters are asking for homegrown rules, the federal government has yet to fully articulate the merits of a federal-only approach that could bring accountability while avoiding a complicated 50-different-rules patchwork.

The shifting drive for government involvement: from national security to personal privacy

When asked which area is the most important reason for government involvement with AI, voters point to national security as the top concern – although it has fallen from 45% in 2023 to 36% in 2025.

At the same time, ethical issues such as bias and data privacy rose during this time, from 22% to 30%. And economic implications and job loss stayed about steady from 17% to 19%. Finally, the desire for regulation of AI in public services, including health care and transportation, remained in the mid-teens.

This shift in the top priority – from regulating AI in national security toward concerns for personal ethics and privacy – suggests that AI no longer feels like a distant geopolitical tool. Instead, it feels like something that handles people’s private information, shapes the information they see, and may eventually make decisions about their jobs or benefits.

Floridians were already worried about AI and elections in 2023

Before the 2024 election cycle really got under way, we asked Floridians a set of questions about AI and democracy. The answers were striking.

• 87% believed that malicious actors would use AI tools such as deepfakes to spread misinformation in the 2024 elections. That view was almost perfectly bipartisan: 87% of Democrats, 86% of nonpartisans, and 87% of Republicans. Concern grew with voters’ age, from 79% among adults under 30 to 92% among seniors.

• Half of voters said the presence of AI reduces their trust in elections overall.

• 39% believed AI would actually change the outcomes of at least some races in 2024, again with similar levels across parties.

It’s rare to see that level of cross-party agreement on any election question, much less one involving future-oriented technology. The upcoming 2026 cycle will no doubt bring more clarity to the impacts of AI on campaigns and elections.

Voters still think humans are smarter, but fear the direction of travel

We posed a simple question: Who is currently smarter, humans or AI?

In 2023, voters already favored humans, 53% to 26%. By late 2025, that gap had widened. A full 6 in 10 now say humans are smarter, while only 17% say AI is smarter. About 23% are unsure.

Despite what might appear like a vote of confidence for human intelligence, more people now believe there will come a time when humans lose control of AI. Two years ago 23% expected that outcome, but by 2025 that has risen to 27% overall.

So Floridians don’t think AI has surpassed human intelligence today, but they do worry we might be building systems that outstrip our ability to manage them – especially if no rules are put in place.

How AI Week and Florida’s AI Bill of Rights line up with public opinion

Speaker Perez’s AI Week memo instructs House committees to examine both the positive and negative effects of AI across industries, from education and insurance to public safety and the broader economy. That matches the way voters are thinking about AI technology. They see promise, but they also see risk – especially to privacy, fairness, and democratic stability.

Governor DeSantis’ proposed AI Bill of Rights goes a step further. His plan would:

• Define explicit rights for Floridians around data privacy and consent.

• Require stronger safeguards around AI data centers so local communities aren’t left with higher costs or grid risks.

• Prohibit licensed therapy or mental health counseling that relies entirely on AI, and give parents tools to monitor and limit their children’s chatbot use.

• Strengthen existing Florida laws against deepfake pornography and nonconsensual use of someone’s likeness, areas that voters already connect to election misinformation and harassment.

AI Week gives Florida a chance to respond to that mood in a thoughtful way. The challenge for lawmakers is to design policies that protect people from documented harms without freezing useful innovation or locking in one company’s advantage.

If Florida gets the balance right, the state can maintain its status as the nation’s bellwether and primary testing ground on innovative public policies, and can become a model for how to govern AI in a way that is grounded in public opinion, not just tech world optimism or fear.

Voters have already told us what they’re worried about: mental health risks for kids, antisemitic and extremist content, job displacement, and the possibility that deepfakes will erode trust in elections.

The next move belongs to the people gathered in Tallahassee committee rooms this week.

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In Tolkien’s world, every would-be hero swears they can resist the lure of the Ring. In Washington, every new administration enters the White House promising it can resist the temptation to control or silence speech. Both stories remind us that the greatest danger isn’t just the urge to control, it’s believing – and convincing others – that you won’t.

If you ask Americans what they think of government efforts to stifle content, you’ll hear general unanimity in the abstract. And while there are partisan divides in perceptions, a growing majority of people think both sides have poorly handled power when it comes to free speech.

Our new, random-sample survey of 1,100 Florida voters shows that when asked what the First Amendment is intended to do, nearly 9 in 10 (87%) understand that it protects individuals from government censorship, and that it protects private companies from interference or pressure by governments relating to their speech or the speech of their employees.

Most people (81%) also agree that the First Amendment does not shield individuals from consequences imposed by private employers or organizations for their speech. Further, nearly 3 in 4 (72%) say that entertainers should have the freedom to make political jokes and commentary, even if what they say turns out to be inaccurate.

This shared instinct is crucial: It means Americans largely understand the constitutional boundary line between government interference and private decisions. And when presented with hypothetical governments and hypothetical entertainers, they broadly agree (88%) that it’s constitutional for a network to cancel a talk show host for his or her content, but not to do so under pressure by the government.

But other findings from this same survey – fielded September 25-27, 2025 – illustrate how common ground can quickly erode: When principles meet real-life politics, consensus fractures into partisan mirror images. Whether by self-selection or algorithms driving only certain types of content, America becomes starkly divided on basic facts regarding current events.

Testing free speech principles against real-life scenarios

In the last few weeks alone, two major free-speech news items hit our feeds: Jimmy Kimmel’s show was suspended from the air under what was reported as pressure from the Trump Administration; and Alphabet (the parent company of Google) executives testified to Congress that the Biden Administration pressured them to remove content that contradicted the White House’s party line. While the latter wasn’t as widely reported as Kimmel’s firing and swift return to the stage, the tech company’s account was consistent with prior admissions by Meta about censorship and strong-arming under Biden.

Despite such testimony, respondents in this latest survey split hard when asked whether the Biden Administration pressured media and social platforms to censor content: Just 14% of Democrats versus 83% of Republicans say it happened.

Similar chasms are seen regarding the Trump administration’s record on First Amendment issues. While his 2024 campaign promise to restore free speech drew broad support in Florida at the time (82% overall saw this as a worthy goal, including 68% of Democrats, 86% of NPAs, and 94% of Republicans), most don’t believe the president has fulfilled this mandate since.

Specifically, only about 1 in 4 (24%) say the Trump administration has protected and defended free speech broadly, even where they disagree with what is being said. To the contrary, more than 3 in 4 (76%) believe this administration has instead targeted critics (59%) or has applied standards unevenly to give preferential treatment to allies (16%).

Notably, only half of Republicans (50%) believe the leader of their party has acted equitably on this issue. These results are an outlier from most other policy areas in one important respect: Far greater shares of Republican voters are critical of the Trump administration on this issue than they are on most others we’ve polled on lately.

The Kimmel moment: universal awareness, but parties break on what’s true

Nearly everyone surveyed (99%) had heard that Jimmy Kimmel was pulled off the air following comments about Charlie Kirk’s murder. But the reason they perceive behind that action is colored by party affiliation.

Kimmel made two statements that people point to as causing the network’s actions. First, he stated: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”

Then, Kimmel played a clip of Trump responding to a question about his feelings following Kirk’s murder. In that clip, Trump shared news of a new White House ballroom project he had in the works. Kimmel joked that Trump was exhibiting the “fourth stage of grief: construction” and that the president’s emotional response to this loss was akin to a four-year old mourning a goldfish.

A majority overall (57%) say Kimmel was punished for making an offensive joke, while a third (33%) say it was for spreading misinformation about a criminal suspect. Democrats overwhelmingly land on “offensive joke” as the cause (85%), while Republicans are much more likely to say “misinformation” (62%).

The factual accuracy question is where the gulf really opens. Asked to judge the truth of Kimmel’s implication (that the shooter was a “MAGA” conservative), 24% say it is true, 41% say false, and 34% aren’t sure. Looking only at those who expressed an opinion on the issue, the partisan split is profound: 79% of Democrats believe Kimmel was accurate in suggesting that the shooter was a MAGA conservative – a perception shared by half as many nonpartisans (40%) and just 6% of Republicans.

Whatever the truth may be, this is a clear demonstration of self-selection of polarized and polarizing news, social media algorithms that may drive divides by showing people more and more extreme examples of things they already agree with, and perhaps innate unwillingness to believe that people “like us” are capable of carrying out unthinkable acts.

Jokes vs. facts: where voters draw the line on consequences

Regardless of whether an entertainer tells “just a joke” or spreads “misinformation,” a minority of voters believe the person should be fired for specific speech.

Fewer than 1 in 7 (15%) say it would be totally fair to fire Kimmel for the construction/goldfish joke alone. And concerning Kimmel sharing misleading information on the political leanings of Kirk’s killer, the share who believe punishment is warranted rises to 26% overall.

This suggests that voters do make some distinction between offensiveness and inaccuracy, and are more willing to punish the latter than the former – but importantly, the willingness to punish is fairly low regardless.

Do people think government pressure actually happened?

Despite the broad belief that the government shouldn’t pressure private companies on speech, a majority of respondents believe this did happen in the Kimmel case.

More than 7 in 10 (72%) say Kimmel’s removal resulted either from government pressure exclusively (46%) or was based on at least some government pressure, such as ABC’s desire to curry favor with the FCC in its consideration of future mergers (25%).

Nearly all Democrats (97%), three-quarters of nonpartisans (75%), and nearly half (45%) of Republicans believe the network received at least some pressure by the Trump administration.

Put in other terms, just 28% of respondents believe Kimmel’s firing was the network’s unilateral decision, void of political pressure from outside.

Chilling effects and a skeptical public

Does the Kimmel episode make people worry about a chilling effect? It does seem so. Six in ten (60%) say they’re concerned that actions like this could discourage entertainers from political commentary.

On the flip side, just 18% believe Kimmel’s firing will make entertainers more careful to fact-check before making political jokes.

A fragile consensus that reads as a warning

These findings reveal a few important realities:

• Nearly all Americans still share an instinctive understanding of free speech in theory, and in the abstract condemn government interference over speech.

• Americans do make a distinction between offensiveness and inaccuracy, and are more willing to punish the latter than the former – but importantly, the willingness to punish is fairly low for both.

• Those instincts shift when tested against the personalities and politics of the moment. Voters selectively excuse or condemn speech (or the stifling of it) depending on who is speaking (or stifling).

• Outrage is quickly filtered through partisan lenses – resulting in public opinion shaped less by facts than by the tribe we identify with.

• A majority of voters believe government interference is already happening in the media space, even as they diverge wildly on when and by whom.

Taken together, these results should be read as a warning. Free speech in America is at risk not just from overreach by the government, but from a public that finds it hard to agree on what’s true, who is credible, or which values should guide the debate.

The challenge ahead is whether we can resist turning every fact or principle into a partisan weapon – which we use, when we hold such power – or instead hold leaders accountable to preserve what is dearest to us all: freedom.

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The assassination of Charlie Kirk is a grim milestone in a trend we’ve been documenting for a while: the normalization of political violence. Kirk devoted his career to debate – the very practice at the heart of civic life. And in that sense he was a living embodiment of the democratic virtue that differences are to be argued, not avenged.

In the days following this horrific act, my team at Sachs Media surveyed 1,350 Florida voters. Our goal was to take a pulse on how people are processing the rise of political violence and to provide context for what appears to be a growing willingness by many to embrace or justify bloodshed in the political arena.

The results are sobering:

• Nearly everyone (94%) is concerned about political violence in the United States, including 76% who describe themselves as extremely concerned, with this worry expressed by equal shares of people across parties and age groups.

• 82% believe Charlie Kirk’s assassination will probably lead to copycat killings of other political thought leaders, with no differences between parties.

• Well more than half, 57%, believe the killing will probably lead to violence or retaliation by conservatives against liberals – a concern expressed by 86% of Democrats, 71% of nonpartisans, and 24% of Republicans.

• 24% believe a person’s actions in life or business can erase their inherent worth or render them deserving of violence. This includes 33% of those younger than 45 and 20% of those older.

• About the same portion, 26%, believe some vigilante killings are “justified” in order to “send a message” or stop what they consider to be the spread of vile ideas – with the age spread consistent with responses to the prior question.

• One in 8 (12%) said they felt gratification or relief upon hearing about Kirk’s murder, predictably divided sharply across partisan lines.

• Voters are divided on whether it’s fair (45%) or unfair (55%) for a person to lose their job for expressing relief or gratification about Charlie Kirk’s death.

• Among those who didn’t have a strong opinion of Charlie Kirk before his assassination, more than 3 in 4 (77%) said they now hold a more positive view of his approach to debate than they previously did – regardless of whether they agree with his specific views. This more favorable opinion of Kirk’s approach to debate was expressed by 51% of Democrats, 69% of nonpartisans, and 91% of Republicans.

This isn’t the first time we’ve measured attitudes about political violence. Immediately after the December 2024 murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, I was stunned by the abundance of celebrations of this act on social media, including the glamorization of and support for his accused killer, Luigi Mangione.

Hoping at that time to find that these gleeful voices really came from a very small (if very loud) corner of the internet, we surveyed Florida voters to learn more. That altruistic hope was quickly dashed: Nearly 1 in 4 (24%) said that “some vigilante killings are deserved” as a person’s “actions in life and business can erase their inherent worth” – a belief expressed by half (50%) of those younger than 45. When the question was asked another way, 17% overall said Thompson’s murder could be justified if good things came of it through reforms to the insurance industry – including 39% of those under 45. These findings were replicated nationally by other pollsters, confirming our methodology and once again illustrating Florida’s utility as a national bellwether.

Nearly half (46%) of those surveyed at that time expressed the concern that Thompson’s murder could inspire copycat killings of others.

Horribly, it did.

In the months that followed, Americans witnessed the February 2025 arson of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s home by a pro-Palestine extremist seeking to terrorize the Jewish leader’s family following their Passover seder; the June 2025 attacks on multiple Democratic political leaders in Minnesota, resulting in the deaths of state legislator Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark; the June murder of two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington, D.C.; and that same month, a deadly firebombing attack on a group of Colorado residents demonstrating peacefully in solidarity with Israeli hostages still in captivity. These all followed multiple attempts to assassinate President Trump, the horrible attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, and more.

It's notable that broad sentiments about the use of extrajudicial violence haven’t changed over the months since our earlier survey. Then and today, 1 in 4 among us find a way to justify (or celebrate) murder as a means of silencing political opponents.

Earlier this week, I challenged a Facebook friend who posted a gloating meme about Kirk’s murder: “Please tell me you’re not celebrating political violence.” The friend replied by invoking various policies he believes constitute comparable “political violence” – including “incarceration in America,” “denying gender affirming care,” “stopping vaccines,” or “National Guard wandering the streets of DC.”

That false equivalence of public policy to actual murder is both hyperbolic and dangerous. Public policy, no matter how much one might personally disagree with it, is enacted through democratic means and implemented by individuals elected or appointed to make such decisions – and must be amended through the same process.

That’s what separates and defines American political culture. Each time we excuse or celebrate violence, we chip away at that foundation.

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Physically active people are more politically tolerant. This is a new, largely unexplored finding that could reshape how we think about some roots of polarization, or open up possibilities for bridging our deepening divides.

While the data I’m about to share isn’t itself evidence of a cause-and-effect relationship, the correlation is strong enough to justify deeper exploration. And, the various mechanisms through which exercise could directly promote tolerance are well-established within the social psychology and political science literature.

The idea to test a link between physical activity and political tolerance struck me somewhere between a Peloton hill climb and HIIT interval. Robin Arzón, the instructor, was pushing us hard – and just when my quads were staging a mutiny and my inner voice questioned if it was worth seeing through, Robin dropped one of her signature lines:

“You’ve survived 100% of the hard things you’ve been through.”

She assured us that this discomfort would make us more able to survive whatever challenge or discomfort we next faced.

That line hit me.

Because in the world outside that 30-minute sweat sesh, I’d been feeling especially discouraged. My social feeds were lit up with posts espousing the type of political intolerance that doesn’t just say “you’re wrong” but “you shouldn’t be allowed to say that” – that “words are weapons,” or worse, that it’s justifiable to use weapons to stifle words. So many of us self-select our news, swatting away contradictory information as though it’s actually painful to hear.

That’s when it clicked: What if part of the problem is that we’re just not used to being uncomfortable? What if mental flexibility can be amplified by exposure to other forms of hard work?

So, I unclipped and set out to test this hypothesis using a nationally representative survey of 1,500 American adults. The experiment involved two simple questions:

• How often do you engage in physical activity for at least 30 minutes at a time?

• Should people with a specific opposing political view be allowed to hold public rallies and provide materials to public libraries?

Half of the sample was asked this second question about NRA supporters, while the other half were asked about DEI advocates. Same question, different ideology. We also collected data on such demographic factors as political affiliation, age, gender, household income, and educational attainment to measure whether exercise and tolerance might be more correlated within some groups than others.

The overall finding popped:

Frequent exercisers – across all ages, fitness levels, and backgrounds – are much more likely to support the right of their ideological opposites to organize and speak freely.

That’s right. More sweat = more tolerance.

Flexing for free speech

In part because the patterns between parties are just about identical, and in equal part because the purpose here isn’t to further widen partisan tensions or provide fodder for deeper partisan divides, I’m going to focus on the relationship between exercise and political tolerance without highlighting breakdowns by party.

Overall, greater than half (56%) of our survey pool unequivocally responded “yes” when asked whether a person with a specific opposing political belief should be permitted to hold public rallies or provide materials to public libraries.

This is the case for about equal shares of Republicans and Democrats, and tolerance rises gradually with age – from 53% among those under age 30, up to 61% among those older than 60.

Larger portions of men (61%) than women (52%) said yes, and tolerance rose with household income – from 50% among those in households earning less than $50,000 to 61% among those earning more than $100,000 – and with educational attainment, with similar curves: from about half to about 6 in 10 as education levels increased.

And then to the variable of primary interest: 62% among those who are active daily expressed tolerance for speech by those with opposing views, decreasing to 50% of those who never exercise.

For the ease of presenting results here, and because the shape of this curve suggests where a drop-off in tolerance may occur, I divided respondents into two broad categories: those who work out a few times or more per week, and those who exercise less frequently.

Before we get too deep, I want to reiterate the reality that some groups appear to both exercise more and express more tolerance. For example, men report both greater levels of physical activity and greater levels of tolerance. In other groups, however, the relationship is reversed: Younger people, for example, report more frequent exercise but lower levels of tolerance than older respondents.

But here’s the kicker: Within every demographic group sampled, those who exercise more frequently also express higher levels of tolerance.

So while some of this may be correlation not causation when it comes to a connection between exercise and value for free speech, the consistency of the findings among and between demographic groups suggests there’s something more at play.

Let’s take a look.

Differences by age

Recent research out of Florida State University’s Institute for Governance and Civics found that adults older than 65 are the most willing to interact with people who hold opposing political views.

Indeed, at a baseline – regardless of party or exercise levels – older people in our survey were more likely to express tolerant views to begin with.

“Want to learn how to be politically tolerant? Talk to an older American,” the FSU study reads – to which I’d offer an addition: “… or make a friend at the gym.”

Among those under age 30, nearly 6 in 10 (57%) frequent exercisers express tolerance toward an opposing view, compared with just 46% of infrequent exercisers. The same pattern holds true among those ages 30-44 (a difference of 61% to 48%), among those ages 45-60 (a difference of 57% to 49%), and among those ages 60 and older (a difference of 65% to 55%).

In other words, for those younger than 45, about 25% more respondents who exercise frequently expressed tolerance than those who don’t -- and among those older than 45, those who exercise often were 17% more tolerant than those who don’t.

These numbers support the idea that older people tend to be more tolerant, even if they don’t exercise.

There are a few reasons why we may see these stronger relationships among younger people. First, there may simply be a greater range in activity levels among younger people – more variation on how often and how hard they exercise.

But I suspect there may be other elements at play, too. Perhaps younger generations are less mentally flexible or resilient than those who came before. Maybe they’ve grown up in communities where polarization is normalized, or, worse, praised. Maybe they just haven’t had time yet to learn that these differences make us stronger. Or maybe they simply haven’t experienced as much of what life has to throw our way, gaining perspective on what really matters over the course of a lifetime.

Whatever the cause or interpretation, it’s clear that within each of these age brackets, exercise is strongly associated with expressing political tolerance.

Differences by education level and household income

Among those with, and without, a college degree, tolerance again rises with the frequency of exercise – but the correlation is particularly strong among those who haven’t attained at least a bachelor’s degree. In this group, 57% of those who exercise frequently expressed tolerance compared with 45% of those who are sedentary – a 12 point (or 27%) difference between groups.

Similarly, among those who have a college degree or higher and who exercise, 62% expressed tolerance compared with 54% of their less active peers – an 8 point (or 15%) difference.

This suggests that while education is correlated with tolerance for oppositional speech, active Americans with less schooling may exceed their sedentary but more educated neighbors in accepting the views of people with whom they differ.

We see a similar pattern when looking at household income: Particularly among those in households earning less than $50,000 or more than $100,000 per year, exercise is associated with significantly higher levels of expressed tolerance.

Differences by gender

As described above, larger shares of men than women said “yes” when asked whether those they disagree with should be allowed to publicly promote their views. But the difference between active and sedentary respondents is also significantly greater among men – from 66% of those who work out a few times a week down to 50% of those who don’t (a difference of 16 percentage points). Among women, the difference is less steep: 54% among frequent exercisers to 49% among those who work out less (just a 6 point difference).

These findings say a few things: Compared with women, men in this survey had a higher baseline for expressing openness to speech by those they disagree with, and they also reported more frequent exercise. But even among men alone, there’s a steep difference in level of tolerance between those who are active and sedentary.

Discussion: Why this might be

Again, correlation isn’t causation – just because two things happen together doesn’t mean one led to the other. It could surely be that already tolerant people are also more willing to expose themselves to rigorous physical tasks – but there’s a compelling case to be made, rooted in both psychology and physiology, that physical activity is a gateway to more open minds.

The science backs this up – and for those of you who like literature reviews, there’s plenty of citations to feast on below.

At first glance, the notion that squats or spin class could reduce political hostility sounds like a stretch (and not the workout kind). But let’s break it down. Political tolerance, as social scientists define it, means two things:

• Your willingness to hear views you disagree with, and

• Your support for the civil liberties of people who hold those views – even if you really, really dislike them.

So how might regular physical activity make someone more likely to check both of those boxes?

There are no studies I could find that directly link exercise to this type of political tolerance. But there are several well-researched pathways linking exercise to the kinds of psychological traits that make tolerance possible. These include exercise as causally linked to empathy, cognitive flexibility, openness to experience, emotional resilience, and social integration.

Exercise and Emotional Resilience

Exercise is like emotional weight training. Regular physical activity is associated with lower stress, improved mood, and better emotional regulation. When you're less reactive, you're better able to sit with discomfort, whether it’s the aftermath of a burpee or a viewpoint you find appalling.

Notably, a 2014 study of healthy adults used a standardized acute stressor to compared those who were active against those who were sedentary. Non-exercisers showed a sharper drop in positive mood and higher anxiety in response to stress, whereas those who exercised at least once a week maintained significantly better mood and emotional stability in the face of stress. The authors conclude that regular exercise “provides modest support” for protecting against negative emotional consequences of stress.

Various other studies have found that physical activity is positively associated with psychological resilience (the ability to bounce back from adversity). Political tolerance also requires a degree of emotional resilience – the ability to regulate negative emotions (like fear or anger) when confronted with dissent.

Emotional resilience gained from exercise can support political tolerance by reducing the sense of threat or hostility when encountering opposing viewpoints. Tolerant individuals tend to be less easily threatened or angered by outgroup messages, approaching disagreements with calm and confidence.

By lowering baseline anxiety and improving mood, exercise might prevent the kind of emotional reactivity that leads to intolerance (e.g., shouting down a speaker due to stress or anger). This aligns with the “cross-stressor adaptation” hypothesis that exercise trains our stress response systems to handle challenges more calmly.

Exercise and Cognitive Flexibility

You know how after a tough workout, your mind feels sharper? That’s not just endorphins.

Aerobic exercise has been shown to improve cognitive flexibility – the mental skill that lets you switch perspectives, adapt to new information, and think more creatively. All of these are essential when you're trying to understand where someone else is coming from politically. Indeed, neuroscience research on tolerance suggests that it engages the same brain regions and circuits that exercise helps strengthen.

A flexible thinker can entertain opposing viewpoints without feeling threatened. Exercise has well-documented benefits for cognitive flexibility and executive function. For example, a 2019 experiment had young adults complete a 20-minute aerobic workout on one day and rest on another day, then take a task-switching test after each.

Following exercise, participants showed faster cognitive switching and improved accuracy compared to the results following rest. Neural measures (P3 brain wave) indicated that exercise made it easier to “reconfigure” mental task sets. The authors concluded that “acute aerobic exercise may serve to facilitate the flexibility of task-set reconfiguration and maintain the task set in working memory.”

Similar findings are evident among older adults, too. A 2022 study examined adults engaged in sports-based exercise programs and found that those lasting longer than 13 weeks yielded significant improvements in cognitive flexibility.

These studies illustrate that staying active keeps the mind agile. Among other benefits, mental flexibility can help people cope with information that contradicts their beliefs and reduce rigid “us-vs.-them” thinking. Thus, exercise-induced cognitive flexibility might enable individuals to more calmly consider opposing political arguments instead of reacting reflexively or dogmatically.

Exercise and Empathy

Team sports, group workouts, even a shared nod with your fellow jogger – they all foster social bonding and empathy, defined as the capacity to understand and share others’ feelings. Youth and adolescent sports programs have long served to reduce prejudice and increase inclusion across lines of race, class, and culture. Why? Because it’s harder to demonize someone you’ve high-fived after a hard-fought win (or loss).

Several studies support a link between physical activity and higher empathy. Notably, a 2018 study of 408 middle school students found that participation in sports correlated with greater empathy. Another 2024 study of children with developmental disabilities found that the kids randomly selected to participate in a sports game intervention showed significantly improved scores on empathy compared to control subjects who weren’t engaged in team sports during that time.

A separate Swedish study found that students of different ethnicities who played together formed friendships and learned to cooperate, and teachers noted improved understanding between kids of different cultures as a result of the sports intervention. These findings echo the long-established reality that cooperative physical activities can bridge social divides.

Empathy is a core affective component of tolerance. If exercise boosts empathy, it could make people more inclined to respect the rights of people they disagree with. Greater empathy from exercise could translate into political tolerance, since feeling empathy for those with different beliefs makes it easier to respect their rights.

Exercise and “Openness to Experience”

One of the strongest personality predictors of political tolerance is a trait called “openness to experience.” It describes people who are curious, exploratory, and unafraid of the unfamiliar.

Scores of studies have found a reliable positive association between openness and physical activity. For example, a 2016 meta-analysis found openness to be positively correlated with physical activity across demographic groups. Another longitudinal study tracked adults for over four years and found that those high in openness were also more likely to initiate and increase regular exercise during that period. The authors suggest that “open” individuals may seek variety and novel challenges, making them gravitate toward active lifestyles. And, in turn, these more “open” individuals may be more likely to extend tolerance to opposing groups.

If exercise attracts and reinforces openness, it could indirectly cultivate a mindset of flexibility and acceptance toward opposing political views. Open-minded people are more willing to consider multiple perspectives and accept the legitimacy of differing values – exactly the cognitive mindset required for political tolerance.

Already “open” individuals are more likely to exercise. But, perhaps, the line is drawn in both directions: It’s also possible that more frequent activity can foster more “openness” – and from there, more tolerance, too.

Exercise and Personal Relationships

Forget for a minute the people we barely know and can avoid, if desired. Let’s consider how exercise has been demonstrated to improve relationships with those closest to us. A 2023 study in Japan, recently popularized by a column in the Wall Street Journal, found that parents who exercised with their teenagers enjoyed significantly happier and stronger relationships with them.

Teens aren’t always the easiest to get along with, or to feel understood by. As a mom to three girls, I know that the two-way street of patience and tolerance is riddled with plenty of speed bumps.

Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, the author of the WSJ article, put it best: “In this moment of justified concerns about generational tensions and the mental and physical health of kids, I am surprised by just how few people are talking about how constructive it can be when parents and children exercise together.” She concludes: “I’ve found that fitness is a rare point of consensus in another wise polarized society…”

Tolerance is a heavy lift. Where to go from here?

At the same time society has become undeniably more polarized, we’ve also become more sedentary than ever. Political gridlock and tight hamstrings: both at all-time highs.

Physical exercise contributes to a mindset conducive to political tolerance, including multiple psychological factors such as empathy, openness, flexibility, resilience, and social connectedness – all of which researchers have linked to greater tolerance of opposing viewpoints.

Of course, this doesn’t mean hitting the gym will instantly make someone tolerant of people whose ideas they strongly reject. But the evidence suggests a plausible pathway. And, it’s worth underscoring that these findings don’t suggest one needs to achieve any particular level of physical fitness to realize the potential civic benefits of exercise. It seems that modest, consistent activity may be enough to spark the kind of mental and emotional flexibility that fosters greater political tolerance.

In future research, I plan to explore the potential causal mechanisms linking physical activity and political tolerance, and I invite fellow researchers to join in examining this curious and timely question: might democracy, too, benefit from a proper warm-up?

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Colleagues and I have spent decades immersed in Florida’s public opinion and policy landscape, and one thing has become increasingly clear: If you understand Florida, you’re remarkably close to understanding the country as a whole. To get a clearer sense of just how true that statement is, I decided to dig deeper into the data. It turns out that Florida isn’t just a swing state or a sun-soaked outlier — it’s a powerful bellwether for national trends, both culturally and politically.

In this analysis, I take a closer look at five critical areas where Florida aligns unusually well with national indicators. Whether you’re constrained by limited amounts of time, budget, or data availability, insights from Florida alone can often serve as a reliable stand-in for broader trends in American public sentiment.

Living Like America: Florida’s Social Match Score

Florida’s population closely mirrors the nation in religious, economic, and social aspects.

Florida’s religious breakdown aligns tightly with U.S. patterns. Christians overall constitute 64% of the U.S., similar to Florida’s 62%. More specifically, evangelicals make up 22% of Florida’s population, nearly identical to the 23% nationally. Catholics account for 22% in Florida compared to 19% nationwide, while Jewish residents make up 3% of the state’s population, slightly above the national average of 2%. Finally, the share of Floridians who are religiously unaffiliated stands at 27%, just two points below the national figure of 29%. This near match on faith traditions helps make Florida a reliable proxy for understanding America’s cultural and spiritual landscape.

Florida also mirrors the U.S. average across multiple core social indicators. The state’s poverty rate is 13%, exactly the same as the national average — reflecting similar levels of economic hardship and need. Florida’s high school graduation rate is identical to that of the nation, and Florida’s college graduation rate (33%) is within two points of the national average (35%).

When it comes to marriage (48%) and homeownership rates (67%), Florida is within a point of the U.S. as a whole. The share of people between the ages of 26 and 54 is within two points.

Mirror Metrics: Florida’s Population Breakdown

Race and ethnicity are often at the core of understanding voting patterns, policy preferences, and cultural shifts — and on this front, Florida stands out as one of the most nationally representative states in the country.

When comparing all 50 states, Florida ranks among the top three in demographically aligning with the U.S. across major racial and ethnic categories — and it tops among the nation’s largest states. Averaging the various factors together, Florida’s population is just two percentage points off overall from national racial and ethnic breakdowns.

For example, Black residents make up 15% of Florida’s population, compared to 12% nationally. Hispanics represent 26% in Florida versus 20% in the U.S. as a whole. The white population accounts for 52% of Florida residents, slightly below the national figure of 57%. Asians make up 3% of Florida’s population, half the national rate of 6%, while the percentage identifying as “other” matches the national level exactly, at 5%.

As an average, Florida's population is just 2 percentage points off from national breakdowns. Only Illinois comes closer, and just by 1 point at that. This makes Florida a statistical sweet spot for researchers — especially when conducting surveys with national sample sizes is cost-prohibitive.

From Swing State to Signal State

Florida has become one of the most accurate predictors of presidential election outcomes — and its predictive power has only strengthened.

Between 1900 and 1928, Florida’s presidential election winner matched the national winner in just 38% of elections. By 1964, this rate had grown to 63%. But since 1996, Florida’s electoral votes have gone to the national winner 88% of the time — up from just 69% in all prior years.

That’s a 26% gain in alignment, outperforming all other battleground states.

By contrast, Ohio, once deemed the gold standard, is down 5 points — the same trend as seen in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Texas and Minnesota have matched the winner in only half of the elections since 1996, while Arizona and New Hampshire aren’t far ahead at 63% each. In fact, the only battleground states that haven’t seen a downward trend in matching national election results are Nevada, which has held steady at 88% over the years, and Georgia, which has improved its match rate from 50% before 1996 to 63% today.

To put this in perspective, Florida has emerged as one of the last remaining high-alignment states — a rare consistency on a shifting electoral map.

Hot-Button Harmony: Florida’s Polling Power

This paints a clear picture of Floridians aligned with national patterns demographically and historically — but how in sync are they with voter sentiment across the country? We thought we’d look into that, as well.

When we ask Floridians how they feel about key national issues, the results are remarkably consistent with national opinion — often within a single percentage point. Across a range of hot-button issues, public opinion in Florida tracks almost identically with national sentiment.

For instance, over the past year, Floridians’ support for legalizing recreational marijuana stands at 56%, just a single point behind the national figure of 57%.

Similarly, 62% of Florida residents say they would support the creation of a new third political party, again nearly identical to the 63% reported nationwide. On more culturally charged questions, Florida also mirrors the broader U.S.: 76% of Floridians support a ban on transgender athletes competing in women’s sports, compared to 75% nationally.

Even when asked about slightly less salient issues, such as adding fluoride to public water supplies, exactly 48% in both Florida and the U.S. agree it is safe.

These close margins reinforce Florida’s value as a stand-in for national opinion.

What Happens in Florida Doesn’t Stay in Florida

Florida isn’t just reactive — it’s generative. Particularly over the last 10 years, the state has been the first or most effective in enacting policies that were later adopted around the country. On topics ranging from emerging technology and health care to education, social policy, and public safety, Florida has catalyzed the spread of policy initiatives. Examples include:

Parental rights in education

Few Florida policies have generated as much national attention — and imitation — as the Parental Rights in Education Act, enacted by the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022. This law restricts classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in the early grades. Specifically, it bans these lessons from kindergarten through third grade and requires schools to notify parents about any changes in a student’s services or well-being related to mental or emotional health.

The law’s passage in Florida emboldened lawmakers in other states who were considering similar limits on how schools should handle gender, sexuality, and parental notification. At least 18 states, from Alabama to Utah, have since followed Florida’s lead by proposing and enacting their own versions of parental rights legislation.

COVID-19 policy

Florida set a distinct national tone in early COVID‑19 policy. In the fall of 2020, Florida pushed to reopen schools, also banning mask mandates in public schools. States like Iowa, Tennessee, and others mirrored this approach, framing the issue around parental rights and individual liberty.

Then, in April 2021, Florida became the first state to ban “vaccine passports” — which prohibited businesses, schools, and governmental entities from requiring proof of COVID‑19 vaccination. DeSantis and the legislature led the charge, labeling such mandates as “completely unacceptable” and championing personal freedom over centralized health mandates.

Within weeks, leaders in Texas, Arizona, Idaho and other states issued orders prohibiting proof of vaccination for access to public services, and by late 2021, more than 20 states had enacted some form of restriction on COVID-related mandates, many using Florida as an example for their efforts. Though these moves sparked some pushback, they signaled a shift in policy discourse nationally, as other states took note.

Immigration enforcement

Florida has also positioned itself at the forefront of state-level immigration enforcement, often moving ahead of both federal initiatives and other states. In 2019, Florida was among the first states to mandate the use of E-Verify for public employers and contractors, signaling a shift toward stricter enforcement of employment eligibility — a policy several other states later adopted. In 2022 and 2023, Florida expanded this approach dramatically by prohibiting local governments from issuing ID cards to undocumented immigrants and requiring hospitals to collect and report immigration status data for patients.

Florida’s 2023 immigration law further raised the bar, imposing criminal penalties for transporting undocumented individuals into the state and requiring all private employers with 25 or more employees to use E-Verify, a step beyond what most states had enacted. While portions of the law faced legal challenges, the legislation helped set the tone nationally, with states including Texas, Iowa, and Tennessee pursuing similar legislation in 2024 and 2025. In effect, Florida has functioned as a legislative test case, with its immigration stance shaping the broader debate and offering a blueprint for other states seeking to assert authority in this politically charged arena.

Self-driving cars

Florida moved early to legalize autonomous vehicles on public roads, helping set the agenda for driverless car policy nationwide. In 2019, DeSantis signed legislation removing obstacles to testing self-driving cars by declaring the autonomous driving system to be the “operator” — meaning a human driver is not required at all. Other states soon followed Florida’s lead in updating laws to accommodate autonomous vehicles. By early 2023, the tally had climbed to 21 states that had enacted laws allowing deployment of self-driving cars and only 10 states had no AV laws or research in progress.

Prescription drug importation

Florida also broke ground in health care policy by pursuing the importation of prescription drugs from Canada to reduce costs — a bold idea that other states have since eyed. In 2019, Florida passed a law to establish a Canadian Prescription Drug Importation Program, capitalizing on a Trump administration rule allowing states to seek federal approval. DeSantis aggressively championed this plan as a way to cut medication costs for Floridians, and in January 2024 the FDA gave Florida the green light — making it the first state authorized to import lower-cost drugs from Canada.

Florida’s move sparked national interest and prompted several other states to pursue similar strategies. Colorado passed its own importation law in 2019 and submitted an application to the FDA in 2020. New Mexico, Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire also followed with varying degrees of progress and FDA engagement. Some states, such as Oklahoma and West Virginia, introduced bills modeled after Florida’s framework in 2021–2022, citing rising drug costs and Florida’s leadership.

While Florida remains the only state with an approved and operational importation program, its success in securing FDA authorization elevated the concept from a policy aspiration to a regulatory reality. As more states look for solutions to reduce pharmaceutical costs, Florida’s program has become a proof of concept and a potential national model.

Genetic data privacy in life insurance underwriting

In 2020, Florida took a trailblazing step in genetic data privacy, becoming the first state to prohibit life and long-term care insurers from using individuals’ DNA information. The law banned insurers from canceling, denying, or altering coverage or premiums based on genetic test results or even the presence of genetic data. This means Floridians can take consumer DNA tests without fear that an insurer will use the results against them. Before this law, a federal statute (GINA) protected genetic privacy in health insurance, but not in life or disability insurance — Florida was the first to fill that gap.

Following Florida’s lead, Louisiana introduced a similar bill in 2021 modeled closely on Florida’s statute. However, after industry pushback, the final version was narrowed to prevent insurers from requiring genetic testing, while still allowing use of results obtained from other sources — stopping short of Florida’s broader prohibition. South Dakota passed legislation in 2022 that also barred insurers from requiring applicants to undergo genetic testing or penalizing them for refusing to do so, but it too allowed consideration of existing genetic data in medical records. Massachusetts and California have since debated more expansive protections, citing Florida's law as an early model, although neither has enacted a full ban as of 2025.

While no state has yet matched the full scope of Florida’s ban, its law set the national precedent and triggered a wave of legislative proposals and privacy debates. Consumer advocacy groups and legal scholars frequently reference Florida as the leading example of how states can expand genetic protections beyond GINA — especially as direct-to-consumer genetic testing becomes more mainstream.

Cell phones in classrooms

Florida has also led the charge in education policy by curbing student cellphone use in schools — a response to concerns about distraction and mental health that many states quickly mirrored. In 2023, Florida became the first state to enact a law restricting phones in K-12 classrooms statewide. Florida’s early action set off a national trend: Within just two years, more than half of U.S. states have adopted laws or policies restricting phones in schools. In fact, by mid-2025, more than half the states (26) had passed measures to ban or limit student cellphone use, and at least 8 others plus D.C. had implemented strong recommendations or local mandates. These states include California and Texas, highlighting the broad appeal of such an approach across political lines.

Banning social media censorship

Florida also took a pioneering step in the realm of technology and free speech by attempting to regulate social media platforms’ content moderation practices. In 2021, DeSantis signed the “Stop Social Media Censorship Act,” marking the first state law of its kind in the nation. The Florida law targeted large online platforms, prohibiting them from banning or de-platforming political candidates and imposing fines of up to $250,000 per day for doing so. It also granted Floridians the right to sue tech companies if they feel unfairly censored and requires platforms to publish their content moderation standards. Florida’s move broke new ground in using state power to intervene in private tech companies’ moderation decisions — something that had never been tried at this scale.

Florida’s move inspired similar legislation in other states. Texas followed shortly after with a law that went even further, broadly banning social media platforms from removing content based on a user’s viewpoint, not just for political candidates. States like Missouri and Alaska introduced copycat bills aimed at curbing perceived “viewpoint discrimination” by tech companies, citing Florida’s law as a model.

How to Use Florida as a National Lens

Florida’s alignment with national trends makes it more than just a bellwether for researchers — it’s a practical, powerful tool for strategic communicators. Whether you're developing messages, testing ideas, or forecasting public response, Florida offers a shortcut to nationally relevant information without sacrificing accuracy.

For those crafting campaigns with limited time or budgets, Florida can act as a reliable test market. Its demographic profile — spanning race, age, religion, education, and income — closely mirrors national averages. So testing messages in Florida will often yield insights that translate well across other regions, allowing communicators to refine strategies before scaling up.

What’s more, Florida’s consistency in aligning with national sentiment on hot-button issues provides a rare level of predictability. If you want to know how Americans feel about something, Floridians’ responses will offer a dependable preview. This kind of alignment is especially valuable when national polling is too costly or complex to undertake.

But it’s not just sentiment — it’s speed. When Florida leaders move first on policy, analysts studying such sectors as education, technology, and health care can monitor legislative activity here as an early warning system. When Florida legislators advance a controversial policy, the national conversation often follows. This provides an irreplaceable opportunity to anticipate narratives, build proactive messaging, and position organizations ahead of the curve.

As a microcosm of America, Florida captures the nation’s blend of urban and rural, secular and religious, conservative and liberal. That makes it an ideal place to test tone, language, and message framing — particularly for campaigns seeking bipartisan or cross-demographic appeal.

Bottom line: If you're looking for a single state to inform a national strategy, Florida delivers. It offers a statistically sound stand-in, a reliable predictor of public opinion, and a preview of where national debates may go next. For researchers and communicators alike, understanding Florida isn’t just helpful — it’s essential.

If it works in Florida, there's a strong chance it will work nationwide.

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In the wake of U.S. airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities (and the subsequent shaky ceasefire), a new our latest Florida survey reveals a public grappling with complexity – concerned about consequences and wary of escalation, while largely understanding of or even supportive toward the goals behind the action.

Here are seven takeaways that stood out from our survey of 1,000 likely Florida voters, each described in more detail below:

1. People are paying attention to a degree uncommon for foreign affairs

2. There is widespread bipartisan concern about possible consequences

3. Still, 2 in 3 voters also see at least one justification for the action

4. Parties are divided on who is primarily responsible for the escalation

5. There’s a strong belief that the Iranian regime doesn’t represents its people

6. Iran’s ties to terrorism are widely recognized, but some misunderstandings persist

7. Misunderstandings about Israel are rampant, and consequential

These results are likely a strong reflection of national sentiment: Florida serves as an unparalleled proxy for national opinion. As we’ll explore in detail in an upcoming Substack, demographically Florida closely mirrors the U.S. across key indicators like race, religion, education, income, and homeownership, with most metrics falling within 1-2 percentage points of national averages. Its presidential elections match national results much better than other battleground states, and public opinion in Florida consistently tracks within a point of national sentiment on hot-button issues like marijuana legalization or gender policy in sports. In other words, Florida provides a statistically sound lens and a reliable mirror of national trends.

People are paying attention

A striking 83% of likely Florida voters say they’ve heard at least a fair amount about the recent strikes, including nearly half (48%) who report knowing “a great deal.”

While there are no differences between parties in net awareness, a larger share of Republicans say they’ve heard “a great deal” about the airstrikes (56%) than have Democrats (44%) and nonpartisans (45%). Similarly, those older than 45 appear to be paying more attention to this news than are younger voters, with more than half (52%) of the older crowd watching closely.

The group most tuned in to this news is, unsurprisingly, the 23% of Floridians who say they personally know someone from Iran. Among these Floridians, 94% have heard at least a fair amount about the airstrike, including 63% who have heard a great deal.

This level of public attention is uncommon regarding foreign affairs, and it reflects how much this issue has penetrated the public consciousness.

Concern is widespread, across the aisle

Despite differing political views, 91% of Floridians have at least one concern about the consequences of the airstrike – including 98% of Democrats, 88% of nonpartisans, and 85% of Republicans. These concerns include the possibility of:

• Retaliation on U.S. soil (80%)

• Death or injury of U.S. troops (77%)

• A broader war (75%)

• Harm to trade or the economy (62%)

• Potential violations of international law (53%)

Predictably, the biggest differences between parties regard violations of law, where 84% of Democrats raise this as an issue but just half of nonpartisans (49%) and 18% of Republicans share the concern.

But wide partisan gulfs exist across the board, with Democrats considerably more worried about possible repercussions from the U.S. airstrike than Republicans express (or at least admit).

2 in 3 also see at least one justification for the move

People are certainly capable of holding complex views. For example, it’s possible to oppose President Trump overall but support a specific military decision, or to support the president overall but oppose this strike. Indeed, 2 in 3 respondents in our survey said they believe it’s possible to be both deeply concerned about consequences of this airstrike while also believing it was the right choice or was justified.

That same overall portion – 67% – say they believe President Trump’s move was justified for at least one reason. This includes 93% of Republicans, 72% of nonpartisans, and 40% of Democrats. These reasons include:

• A necessity to limit Iran’s nuclear capabilities (60%)

• Iran’s active funding of terrorism around the world (55%)

• Iran calling for “Death to America” and the intent to cause suffering (49%)

• Iran’s decades of acts against its own people (46%)

• The possibility that without intervention, Iran would have obliterated Israel (37%)

There are significant partisan and age differences in responses to each of these rationales, but each was more often expressed by Republicans and those over age 45. Most notably, an overwhelming 91% of Republicans believe it was necessary to limit Iran’s nuclear capabilities, but this view was voiced by just 1 in 3 Democrats (33%).

Similarly, more than 8 in 10 Republicans find justification in the fact that Iran was funding global terrorism and calling for “Death to America” – but fewer than 3 in 10 Democrats believe that was enough to warrant taking action. And while 2 in 3 Republicans worried that Iran would soon make good on its long promise to wipe Israel from the map, just 17% of Democrats found that prospect concerning enough to justify U.S. military intervention.

Who is primarily responsible for the escalation? No surprise: The parties are divided

Overall, if forced to pick which country – Israel or Iran – is primarily responsible for escalating the conflict, 61% of Floridians point to Iran; the remaining 39% place more blame on Israel. But there are steep differences in this perception by party. More than 9 in 10 Republicans (91%) see Iran as more culpable for escalating tensions, as do 60% of nonpartisans. But just 21% of Democrats agree.

Yes, Israel’s earlier strike on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities and top military officials contributed to Iran’s most recent attacks, which included the deployment of hundreds of ballistic missiles and armed drones – including one aimed at a civilian hospital.

However, Israel’s actions weren’t unprovoked, but rather in direct response to Iran’s ongoing efforts to destroy the world’s only Jewish state. Iran played a direct role in financing and organizing Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, it advances propaganda on U.S. and European college campuses, and it runs various state-controlled media channels that broadcast beyond its borders, stoking disinformation and hate. It also funds Hezbollah and Houthi combatants to carry out attacks on Israel, inflame internal conflicts within their own countries, and fuel instability throughout the region.

Blaming Israel for escalating the conflict because of its response to Iranian aggression is like blaming firefighters for causing water damage to a burning home, while excusing the arsonist who lit the match.

If not already clear, it’s my opinion that in this analogy, Iran is the arsonist. And its sights go far past destroying Israel alone.

There’s a strong belief that the Iranian regime doesn’t represent its people

Beyond people’s perceptions of how Israel and Iran split responsibility for this escalation, there’s very little disagreement regarding Iran’s treatment of its own people. Nearly all Floridians – 96% – express awareness that Iran changed in at least one antidemocratic way following the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Specifically, 91% say that since that time, Iran has restricted freedom of the press, and nearly as many (88%) know that it enforces a mandatory dress code for women based on its interpretation of Islamic law. Another 85% believe that Iran replaced civil justice with religious courts, and a similar portion (83%) recognize that it transitioned from a more secular to a religious education system.

Their personal preferences aside, more than 8 in 10 Floridians (82%) believe most Iranian civilians today support removing the Islamic regime from power.

This belief is held by 90% of Republicans, 80% of Democrats, and 75% of non-partisans. Nearly all of those older than 45 believe Iranians largely want the Islamic regime removed (94%) – a perception shared by 73% of those under age 45. Finally, 9 in 10 (90%) of those who personally know someone from Iran believe most Iranians welcome a regime change.

Iran’s ties to terrorism are widely recognized, but some misunderstandings persist

Most Floridians (93%) say they are aware that Iran funds at least one terrorist group, like Hamas (83%), Hezbollah (83%), and the Houthi rebels (79%). This is true overall for more Republicans (92%) and nonpartisans (84%) than Democrats (74%). And nearly as many respondents (88%) view this as a threat to the United States.

That said, there are certainly some areas where Floridians see Iran as more democratic than it actually is. A full 1 in 5 Floridians (20%) mistakenly believe that Iran offers humanitarian aid to people in conflict zones, including to Israelis – an inaccurate perception reported by 32% of Democrats and 28% of those under age 45. Another 14% believe, again erroneously, that Iran allows non-Muslims to participate in leadership roles within its government.

Misunderstandings about Israel are also rampant, and consequential

While there’s significant alignment among respondents regarding the path Iran has taken since 1979, misunderstandings persist – particularly relating to how the governments of Israel and Iran differ.

Over the years Iran and its many proxies have waged a successful misinformation campaign aimed at invalidating Israel’s legitimacy, in part by appealing to the very liberal sensibilities and values that it rejects within its own charter, for its own people.

Misinformation about Israel’s actions in the world shape public opinion, enabling the type of false moral equivalency that stokes hatred and fear of Jews.

In this survey, we found that 1 in 4 Floridians (25%) mistakenly believe that Israel is a dictatorship, run without democratic elections – a misunderstanding embraced by 32% of Democrats, 27% of nonpartisans, and 16% of Republicans. Even more remarkable is that nearly half (47%) of Floridians under age 45 believe this. But in truth, Israel isn’t a dictatorship run without elections; to the contrary, it is a vibrant (if sometimes tumultuous) parliamentary democracy that holds regular elections, with competitive parties representing a wide ideological spectrum.

An even greater share of respondents, 37%, believe that Israel bans Muslims from participating in its government. This perception, held again by a larger portion of Democrats (47%) than Republicans (27%), is again mistaken. In truth, Arab Muslims serve in Israel’s Knesset (parliament), on the country’s Supreme Court, and in senior diplomatic posts. Israeli Arabs also vote in national elections and hold full citizenship rights.

Nearly half of our survey respondents (47%) report being unaware that Israel is the most LGBTQ+ inclusive country in the Middle East. This is an indisputable reality: Israel has long recognized same-sex partnerships, protects LGBTQ+ rights in law and culture, and hosts one of the world’s largest Pride parades in Tel Aviv. None of its neighbors come even close, and in fact many actually persecute LGBTQ+ individuals with impunity.

While Democrats generally report paying greater attention to protecting LGBTQ+ rights in the United States, their awareness of Israel’s status on this front is 17 percentage points lower than that of Republicans. In other words, just 47% of Democrats are aware that Israel is the most LGBTQ+ inclusive country in the Middle East, far below the 64% of Republicans. Similarly, voters under age 45 are far less aware of this (37%) than those ages 45 and older (60%).

I suspect that some of this ignorance is willful, or dissonance avoidance. Many may find it uncomfortable to embrace Israel’s merits while also condemning some of its other actions. But regardless of the origin, these misunderstandings are not trivial.

When nearly half of voters don’t know that Israel protects LGBTQ+ rights or mistakenly believe Muslims can’t serve in its government, it likely diminishes public support for protecting this important American ally. (Want to expand your Israel IQ from a source that aims to keep our media in check? Here’s a good place to start: https://honestreporting.com.)

The bottom line: Sentiment (at least most of it) will continue to shift

Americans aren’t passive observers. They’re tuned in, deeply concerned, and – in many cases – nuanced in their thinking. While partisan gaps in opinion are evident and strong, especially on whether the airstrike was justified, there is broad agreement on the dangers posed by Iran’s regime and significant consensus on the rationale for U.S. military involvement.

By the time you read this, the latest news will likely have already swayed opinion in one direction or another. A sustained ceasefire, like the early one announced by President Trump, could amplify the perception that this action was warranted and right. Or a devolution of that agreement – especially if marked by violence toward Americans or our allies – could result in a swing in the opposite direction.

As of this writing, there does appear to be more alignment than usual between parties, both in terms of justification for why the move was the right one to take and concerns about escalating tensions.

There is also evidence of “beyond Trump” crossover in responses: Plenty of those who described themselves as Trump fans in general expressed reticence over the airstrike, and plenty of those who said they’re generally opposed to his presidency found at least some reason to agree with this move. These feelings are likely to shift over time based on subsequent events or how they’re portrayed in each individual’s chosen news feeds.

What seems less likely to shift, however, is the public’s susceptibility to misinformation about Israel and Jews. Conspiracy theories, advanced by voices on both the far left and far right, continue to gain traction with alarming ease. (Ironically, the very fact that such absurd theories flourish in mainstream discourse might itself be proof that Jews don’t control the media or the world with the coordination those conspiracists suggest.)

In the end, this survey captures more than a snapshot of public opinion – it reflects the tensions, contradictions, and vulnerabilities prevalent in how Americans process complex global events. Floridians are engaged but their understanding is uneven, shaped by partisanship, media ecosystems, and persistent misinformation.

As the headlines evolve and new facts emerge, opinions will shift. But the deeper challenge – ensuring that those opinions are rooted in reality, not rhetoric – will require more than a ceasefire. It will require vigilance, clarity, and a renewed commitment to truth in a time of distortion.

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America’s political ground is shifting – in some respects gradually, in other ways in jolts.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Florida, where the political landscape has transformed dramatically over the past 20 years. Despite its brightening “red” label on most maps, Florida has extraordinary demographic and ideological diversity, making it a strong bellwether for national sentiment. This diversity isn’t always apparent on Election Day tickers, but it’s easily discerned in polling data that goes beyond candidate choice.

It's clear that Florida’s political dynamics are in flux. Over the past few months, a not-so-quiet exodus has taken shape: Prominent Florida Democrats have crossed party lines, abandoned their label, or walked away altogether.

First it was state Reps. Hillary Cassel and Susan Valdes switching to the Republican Party. Then came the sitting Senate Democratic Leader Jason Pizzo, a party standard-bearer who suddenly left party labels behind entirely, resigning his leadership position and filing as nonpartisan for a likely 2026 run for Governor.

Perhaps because of a growing dearth of Democratic leadership, the weight of Florida’s Republican Party may be getting too heavy to sustain its sizable majorities. In the absence of formidable outside opponents, GOP leaders have started eating their own.

Just last week, tensions among Republican leaders in the House and Senate led to the Florida Legislature’s failure to do its one constitutionally mandated task: Pass a budget. They’ll extend their work into the summer – but even if compromise is found, lawmakers may then face the potential wrath of Republican Governor Ron DeSantis and his veto pen.

Enter John Morgan – the bombastic personal injury lawyer known for his legal empire, populist flair, and unapologetic role in pushing for such causes as medical marijuana and a $15 minimum wage.

But this time, Morgan isn’t filing a lawsuit or promoting a ballot initiative. He’s proposing something far more ambitious: a new political party. One that isn’t fringe like the Greens, or stalled like the Libertarians (a party whose nuanced approach to certain issues may appeal to many, but whose candidates rarely gain traction). And one that’s definitely not the aimless vacuum of “no party affiliation.”

His pitch is clear: Florida needs a serious, organized alternative to the binary gridlock of red vs. blue.

At a Tiger Bay Club discussion in Tallahassee last week, Morgan floated this proposal publicly. He’s even launching a contest to name the new party, signaling that this isn’t just idle musing.

That got us wondering: Could we crowdsource ideas for naming such a party? Would Floridians even want it – and if so, why? And what about Morgan’s other somewhat radical ideas to reorganize how Florida’s legislative sessions are structured and potentially eliminate and consolidate statewide constitutional offices?

So we did what we usually do: We asked a random sample of 1,000 Florida voters what they think. Here’s what they said…

Interest in a new “third” party

Almost 2 out of every 3 voters (62%) said they’re either very (36%) or somewhat (26%) interested in supporting a new third party that’s unaffiliated with Democrats and Republicans but more purposeful and organized than the usual “independent” or “non-affiliated” designation.

Predictably, net support is especially high among those currently registered without party affiliation (76%), but also resonates strongly with Democrats (65%) and those under age 45 (66%). Presumably more content with the status quo, just 4 in 10 Republicans (39%) feel the same.

An even greater share of voters (77%) said they’d be very (48%) or somewhat (29%) likely to vote for a candidate running under a newly-formed political party if that candidate aligned with their views on government and accountability. This includes nearly all of nonpartisans (91%), more than three-quarters of Democrats (78%), and even a majority of Republicans (57%).

Three-quarters of respondents told us that their willingness to consider a third-party candidate is driven by frustration with partisan gridlock (a feeling that likely relates to national politics more than the current one-sided partisan split in Florida), and just over half said they want more nuanced solutions (55%), more moderate solutions (55%), and less “establishment” influence over policies (54%). Another 45% said they simply want more competitive elections.

But the main reason respondents gave for their willingness to embrace a third party was more descriptive than explanatory: dissatisfaction with both major parties.

Thankfully, we asked them: How so?

Roots of partisan dissatisfaction

We asked all respondents to indicate in which areas (if any) they feel the Democratic Party has veered too far “left” or is failing to represent most people, followed by the same question on perceptions of the Republican Party’s shift too far “right.”

In the analysis, we focused on responses from same-party and nonpartisan voters – in other words, what portion of Republicans and NPAs are frustrated with the GOP, and conversely, how do Democrats and NPAs feel about the leadership and platforms of the left.

Here’s what we found: Nearly half of Democrats (46%) and a solid majority of nonpartisans (57%) believe the Democratic Party has veered too far left in at least one respect, including:

• 44% - Too much protection for transgender athletes over the rights of female athletes (35% of Democrats and 53% of NPAs)

• 33% - Too much focus on protecting illegal immigrants over protecting American citizens from crime (15% of Democrats and 51% of NPAs)

• 33% - Too much focus on DEI over merit-based employment and advancement (15% of Democrats and 51% of NPAs)

• 23% - Too much support or sympathy for Hamas / Palestine over the plight of Israeli hostages / Jewish victims of terrorism (13% of Democrats and 40% of NPAs)

• 14% - Too much support for environmental policies over goals of economic development (2% of Democrats and 27% of NPAs)

On the red side of the aisle, 43% of Republicans and 85% of nonpartisans see at least one area where the party has veered too far right, including:

• 45% - Too much resistance to marijuana legalization over public support for recreational use (22% of Republicans and 62% of NPAs)

• 39% - Too much loyalty to Donald Trump over embracing decentralized, independent leadership (20% of Republicans and 65% of NPAs)

• 39% - Too much emphasis on protecting unborn children over the medical needs of pregnant women (including 23% of Republicans and 60% of NPAs)

• 33% - Too much support for gun rights without investing more heavily in mental health or violence prevention (15% of Republicans and 56% of NPAs)

• 25% - Too much support for tax cuts and deregulation over maintaining public services (11% of Republicans and 43% of NPAs)

So, what should Morgan call his party?

John Morgan is crowdsourcing the name for his new political party, and so did we. We asked our respondents to choose names they’d consider to be fitting for a modern, credible third party. From a list of about 17 options, these rose to the top:

• 22% - The Centerline Party

• 18% - The Reason Party

• 17% - The Practical Party

• 16% - The Main Street Party

• 15% - The Civic Renewal Party

• 13% - The Future Party

But we also asked respondents to submit their own ideas beyond our list – and those results paint a far more colorful picture of desires, frustrations, and goals than offered by our somewhat sanitized list. The most popular submissions included a few that we had advanced, but many others we hadn’t (or, to be clear, wouldn’t have) considered:

• The Common Sense Party

• The Florida First Party (driven mostly by MAGA-leaning respondents)

• The People’s Party (sorry, but I think China and North Korea can keep that one)

• The Unity Party

• The Honesty Party

• The Moderate Party

• The Constitutional Party

• The Adults (yes, really – multiple people wrote this – and it has a ring to it)

• The Sanity Is Here Party

• The Skink Party (did Carl Hiaasen take our poll?)

• And, of course, a few submitted “Beach” and “Block” – which, frankly, could have legs.

Even with such a wide range of ideas offered up, the message is pretty clear: Floridians want a party that feels rooted in reason, not rage.

What do voters think about elected “party switchers” so far?

As for recent Democratic Party defectors – such as Cassel, Valdes, and Pizzo, voters are equally divided on what this means: Half (50%) believe the moves are self-serving to seek more personal power or relevance in a Republican-controlled Legislature, while the other half (50%) feel these individuals are expressing earnest frustration with what they see as an ineffective or unresponsive Democratic Party that is failing to represent the needs of voters.

Not surprisingly, the view of the switchers as self-serving is held by a strong majority of Democrats (71%), while the same portion of Republicans (70%) ascribe more noble motivations.

Most telling is the view of the most likely group of “third-party” embracers – nonpartisans – among whom 58% see these defections as indicative of the Democratic Party’s failure to represent their needs.

Beyond party, a few thoughts on government in general

At the Tiger Bay event, attorney Morgan didn’t stop at launching a party. He floated two other bold ideas that would restructure how Florida government is organized or operates:

• Switching Florida to a biennial legislative session — meaning lawmakers would meet every other year, not annually.

• Eliminating or consolidating statewide constitutional offices (such as Lieutenant Governor and Commissioner of Agriculture).

These ideas don’t seem to be likely winners, however.

Just 9% support the idea of a biennial session – about the same portion (10%) who believe such a change would improve government efficiency. The remaining 90%, on the other hand, believe yearly legislative sessions are necessary to address urgent issues and keep lawmakers connected to their constituents' preferences.

As for eliminating or consolidating some constitutional offices,fewer than one-quarter (24%) believe such a move would effectively reduce bloat and improve government efficiency, while more than half (52%) say these offices should remain separate and directly accountable to voters. The remaining 24% are unsure.

What now?

George Washington warned against a two-party system, but in some respects it’s worked quite well: When the pendulum of power between the two parties stays fairly close to the center of the clock, voters can make rational choices between platforms and each side can keep the other largely in check.

But to John Morgan – and, it turns out, a meaningful share of Florida voters – it might be time to yank the entire clock off the wall.

Morgan has money, name recognition, and a track record of doing things his way. He’s not waiting for permission, but he does seem to be asking for input, testing the water on whether Florida voters are ready to rewrite the political script – not with another protest vote, but with a party that could seriously compete.

If nothing else, it’s a wake-up call to both major parties, here in the Sunshine State and beyond.

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It seems Americans aren’t quite as absolutist or dichotomous as the headlines like to portray. You just have to look a layer or two deeper than most pollsters go.

When it comes to the big-picture goals – like securing the border, reducing government waste, or revitalizing American manufacturing – there’s a surprising amount of unity across political lines. And once you ask how we should pursue those goals (and specifically whether people approve of how President Trump is going about it) these lines between parties blur even more.

In a nationally representative survey of 1,000 American adults conducted April 4-6, 2025, we tested public opinion on broad policy goals, followed by questions about specific actions being taken to implement them.

Our survey started by asking respondents whether they support or oppose eight general policy goals, intentionally setting aside any knowledge of how those goals are being pursued. Then, we introduced two real-world examples of how the Trump administration is approaching each goal. For each method, we asked respondents whether they approve or disapprove of it – regardless of whether they support the general goal the action is attempting to achieve.

This two-step structure offers a more layered perspective on public opinion, revealing both areas of consensus and points of fragmentation, and painting a more realistic and complex picture of American sentiment at a time when common ground seems elusive and people are often painted into corners that don’t fully define their views.

Here’s the gist of what we found:

• Americans show broad agreement on big-picture goals but diverge sharply on how those goals should be pursued, especially when real-world methods are introduced.

• Supporters and critics of Trump alike display significant nuance: many Trump supporters question his methods for enacting the very things they voted for him to do, while many Trump critics approve of specific actions he’s taking even if generally opposing the administration’s broader playbook.

• Florida voter sentiment mirrors national opinion more than expected, reinforcing its value as a bellwether.

• Support for Trump’s overall goals has remained steady over time and across geographies, with 56% nationally and in Florida saying he’s doing the right thing, even as a growing share may question his methods. This implies that, for many, the ‘what’ still outweighs concerns about the ‘how.’

First, about the what …

Overall support is fairly strong for each of the general policy goals we tested, in which respondents were prompted to think only about the intent in concept apart from any specific ways to get there. These are among the core issues President Trump campaigned on and that many view as having a mandate for action. For most, that seems to hold true:

• 92% - Reduce the volume of fentanyl, guns, and drugs at the border

• 88% - Deport violent criminals who are in the U.S. illegally

• 81% - Reduce government waste and improve efficiency

• 75% - Revitalize American manufacturing and the domestic supply chain

• 71% - Restrict transgender athletes in women’s sports

• 51% - Reform the federal Department of Education to lessen its role

• 51% - Remove DEI as a factor for, or in, employment

• 50% - Provide U.S. aid to Israel

There are, of course, notable partisan divides in support for many of these goals—especially further down the list. For example, the desire to revitalize American manufacturing and reduce reliance on foreign supply chains is supported by 86% of Republicans, compared to 64% of Democrats. Support for prohibiting transgender athletes from competing in collegiate sports is held by 78% of Republicans, but only a slim majority (53%) of Democrats. And the goal of removing DEI as a factor in employment decisions is backed by 80% of Republicans, but just 1 in 3 (32%) of Democrats.

Now, about the how …

Now let’s break down how those numbers shift when people are asked about the methods being used to pursue the broad policy goals. We’ll go in order from those with the broadest aggregate support for the goal to those with the least.

Reduce volume of fentanyl, guns, and drugs crossing the border

Support for the ‘What’:

• An overwhelming 92% of Americans support the general goal of reducing the flow of fentanyl, firearms, and other contraband across the southern border.

The Current ‘How’:

• The administration’s approach to this includes expanding the physical border wall and significantly increasing investments in border surveillance technology and personnel, including drones and AI tools.

Approval of the ‘How’:

• Fewer than half (46%) approve of building more sections of the border wall – including 50% of those who support the goal itself.

• More than 2 in 3 (68%) favor increasing Border Patrol and surveillance technology – 77% of goal supporters, and even 1 in 4 (26%) of those who generally oppose the broad goal.

• 10% of those who support the goal nonetheless disapprove of both methods.

Discussion:

• These findings again demonstrate significant alignment on the goal of reducing the flow of drugs into the United States, with less agreement when it comes to how. The lack of support for building more sections of a border wall, for example, could signal a lack of desire to block people, too, or may simply reflect a lack of belief that a wall is an economically smart or practical solution.

Deport violent criminals who are in the U.S. illegally

Support for the ‘What’:

• Close to 9 in 10 (88%) support the general goal of deporting known, violent, undocumented criminals.

The Current ‘How’:

• President Trump’s strategy focuses on increasing cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration agencies to quickly identify and remove such individuals. This includes fast-tracking deportations of those convicted (or in some cases, simply suspected) of criminal activity, with less emphasis on prolonged legal processes.

Approval of the ‘How’:

• 70% approve of expanding partnerships with local law enforcement, including 82% of goal supporters, and more than 1 in 3 (35%) of those who don’t necessarily support deportations.

• But only 31% approve of fast-tracking deportation for those merely suspected of being criminals – even among goal supporters, where just 40% approve.

• 9% of goal supporters rebuff both methods.

Discussion:

• These results confirm that there’s broad support for targeting and deporting verified offenders but significant concern about how that’s accomplished. The lower level of support for fast-tracking deportations may reflect a general preference for due process, or may be in response to headlines that could lead people to believe the administration mistakenly deported an individual who was neither a criminal nor in the United States illegally.

Reduce government waste and improve efficiency

Support for the ‘What’:

• About 8 in 10 (81%) support the general goal to reduce government waste, improve efficiencies, and redirect savings back to taxpayers.

The Current ‘How’:

• The Trump administration established a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to audit federal agencies, has pledged sweeping layoffs and reorganizations, and aims to increase accountability by requiring federal employees to justify the value of their roles.

Approval of the ‘How’:

• 61% approve of creating DOGE – including 67% of goal supporters.

• But fewer than one-fourth (24%) like requiring federal employees to answer "5 questions" to justify their roles – and just 28% of supporters approve.

• 28% of supporters disapprove of both approaches.

Discussion:

• Support for cutting waste doesn’t seem to extend to the idea of swift bureaucratic purges or job threats. Rather, it seems, Americans may prefer an approach where waste or efficiencies are identified first and carefully targeted second.

Revitalize American manufacturing and domestic supply chain

Support for the ‘What’:

• Three in four (75%) of Americans support the general goal of revitalizing American manufacturing and reducing dependence on foreign supply chains.

The Current ‘How’:

• The Trump administration is offering tax incentives for companies that bring production back to the U.S. and pursuing “Buy American” procurement mandates. And, after a topsy-turvy week that saw huge tariffs, wild market swings, and eventually a pause, the administration is still leveraging the use (and threat) of tariffs to discourage imports and close the trade deficit.

Approval of the ‘How’:

• 73% approve of tax incentives and Buy American procurement mandates – with 79% of goal supporters approving.

• Only 25% approve of imposing sweeping tariffs – including 29% among those who support the goal and half (50%) of Republicans.

• 15% of supporters oppose both strategies.

Discussion:

• Americans seem to prefer carrots over sticks when it comes to strengthening U.S. industry, but this is a policy area rather unlike the others we tested. Economic policy stands to affect people far more directly and personally than, say, Title IX issues or border policies – which, if they do have widespread impacts, certainly don’t do so quickly or uniformly. Economic conditions touch everyone in tangible ways, and can do so quickly. We don’t yet have a clear answer on the immediate or long-term consequences of Trump’s tariff approach. In answering this question, however, most Americans are likely to have some degree of uncertainty and a large degree of personal concern – which becomes reflected as lower support.

Restrict transgender athletes in women’s sports

Support for the ‘What’:

• A strong majority of Americans (71%) support the general goal of restricting transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports.

The Current ‘How’:

• The Trump administration is seeking to bar transgender women from competing in women’s collegiate sports by enforcing Title IX as applying strictly to biological sex. To impose pressure for compliance, it is threatening to withhold federal funding from institutions that don’t enforce this standard and launch a special investigations team to monitor violations.

Approval of the ‘How’:

• But only 32% approve of pausing federal funding to non-compliant schools – including just 51% of those who support the overall goal.

• A larger portion, 57%, approve of issuing Title IX guidance and launching a Special Investigations team – including 76% of goal supporters.

• But one-third (32%) of those who support the goal disapprove of both methods.

Discussion:

• These results show a philosophical alignment with the President’s agenda on this issue but mixed feelings about how to enact these restrictions in practice, or whether this is the federal government’s job to do.

Reform the federal Department of Education to lessen its role

Support for the ‘What’::

• About half (51%) of Americans support, in concept, a goal to reform or lessen the role of the federal Department of Education.

The Current ‘How’:

• The administration is seeking to remove curriculum-related mandates and return oversight to states and local authorities. It also wants to promote alternatives to public schools by funding school choice programs, charter schools, and vouchers.

Approval of the ‘How’:

• 49% approve of removing federal mandates and shifting oversight to local authorities – including 70% of goal supporters.

• But fewer than 4 in 10 (39%) approve of expanding school choice through federal grants – favored by 55% of supporters.

• 12% of supporters disapprove of both approaches.

Discussion:

• Even among those who seek reform, there’s little consensus for using federal incentives for school choice. Perhaps this is in keeping with a general preference for state-level control (and funding) of education.

Remove DEI as a factor for, or in, employment

Support for the ‘What’:

• About half (51%) of Americans support, in concept, a goal to reduce the influence of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the workforce.

The Current ‘How’:

• The administration is working to roll back the influence by banning pronoun disclosures in email signatures and mandating that all federal employment decisions be strictly merit-based, eliminating DEI-related requirements. This is part of an administration effort to more broadly eliminate DEI, including at universities and other institutions that receive federal funds.

Approval of the ‘How’:

• 30% approve of banning pronouns in federal employee emails – indeed, just 58% of goal supporters approve.

• 50% approve of enforcing merit-based standards and removing DEI mandates, including 85% of goal supporters.

• 41% of Americans disapprove of both enforcement strategies.

Discussion:

• While many approve of merit as the prime consideration in employment, it appears that even those who are aligned in concept may be uncomfortable with the current process. When it comes to pronouns in emails, for example, many may be equally opposed to a requirement to use and a requirement to ban their use.

Provide U.S. aid to Israel

Support for the ‘What’:

• Half of Americans (50%) currently support the general goal of providing support to Israel.

The Current ‘How’:

• Trump’s approach toward Israel emphasizes military and financial backing, including enhanced funding for defense systems like the Iron Dome. In response to ongoing hostage situations, the administration has floated more aggressive measures, such as suggesting the U.S. seize territory in Gaza if hostages are not released.

Approval of the ‘How’:

• About 4 in 10 (42%) approve of increased military aid for Israel, including funding for its Iron Dome missile defense system. This includes 58% of those who generally support the goal.

• But just 19% approve of the U.S. taking over Gaza, including 24% of goal supporters.

• 49% of Americans reject both approaches.

Discussion:

• According to other national surveys, support for Israel has decreased dramatically over the past year. And, in this survey, approval drops even more sharply when either of these specific interventions are mentioned. It may be that people support the threat of the U.S. taking over Gaza, if it were to lead to better outcomes – but disapprove of this actually happening. Or it could be that people want the U.S. to provide non-military types of support to Israel, such as diplomatic efforts alone. Regardless, when asked to back up conceptual support with a tangible action in aid of Israel, approval drops.

The big question

Finally, after giving respondents the chance to reflect on both the broad goals and specific actions of the Trump administration, we asked how they feel the president is doing overall. The results:

• 56% believe President Trump is doing the right thing, though this group is split between those who say he’s doing it “in the right way” (29%) and those who say he’s using “questionable or counterproductive methods” (28%).

• The remaining 44% believe he is doing the wrong thing, regardless of method.

Remarkably, the share of Americans who think Trump is doing the right thing (whether through right or questionable methods) is identical to what we found in a separate survey conducted in mid-February among a random sample of registered Florida voters. In that earlier survey, respondents weren’t first primed to consider any general policy areas or specific approaches.

From a research perspective, this kind of consistency is reassuring. It reflects a strong degree of test-retest reliability and increases my confidence in using Florida as a reliable benchmark for overall national sentiment – which is helpful, given how often we field surveys in the state.

That said, we did find a notable difference between our Florida and national samples when it comes to how people think the president is going about things. While the share of people who disapprove of both Trump’s goals and his methods is identical in both surveys (44%), there’s a gap when it comes to those who think he’s doing the right thing, the right way.

In February, 38% of Floridians said Trump was generally doing the right thing and doing it the right way. But in last week’s national survey, that number was just 28%.

What might explain the difference? A few likely reasons:

• Floridians tend to view Trump more favorably than the national average

• Two months passed between the surveys, giving people more time to evaluate the new administration

• Our national respondents had just been asked to consider specific policy actions, not just general goals

Still, the overall takeaway holds: even with more time and more exposure to specific policy details, a steady 56% continue to support what the administration is trying to do. That suggests something important—support or opposition to this president’s agenda isn’t shifting dramatically, at least not yet. Many of those who backed him in his first month remain on board, even if they’re uneasy about some of the ways things are being carried out.

One interpretation: The ‘What’ bests the ‘How’ to many.

Unity not in detail, but in nuance

The story here isn’t just about Trump or his policies – it’s about the complexity of public opinion.

Americans are more aligned than the noise suggests. But they’re also discerning. They can support a goal while disapproving of the methods used to achieve it – and vice versa. They can back an administration despite disagreeing with how it operates, and oppose one even while rooting for some of its objectives.

The takeaway for policymakers and media is clear: looking only at topline support misses the full picture. To truly understand public opinion, we have to ask not just what people want – but how they’re willing to get there.

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First, a thank you

My goal in starting this Substack was to create a space where research could be shared, discussed, and debated – and I hoped readers would share feedback and critiques that would lead to deeper dives into complex topics.

And to my great satisfaction (and slight surprise), that’s already happened – and it’s quickly sparked new research questions and findings.

I wanted to share some of those outcomes – both because they’re interesting on their own, and as a way of encouraging more of that back-and-forth. Please keep the feedback, challenges, and questions coming; that’s what makes this so fun.

The original findings & the feedback

After we published our most recent Substack, “Hall pass for hate?” – which uncovered that harassment on college campuses is seen as less worth of punishment depending on the identity of the perpetrators or victims – I heard from a few readers who were concerned about one specific aspect: the use of the real Mahmoud Khalil in the study, rather than a generic or fictional student.

Indeed, in the original setup, Khalil was specifically identified by name, while the other “foreign students” were fictional.

Some of our readers worried that featuring Khalil – as the only Palestinian (or Middle Eastern) student – might have led survey respondents to think too politically about his specific case, making it harder to generalize the results.

A reader also suggested it would be useful to include a profile of a Syrian (not Palestinian) student, since perceptions might differ for someone from outside the immediate conflict zone.

While my original intent was to provide context for Khalil’s case specifically – and that’s why I used his real name – the feedback was compelling enough that I decided to run a follow-up experiment. It was important to confirm, or rule out, whether sympathy for Khalil as an individual might have softened respondents’ willingness to endorse punishment.

The findings below reinforce the original results and rule out the possibility that lower levels of willingness to punish a Palestinian student—compared to others committing identical acts—are merely an artifact of sympathy for Mahmoud Khalil’s real-world story.

Experiment 3 Findings: While political identities matter, personal identities don’t

Our first two experiments were part of a random-sample survey of registered voters in Florida. But I was already planning to go into the field for a nationally representative survey of 1,000 American adults, so I added this new experiment to that effort. The survey was fielded April 4–6, 2025.

In this new round, respondents were randomly assigned to view one of three foreign student profiles describing their activities in campus anti-Israel protests that disrupted college operations, involved the distribution of materials provided by Hamas, and led to the harassment and intimidation of Jewish students.

All three accounts were identical, except for the student’s name and country of origin:

A: Mahmoud Khalil – once again using his real name and activities

B: A fictional Palestinian named Ahmed Rafiq

C: A fictional Syrian named Ahmed Rafiq

The results show virtually no difference in how respondents viewed punishment across the three profiles:

• Support for revoking the student’s green card or deporting them was nearly identical: 48%, 47%, and 48%, respectively for each of the three students.

• Support for suspending or expelling the student was favored by 65% of those shown the Khalil profile, 63% for the fictional Palestinian, and 68% for the fictional Syrian – not statistically significant differences.

• Support for enforcing campus speech rules was highest for the Khalil profile (74%), compared to 67% for the fictional Palestinian and 69% for the fictional Syrian.

• Support for pulling university funding if schools failed to protect students from harassment was shared by 42% of those who saw the Khalil and fictional Palestinian profiles, and 35% who saw the fictional Syrian.

Taken together, these results reinforce the original finding: that double standards in punishment for antisemitism do appear to exist based on the identity of the perpetrator – and not because of any specific sentiment tied to Mahmoud Khalil’s real-world story.

What’s up next …

Coming next week: What our latest original survey data tells us about Americans’ feelings on the intent and execution of President Trump’s agenda so far. Spoiler alert: Even among those who largely support his agenda, many are conflicted about the way the goals are being pursued; and even among his staunchest critics, many still agree with the intent behind his actions.

Thank you, readers, for the input and ideas. Please – keep it coming!

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What this post won’t do: Explore what the right or legal approach should be for hate speech, harassment, or immigration laws. What it will do: Present findings from controlled experiments into how public standards for punishment shift depending on the identity of the perceived victims and aggressors.

It started with social media posts I saw in the wake of the detention of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil for his role in protests at Columbia University – protests that included intimidation and harassment of Jewish students, vandalization of property, dissemination of materials produced by Hamas and terrorist affiliates, celebration of Jihad, and disruptive campus shutdowns.

I noticed a particular argument circulating that reads (at least to this researcher) as a testable hypothesis:

"If Khalil were a white student targeting Black or LGBTQ students, he’d be expelled and deported without hesitation. But when the targets are Jewish, and the perpetrator Palestinian, suddenly universities freeze – or worse, defend the aggressor."

Here’s one example:

To test whether this provocative assumption may be true, we conducted a randomized experiment to measure how people feel about punishing aggressive campus protests and answer these questions:

• Is antisemitism on campus really treated more leniently than other forms of hate?

• And if so, is it about the identity of the victim and/or aggressor?

For those who don’t want to read any further, the tl;dr answer is “yes” to all of the above: many people hold striking double standards when it comes to punishing antisemitic behavior, and these biases are influenced by the identity of the victims and the aggressors alike.

These survey findings are relevant to ongoing debates about the First Amendment and immigration policy, especially when those conversations reference public sentiment.

While many are earnest in their concerns, for too many others, outrage is conditional based on the identity or politics of who is aggressing, and which group they target.

For those who do want to learn more, here’s how we got here.

Experiment 1

To begin to answer these questions, we ran a randomized experiment with over 1,000 Florida voters – a representative mix of ages, backgrounds, and political affiliations. Each person was shown one of four student profiles describing a foreign college student involved in a hate group that intimidates others on campus.

The four profiles were nearly identical except for two things:

(1) who the aggressing student was, and
(2) who they were targeting.

Here’s what we showed:

• Profile A: European student who intimidates Black students

• Profile B: European student who intimidates LGBTQ students

• Profile C: European student who intimidates Jewish students

• Profile D: Palestinian student (Mahmoud Khalil, named and described factually) who intimidates Jewish students

A few notes about methodology are important to include here:

1. The mock European student profile, in all cases, greatly resembled (explicitly, in one case) what one might assume is a right-wing neo-Nazi or white supremacist.

2. The details describing the activities of each foreign student are a match for the things Khalil is under scrutiny for.

3. The European student’s photograph was created using AI to create a European match for Khalil himself, wearing the same clothing and with the same facial expression.

4. Profiles A, C, and D each referred to a “designated terrorist group” that celebrates the murder of a category of people (Black or Jewish), while Profile B regarding LGBTQ students referred instead to a “designated hate group” and didn’t reference terrorism or murder – just harassment. This is important to note, as this distinction may account for some of the differences we’ll see in public preferences for punishment (i.e., respondents may be more inclined to punish a student activist for affiliation with a group that threatens or celebrates murder rather than “merely” harassment).

After seeing one of these four profiles, respondents were asked how the university and government should respond.

• Should the student be expelled or suspended?

• Should their green card be revoked?

• Should hate speech rules be enforced?

• Should the university be penalized for not protecting students?

This experiment wasn’t asking people to weigh in on constitutional rights or immigration law. We simply wanted to know how people feel when they encounter different versions of the same story, different only in the identities of the aggressor or the harassed.

Results of Experiment 1: Double standards identified

Across the board, respondents were strongly in favor of disciplinary and legal consequences when the profiled student described was European and the targets were Black, LGBTQ, or Jewish students.

But that support shifted dramatically when the aggressor was Palestinian and the targets were Jewish – especially among Democrats and younger voters.

Should the student be expelled or suspended?

Take the most basic question: Should the student be suspended or expelled?

Across demographic groups, the following shares of each treatment group felt the aggressing student should be suspended or expelled:

• 83%: European student intimidating Black students

• 78%: European student intimidating LGBTQ students

• 76%: European student intimidating Jewish students

• 60%: Palestinian student intimidating Jewish students

Among Democrats, 82% supported suspension or expulsion when the student was European and harassing Black students, and 81% felt the same when the European student was harassing LGBTQ students. That portion dropped to 69% when it was a European student harassing Jewish students, and dropped by more than half to just 40% among Democrats considering the Palestinian intimidating Jewish students – a staggering 42-point difference from the feeling when a European student was intimidating Black students.

Among voters under the age of 45, the difference was nearly as stark: Support for suspension or expulsion went from 82% of those who saw the European student intimidating Black students to 53% among those who saw the Palestinian student intimidating Jewish students.

Among Republicans, support for suspension or expulsion was fairly consistent, no matter the aggressor or the victim: 91% among those who saw a European intimidating Black students; 88% among those who saw a European intimidating LGBTQ students; 84% among those who saw a European intimidating Jewish students; and 92% among those who saw a Palestinian intimidating Jewish students.

Should the university enforce its own codes on hate speech?

Even larger portions of Floridians overall support universities enforcing campus rules about hate speech, with somewhat less variation in the aggregate:

• 87%: European student intimidating Black students

• 83%: European student intimidating LGBTQ students

• 87%: European student intimidating Jewish students

• 74%: Palestinian student intimidating Jewish students

Once again, however, those younger than 45 significantly prefer enforcement of hate speech rules when the aggressor is European than when the aggressor is Palestinian. Specifically, 88% of young respondents felt that campus hate speech rules should be enforced when the offending student looks like a neo-Nazi – but just 53% feel the same when the offending student is described as Palestinian.

A similar pattern is seen among Democrats: 94% want campus hate speech rules to be enforced when a neo-Nazi student espouses anti-Jewish hate, but just 69% feel this way regarding a Palestinian student espousing the same views.

Should the federal government revoke the student’s green card or deport them?

When it came to whether the student’s green card should be revoked or deportation pursued, the disparities widened even more.

Overall, support for these actions is expressed by:

• 78%: European student intimidating Black students

• 68%: European student intimidating LGBTQ students

• 78%: European student intimidating Jewish students

• 52%: Palestinian student intimidating Jewish students

Among Democrats, the wish to see the aggressor penalized with deportation or revocation of his green card fell from 74% for the European harasser of Jewish students to just 33% for the Palestinian one – a 41-point decline. Among voters under 45, support dipped from 82% to 45%.

Among Republicans, support for this form of punishment was significantly higher across the board, but with far less variation between treatment groups: 95% for the European student harassing Black students; 90% for harassment of LGBTQ students; 87% for European harassing Jewish students; and 86% for a Palestinian doing the same.

Should federal funding be pulled if universities fail to protect students from harassment?

Finally, we asked whether universities should lose federal funding if they fail to protect students from harassment – something that has recently been initiated by the Trump administration.

Overall, support for the federal government pulling funding from these universities registers at:

• 67%: European student intimidating Black students

• 62%: European student intimidating LGBTQ students

• 59%: European student intimidating Jewish students

• 53%: Palestinian student intimidating Jewish students

Again, Democrats were far more supportive of that punishment when the aggressor was European and the victims were Black (at 42%) than they were when the aggressor was Palestinian and the victims were Jewish (28%).

Among younger voters, support for this punishment dropped from 58% to just 32%. And again, Republicans express fairly consistent preferences for punishment regardless of the identity of the aggressor or victim.

Experiment 2

I ran these results past Bryan Tomlin, an economics professor at California State University Channel Islands who conducts antisemitism research for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

Seeing that respondents were so much more willing to punish a European aggressor than a Palestinian one for the same offenses, he questioned whether this was due to sympathy for the conditions that the student might return to if deported to their home country.

Indeed, the thought of returning a student to Palestine, an active war zone, might feel proportionally more punishing than returning a student to Poland.

This led to two additional questions:

1. Would people be equally hesitant to deport a Palestinian student for instigating protests that led to the intimidation of Black or LGBTQ students?

2. Would people be equally hesitant to deport a student from a country such as Haiti1, which has similar levels of health, development, and upheaval, as they are for a Palestinian student?

In order to test these questions – and to assure myself that our findings weren’t an artifact of something else entirely – we went back into the field just one day later with a completely separate survey of 1,228 Florida voters. This time, respondents were randomly assigned to view one of four foreign student profiles that were used the same language as the original profiles, but with the following options:

• Profile E: Palestinian instigating against Black students

• Profile F: Palestinian instigating against LGBTQ students

• Profile G: Haitian instigating against Jewish students

• Profile H: Haitian instigating against LGBTQ students

Results of Experiment 2: Double standards confirmed

Even when controlling for the aggressor’s country of origin, strong double standards remain when it comes to Palestinian acts against Jews.

Overall, when the aggressor is from Poland or Haiti, the desire to punish them for antisemitism is as strong or stronger than the desire to punish them for comparable acts that target Black or LGBTQ students.

However, when the aggressor is from Palestine, there is a complete reversal: Suddenly, in this pairing, the desire to punish antisemitism falls precipitously compared with the willingness to punish that same hypothetical Palestinian student for anti-Black or anti-LGBTQ acts. This holds true both for severe forms of punishment, such as revoking the student’s green card, and for punishments that aren’t specific to the student at all, such as the desire for campuses to enforce hate speech rules.

Specifically, we found that when the aggressor is described as European or Haitian, deportation is preferred as a punishment for antisemitism by 5 percentage points more people than with other types of hate speech, such as against Black or LGBTQ students. But when the aggressor is Palestinian, the preference for deportation is 13 percentage points lower when the target group is Jews compared with identical crimes against Black or LGBTQ targets.

Similarly, when the aggressor is European or Haitian, 5 percentage points more people prefer enforcement of hate speech rules against antisemitism than when this hate speech is directed at Black or LGBTQ targets. But when the aggressor is Palestinian, support for this type of punishment is 12 points lower than it is for other forms of hate speech.

These differences are even more significant among younger and left-leaning respondents. For example: When Floridians under age 45 consider a European or Haitian aggressor, they prefer enforcement of campus hate speech rules for anti-Jewish rhetoric by 17 points higher than for other types of hate speech. But when the aggressor is described as Palestinian, respondents prefer enforcement of campus hate speech rules for antisemitism by 31 points lower than they do for equal offenses by that same student against Black or LGBTQ students.

Discussion

Why do so many give the Palestinian activist a pass for antisemitism while others get punished?

In every case, the facts of the incident were the same: a foreign student affiliated with a hate group intimidating fellow students on campus. But when the identity of the aggressor shifted from a European to a Palestinian and the targets remained Jewish, public willingness to call for action fell off a cliff.

At first glance, this might look like a contradiction. If you’re outraged by hate speech and harassment and if you support tough action when a European, Haitian, or Palestinian student is intimidating Black or LGBTQ students, shouldn’t you also support action when a Palestinian student targets Jews?

But people don’t process these scenarios in a vacuum.

When the aggressor was a Palestinian student targeting Jews, the response became muddied, especially on the political left. To many of these respondents, his behavior was interpreted as less condemnable than that of others described doing the same thing.

Why it matters if ideology matters

Campuses around the world are struggling to draw clear lines around hate speech, protest, harassment, and safety. Some of that struggle is legal. But some of it is cultural, shaped by how we, as a public, interpret and weigh these situations. These findings seem to speak directly to how universities, government officials, and the public handle real-world controversies, especially when antisemitism is involved.

This data suggests that:

• When it comes to punishing antisemitism, public attitudes are not applied consistently across different aggressors and target groups. For some reason, many people are willing to look the other way when the aggressor is Palestinian and the targets are Jews – while quite willing to punish that same Palestinian aggressor for identical acts against other groups of people.

• When the aggressor fits the mold of a right-wing extremist, like a European neo-Nazi, the moral calculus is simple: People overwhelmingly support enforcement. And, when the aggressor is Palestinian and committing acts against Black or LGBTQ students, a strong preference for punishment remains. Only when the aggressor is seen through the lens of activism, as in the case of a Palestinian student protesting in ways that make Jewish students feel unsafe, the same behavior is rationalized, and the consequences softened.

• Some of the outrage about Khalil’s detainment isn’t purely about the First Amendment or immigrant rights. If that were the case, a hypothetical European or Haitian student accused of identical offenses to Khalil should be seen as equally worthy of legal protections. But to the contrary, far more respondents express a willingness to revoke the green card of an antisemitic neo-Nazi, a homophobe, or a racist (of any national origin) than they are to similarly punish a Palestinian supporter of Hamas.

• Our previous survey research has revealed stark double standards against Jews and Israel regarding self-defense, religion, and diplomacy. The results of this survey are a bit more complex: They signal that the social or political motivations of the agitator deeply influence who gets protected, or who gets a pass on punishment.

This raises critical questions about the role of political and social narratives in shaping perceptions of hate: Are people more inclined to excuse antisemitism when it aligns with a preferred geopolitical narrative? Do certain aggressors receive more leniency due to perceived victimhood?

Understanding these inconsistencies is essential for developing fair and principled policies that address hate-based intimidation in all its forms, without selective enforcement based on the identity of the aggressor or the target.

These experiments don't tell us what the “correct” policy is; that’s not the goal. But it does shine a light on how uneven public opinion can be, and how easily our moral instincts shift when identity and politics get involved.

Maybe the better question isn’t just: “What if the student had been a neo-Nazi?” Maybe it’s: “Why do we protect some students more than others, depending on who’s doing the harassing?”

And maybe it’s time we stop letting ideology dictate which victims count, no matter who targets them.

EDITED TO ADD: ‘Hall Pass for Hate’ Revisited: Follow-up study inspired by readers reinforces findings

First, a thank you

My goal in starting this Substack was to create a space where research could be shared, discussed, and debated – and I hoped readers would share feedback and critiques that would lead to deeper dives into complex topics.

And to my great satisfaction (and slight surprise), that’s already happened – and it’s quickly sparked new research questions and findings.

I wanted to share some of those outcomes – both because they’re interesting on their own, and as a way of encouraging more of that back-and-forth. Please keep the feedback, challenges, and questions coming; that’s what makes this so fun.

The original findings & the feedback

After we published our most recent Substack, “Hall pass for hate?” – which uncovered that harassment on college campuses is seen as less worth of punishment depending on the identity of the perpetrators or victims – I heard from a few readers who were concerned about one specific aspect: the use of the real Mahmoud Khalil in the study, rather than a generic or fictional student.

Indeed, in the original setup, Khalil was specifically identified by name, while the other “foreign students” were fictional.

Some of our readers worried that featuring Khalil – as the only Palestinian (or Middle Eastern) student – might have led survey respondents to think too politically about his specific case, making it harder to generalize the results.

A reader also suggested it would be useful to include a profile of a Syrian (not Palestinian) student, since perceptions might differ for someone from outside the immediate conflict zone.

While my original intent was to provide context for Khalil’s case specifically – and that’s why I used his real name – the feedback was compelling enough that I decided to run a follow-up experiment. It was important to confirm, or rule out, whether sympathy for Khalil as an individual might have softened respondents’ willingness to endorse punishment.

The findings below reinforce the original results and rule out the possibility that lower levels of willingness to punish a Palestinian student—compared to others committing identical acts—are merely an artifact of sympathy for Mahmoud Khalil’s real-world story.

Experiment 3 Findings: While political identities matter, personal identities don’t

Our first two experiments were part of a random-sample survey of registered voters in Florida. But I was already planning to go into the field for a nationally representative survey of 1,000 American adults, so I added this new experiment to that effort. The survey was fielded April 4–6, 2025.

In this new round, respondents were randomly assigned to view one of three foreign student profiles describing their activities in campus anti-Israel protests that disrupted college operations, involved the distribution of materials provided by Hamas, and led to the harassment and intimidation of Jewish students.

All three accounts were identical, except for the student’s name and country of origin:

I: Mahmoud Khalil – once again using his real name and activities

J: A fictional Palestinian named Ahmed Rafiq

K: A fictional Syrian named Ahmed Rafiq

The results show virtually no difference in how respondents viewed punishment across the three profiles:

• Support for revoking the student’s green card or deporting them was nearly identical: 48%, 47%, and 48%, respectively for each of the three students.

• Support for suspending or expelling the student was favored by 65% of those shown the Khalil profile, 63% for the fictional Palestinian, and 68% for the fictional Syrian – not statistically significant differences.

• Support for enforcing campus speech rules was highest for the Khalil profile (74%), compared to 67% for the fictional Palestinian and 69% for the fictional Syrian.

• Support for pulling university funding if schools failed to protect students from harassment was shared by 42% of those who saw the Khalil and fictional Palestinian profiles, and 35% who saw the fictional Syrian.

Taken together, these results reinforce the original finding: that double standards in punishment for antisemitism do appear to exist based on the identity of the perpetrator – and not because of any specific sentiment tied to Mahmoud Khalil’s real-world story.

Edited to Add: Experiment 4

May 6, 2025: New experiment reveals double standards based again on perpetrators’ identity

This is part four of our “Hall pass for hate?” series of experiments looking at antisemitism, campus hate speech, and preferred punishments. The prior studies uncovered that harassment on college campuses is seen as less worth of punishment depending on the identity of the perpetrators or victims. This installment looks at the issue from yet another, equally important angle:

What if the perpetrator is Jewish?

In none of the prior three experiments did we measure perhaps the most crucial test of double-standards: what if a Jewish student antagonizes someone else? What if that victim is Palestinian? How would people seek to punish that differently than in the exact reverse?

To get there, we ran a simple question on a random sample omnibus survey of Florida Voters, May 2-4, 2025:

Respondents were randomly assigned to view one of two scenarios, identical but for reversing the identities of the perpetrator and victim:

· A: “A Jewish student at the University of Virginia forcibly blocked a Palestinian student from entering a classroom building, and yelled, “go back to where you came from!”

· B: “A Palestinian student at the University of Virginia forcibly blocked a Jewish student from entering a classroom building, and yelled, “go back to where you came from!”

All respondents were then asked whether that aggressing student should face disciplinary consequences – either serious, mild, or none at all.

Doubling down on the double standards …

The results tell a story that suggests who each group believes the “true” victims are – not necessarily in the one isolated, individual scenario, but in terms of where the participants fall within the context of broader geopolitical dynamics. It appears many Americans punish an aggressor based on their perceptions of that person’s broader identity.

Overall, 58% of respondents who saw the Jewish aggressor scenario favored serious disciplinary consequences, compared to 52% who saw the Palestinian aggressor scenario. But these averages mask wide differences across demographic groups.

Among Democrats, 66% supported serious punishment for the Jewish student, while just 49% said the same when the aggressor was Palestinian. Among non-partisans, the pattern is similar: 58% supported serious consequences for the Jewish aggressor, versus 45% for the Palestinian. Republicans show the opposite pattern: 45% supported serious punishment for the Jewish student, but 61% did so when the aggressor was Palestinian.

Age differences were even starker. Among those under age 45, a striking 78% favored serious consequences for the Jewish student, while only 46% did so for the Palestinian. Among those over 45, the pattern reversed: 44% supported serious consequences for the Jewish student, versus 57% for the Palestinian.

What gives?

Make no mistake: punishment should be based on an individual’s actions – not on the identity or geopolitical affiliations of the groups they belong to.

But this experiment opens the door for important discussion.

When a greater share of Republicans say the Palestinian aggressor deserves serious punishment than say the same about the Jewish aggressor, is it because they believe the Jewish student is acting in self-defense, given the hostile climate many Jewish students have faced since October 7, 2023? Is it due to Islamophobia? Because they imagine the Jewish student as someone pushed to a breaking point following many semesters of being confronted with that type of act in reverse?

Is it because such a scenario – of a Jewish student as aggressor – feels less plausible? Indeed, there are only scattered instances of Jewish students behaving aggressively on campus, whereas examples of Palestinian-aligned protestors using such tactics have become visible and frequent.

And then in the reverse, why do nearly 8 in 10 young respondents believe a Jewish student should face serious disciplinary consequences for this act, but less than half feel that way when the same behavior is exhibited by a Palestinian student?

Among left-leaning Americans, this pattern holds: 2 in 3 would seriously punish a Jewish student but fewer than half, again, would do the same for a Palestinian student for the same act.

The importance of experiments …

Experiments that reveal double standards are important because they help us isolate the what from the who. They help strip away the veneer of ideological purity from what people say they’re advocating about, and help isolate what people are really reacting to.

Prior research – and the dominant message of DEI instruction – suggests that many young, left-leaning Americans have been taught that Jews are white and European (a framing that ignores the rich ethnic diversity within global Jewry – including Black, Hispanic, Mizrahi, Arab, Persian, and other non-European ethnicities); that Jews, despite comprising a tiny minority in the US and abroad, are viewed as a privileged majority; and that its fair to punish groups with perceived privilege more harshly.

This latest experiment underscores how far we still have to go – across all sides – in seeing people not through the lens of identity, but through the reality of their individual actions, as both victims and perpetrators.

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And the bias gap widens …

Back in 2019, we ran an experiment to test whether (and how) political bias seeped into hiring decisions. The idea was simple: We created identical resumes for a hypothetical junior-level IT specialist, changing just one small detail: whether the applicant listed a prior role as the Vice President of their county’s Young Republicans" or the "Young Democrats."

We randomly assigned respondents to review just one of these resumes and then asked whether they’d call the applicant for an interview.

The results?

Partisan bias was indeed there, but it wasn’t overwhelming. Democrats were 11% less likely to call a Republican applicant than a Democratic one, and Republicans were 12% less likely to call a Democrat. Respondents also rated trustworthiness and competence lower for opposite-party applicants. These findings, which were published in Florida Trend, seemed meaningful enough at the time to issue caution to job seekers about telegraphing their politics.

Fast forward to mid-March 2025, and we decided to run the same experiment again – same structure, same methodology, just updating the dates on the resumes. And this time, the story got a whole lot more dramatic.

Today, the share of Democratic hirers who said they’d be likely to call a Republican applicant for an interview is 30% lower than those who said they’d be likely to call a fellow Democrat – a “bias gap” that has widened by nearly three-fold in just five years.

On the Republican side, the differential also increased since 2019. Today, the share of Republican hirers who saw a Democrat’s resume and said they’d be likely to call that applicant for an interview is 21% lower than the share who saw an otherwise identical resume, but with a Republican signal included. This “bias gap” is close to double what it was in 2019.

Today, among Democrats, 86% who reviewed a fellow Democrat said they’d likely call them for an interview, but only 60% said the same when the applicant was a Republican. Similarly, among Republicans, 80% who saw a Republican applicant said they’d be likely to call them for an interview, but that number dropped to 63% among those who saw a Democrat.

Beyond penalizing applicants who signal an affiliation with the opposite party, our prospective hirers also appear to reward those who they believe are a member of their own party. And this year, we added a new twist: a control group. We gave some respondents a resume where the applicant was simply listed as Vice President of their county’s “Young Professionals,” without any partisan affiliation.

Here’s the kicker: That neutral applicant performed nearly (but not quite) as well as the same-party applicants. This suggests that the issue isn’t only that an applicant may take a hit for signaling anything political, but rather that it may also important for the hiring manager to see you as potentially “one of us.” In fact, if you know for sure that the person judging your resume shares your politics, you might actually benefit from listing your political involvement on your resume.

These patterns hold not only in whether someone gets an interview, but also in how they’re perceived. The trustworthiness gap has widened significantly. In 2019, Democrats who saw a Republican applicant rated that person as 34% less trustworthy than those who saw the application of a Democrat; today, that difference has shot up to 48%. Republicans have followed the same pattern: In 2019, Republicans who saw a Democratic applicant rated that person as 29% less trustworthy than did those who saw an otherwise identical GOP applicant; today, that gap has grown to 40%.

Among Democrats in our 2025 experiment, 54% who saw a fellow “D” rated them as “trustworthy” compared with 28% who saw an “R” and 36% who saw the neutral applicant. Similarly, among Republicans, 57% who saw a fellow “R” rated them favorably in terms of trust, compared with 34% of those who saw a Democrat and 50% who saw the neutral applicant.

Perceived competence is also increasingly linked to partisan signals. In 2019, Democrats’ ratings of the competence of Republican applicants was 13% lower than that of Democratic applicants. That gap has now expanded to 33%. Republicans, who previously rated Democratic applicants as 11% less competent, now rate them 27% lower.

Again, in each of these experiments, respondents were shown only one resume, which included an indicator of Republican or Democratic partisanship; they weren’t shown two resumes and asked to compare. Further, we attained the respondent’s party affiliation through Voter File metadata, not through self-reporting within the survey – so respondents had no reason to assume the survey knew their partisanship, and nor were they primed to think of their party affiliation at any point when answering questions.

Partisan bias isn’t just alive – it’s thriving. While basic in its design, these experiments suggest that people increasingly favor members of their own party and increasingly punish those who think differently. Beyond being a proxy for mere favoritism or perceptions of interpersonal trust in the absence of other information, party affiliation is increasingly influencing perceptions of competence – a trait that is arguably unrelated to political leanings.

The higher you go …

Does the level of someone’s political involvement make a difference? If a resume shows that the applicant worked on a presidential campaign in 2020, does it matter whether they served as an Intern or as a Senior Fundraiser? On one hand, a higher title signals greater experience and skill – but on the other, it suggests deeper entrenchment in partisan politics.

We ran a second experiment to test how this might play out in practice, and the results were fascinating. This time we provided a resume for applicants for a bookkeeping position.

Among Democrats, 95% said they would call a Democratic applicant whose resume said they’d been a Senior Fundraiser for the Biden campaign in 2020, while a smaller 86% would call someone who had been a Biden Intern. Interestingly, the perception of competence was nearly identical between the two roles, with 86% and 87% of Democrats respectively rating the job prospect as competent.

However, the reverse was true when Democrats considered a Republican applicant: Only 45% said they would call a Trump Senior Fundraiser, compared to 50% for a Trump Intern – even though the fundraiser was deemed more competent (56%) than the intern (42%). In other words, when Democrats judged Republican applicants, a higher position on the Trump campaign translated into a lower likelihood of an interview.

The bottom line: Democratic hiring managers favored fellow Democrats who held more senior campaign positions, but preferred Republicans who were further from the top of that campaign’s pecking order.

Interestingly, the dynamic was reversed among Republicans: 79% of those who saw a Trump Senior Fundraiser resume said they’d call that applicant in for an interview, compared with 89% who saw a Trump Intern. Meanwhile, when presented with a Biden-affiliated applicant, 59% of Republicans said they would call the Senior Fundraiser, versus 47% for a Biden Intern.

As with Democrats, Republicans who saw the Biden Fundraiser rated that applicant as more competent (68%) than the Biden Intern (47%). But unlike with Democrats, who more strongly rejected the more credentialed Trump staffer, this perception of competency translated into a higher likelihood of the Republican hirer calling the higher ranked Democrat-affiliated applicant for an interview.

These results suggest that while more senior political experience can signal competence, it doesn’t always lead to a hiring advantage – and may in fact work against the applicant.

Trustworthiness remains a key factor in hiring decisions.

Among Democrats, 58% of those who saw a Biden-affiliated applicant rated them as trustworthy, but only 25% said the same of a former Trump staffer. Nearly identically, 58% of Republicans who saw a Trump-affiliated applicant rated them as trustworthy, compared to just 35% for a former Biden staffer.

This suggests that, in the absence of additional context, political affiliation alone may be used as a proxy or indicator of an applicant’s personality, judgment, morals, and background.

In theory, sure … but in practice?

To better understand the reasoning behind these biases, we asked respondents to rate how much they agreed with these four statements about hiring people who hold differing political views:

• Political diversity can cause unnecessary workplace tension.

• I don’t trust the judgment of people with strongly different political views than my own.

• I’d rather support the career of someone aligned with my beliefs.

• Politics reflects a person’s morals, values, and character.

Overall, 48% express agreement with the feeling that “political diversity can cause unnecessary workplace tension,” including about equal shares of Republicans, nonpartisans, and Democrats. More than 1 in 3 (36%) admit to agreeing that they don’t trust the judgment of people with strongly different political views, including 40% of Democrats, 35% of Republicans, and 30% of nonpartisans.

More than half (53%) say they’d rather support the career of someone more aligned with their own views, including 62% of Republicans, 50% of Democrats, and 46% of nonpartisans. And more than 7 in 10 (72%), including a full three-quarters of Democrats and Republicans respectively, say that “politics can represent a person’s morals, values, or character.”

For the most part, responses to these four questions didn’t differ significantly between Republicans and Democrats. But it turns out that these seemingly “philosophical” views are rather flexible, depending largely on what the survey-taker had just encountered: Did they review a resume for an applicant of their own party, or of the opposing party?

Specifically, we found that after a respondent reviewed a resume from the opposite party, they were more likely to agree with each of these statements.

For example, among those who had just reviewed a same-party applicant, 40% agreed that political diversity could cause workplace tension – but for those who had just seen an opposite-party applicant, 60% agreed that tension could be a concern.

Similarly, 33% of those who had just seen a same-party applicant said they distrusted the judgment of people from the other party, while that number jumped to 43% if they had just seen an opposite-party applicant. Among Democrats, the difference on this question is particularly large: 34% of Democrats who had seen a same-party applicant agreed with this statement compared with 61% of those who had just seen the resume of a Republican.

Overall, more than half (52%) who had seen an applicant who shared their political affiliation agreed that they’d rather support the career of someone more aligned with their own views, a number that grew to 60% among those who had seen an opposite-party applicant.

Almost three-quarters (72%) who had seen a same-party applicant agreed that politics represent a person’s morals, values, or character – a view shared by 79% of those who had just seen an other-party applicant.

The pattern held across the board: Partisanship wasn’t just influencing decisions related to hiring; exposure to a resume from an applicant with divergent views was shaping what people expressed regarding the entire concept of workplace dynamics.

Taken together, these results suggest that people like the idea of bipartisanship in theory (or they at least like being able to say they do!), but when it comes down to making real-world decisions – like hiring – it’s a different story. The ability to express magnanimous impartiality is easy in the abstract, but when faced with the actual choice of who to work with, political bias gains steam.

It’s also entirely possible that respondents, facing these questions about political dynamics in the workplace, were primed by the resumes they had just seen and responded in a way that minimized personal dissonance. Respondents who were aware that they had just discriminated against a job applicant from the other party may have answered these four questions more candidly than those who hadn’t been forced to confront or justify their own biases.

So what does it all mean?

Our workplaces – like our neighborhoods and schools – have become increasingly homogenous. And, politics isn’t the only aspect of personal identity that results in discrimination.

At the ADL Never is Now conference earlier this month, I met Bryan Tomlin, a labor economist and professor at California State University Channel Islands. His research, conducted through rigorous field experiments using resumes sent to actual prospective employers, found that Jewish American applicants needed to submit 24% more applications to receive the same number of positive responses as those with Western European Backgrounds. The bias was even stronger against applicants who were identifiable as Israeli.

Indeed, various aspects of each of our personal lives or backgrounds may lead to overt or implicit bias by employers. To the extent that research can shine a light on these patterns, perhaps it can also help mitigate such tendencies by drawing attention to how our individual or collective minds work.

Now the question becomes: How can we foster trust and encourage diverse perspectives while building cohesive, productive teams?

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Editorial Note: Our past several Substack topics have been pretty heavy. This week, I’m mixing in something much less consequential. No politics, no controversy – but as always, a little bit of crunch. I invite you to join me for a short ride through a question that lingered in my mind long enough to deploy a few surveys and analyze some data. We’ll be back to more meaty discussions next week. Perhaps even over lunch?

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I’ve always loved Olive Garden. And though I know that saying this will sound like an AI-generated Olive Garden ad, it’s been home to so many of our family memories that it’s practically a family member itself.

There are a few things any regular Olive Garden frequenter knows about, like the “say when” dance between server and patron over cheese. This happens multiple times during most visits, following the predictable question asked with grater in hand: “Would you like cheese on that?”

But this column is about one thing Olive Garden servers never ask: “Do you want pepperoncini in your salad?”

I’ll share now why they should, and I won’t bury the lede: Darden, Olive Garden’s parent company, would stand to save about $8.5 million per year by eliminating its ‘pepperoncini problem.’

Based on my not-at-all-limited experience, pepperoncinis arrives in every salad and are almost always left among the remnants the server takes away before delivering a replacement bowl – one that, of course, also includes more unrequited pepperoncinis.

Who eats the pepperoncinis?

To test if my experience was representative of how other people feel, I threw a few questions about Olive Garden salads and pepperoncinis into two large-scale surveys, one in 2017 (national) and a repeat in 2024 (Florida voters). In both cases, with less than a percentage point difference between them, nearly 2 in 3 survey respondents said no, they do not eat pepperoncini even if it arrives in their salad.

To be more precise, just 35% say they eat pepperoncini in their salad, whether at Olive Garden or anywhere else. Pepperoncinis are particularly unpopular among women (just 26% eat them) and young people (23% do so).

To be conservative, I’ll work with the rounded-up assumption that 40% of people who eat salads at Olive Garden want the pepperoncini. After all, there may be some covert pepperoncini eaters out there who don’t like to admit it – or more likely, I want to account for the fact that Olive Garden salads are served for whole tables, meaning some anti-peppers may be seated with those who want them in the communal salad.

So, in no fewer than 60% of Olive Garden salads, the pepperoncinis go to waste. The ratio is one variable needed to calculate just what Olive Garden is losing by failing to have its servers ask guests whether they want the pepperoncini at all.

Here’s where it gets fun.

In 2017, each pepperoncini cost Olive Garden about 7 cents. I know this because a family friend was a manager at our local chain that year and provided me with a copy of their invoices. (I feel no shame that I’ve been curious about this for going on eight years – just a moderate sense of disappointment that it took me this long to write about it.)

Last week, I returned to Olive Garden and asked the current manager if he’d indulge me in updating these figures. He did. Today, bags of around 100 pepperoncinis cost Olive Garden $6.61 – or about 6.6 cents per pepper.

Each Olive Garden salad has at least 2 pepperoncinis in it (at times I’ve found an errant third), at a cost of $0.13 per salad.

How many people order salad to begin with?

So how many people eat salad at Olive Garden, anyway? There are a few ways to estimate that, one of which was through the same survey instrument that revealed the pepperoncini’s selective appeal. Survey says: 53% always eat salad at Olive Garden, while another 24% say they do sometimes and 23% say they never do.

Overall, that’s a lot of salad eating – more so among women (56% always order it) and those over age 45 (59%). In other words, women are the Olive Garden’s most loyal salad eaters, but also the demographic least likely to want the pepperonicinis.

How many Olive Garden salads are sold each year?

Olive Garden operates 924 restaurants in the United States and a total of 949 restaurants worldwide. Reported annual sales were $4.88 billion in 2023, with each guest’s bill averaging $23 (or $46 for two).

So if total sales were $4.88 billion in 2023 and each person’s bill averaged $23, that would mean about 212 million individual meals served at Olive Gardens around the world that year. This estimate is consistent with reports that the chain serves around 700 million breadsticks per year – about 3 per guest.

If, as our survey indicated, about half of all guests ordered one salad per visit, that would add up to 106 million salads per year – which is less than the 165 million salads that Olive Garden itself reported serving in 2010 (which probably accounts for some of the “sometimes” respondents as well as multiple salad orders per visit). To be conservative, I’ll stick with 106 million salads per year.

Putting it together

To rehash these conservative assumptions, we’re working with a baseline of 50% of guests ordering salads (and ordering only one per visit at that, rather than opting for what many indulge as a fully “unlimited” experience).

If each salad includes 13 cents worth of pepperoncini, but only 40% of salad-ordering guests want them, having the servers ask diners if they want pepperoncinis would cut that cost to an average of just 5 cents per salad. That represents a cost savings of 8 cents per salad. Multiply that 8-cent savings over 106 million salads sold, and my favorite chain is wasting $8.5 million per year simply because servers aren’t asking the pepperoncini question.

You might ask, why don’t guests just tell their servers they don’t want pepperoncini? Certainly, plenty of people decline cheese or ask for a salad without dressing. But unlike cheese or dressing on a salad, which are impossible to get rid of once in place, the majority of the 60% of non-pepperoncini eaters won’t waste their breath asking the server to nix the peppers – it’s easy enough just remove or work around them once the salad is there.

I should know; I’m one of the 60% who don’t eat them, don’t want them, and would be happier if the zesty sulfite bombs weren’t there – but I’ve rarely made this request.

Food waste: the bigger picture

Food waste is something Darden should, and does, care about. In 2014, a scathing report by Starboard shredded Darden on various issues including food waste, leading to the first total overthrow of an S&P 500 boardroom. The Darden board was fully ousted at its annual shareholder meeting after rank-and-file investors were convinced that significant change was needed. Of particular interest was this finding from the report, which noted that Darden’s food costs were near the highest in the industry, driven by issues at my favorite chain:

Despite its scale advantage, Darden’s food costs and waste are abnormally high… We believe food waste significantly contributes to Darden’s high food costs, especially food waste at Olive Garden … Given Olive Garden’s pasta focus, food costs should be among the best in the industry.

It’s unclear what other aspects of Darden’s business changed following the board turnover, but food waste remained a top concern.

“Food waste is the largest single component of our waste stream, and we consistently take steps to reduce the amount of waste we send to landfills,” wrote Chairman Eugene Lee and President & CEO Rick Cardenas in their 2023 memo to shareholders.

Olive Garden represents about half of Darden’s total revenue, demonstrating the chain’s significant contribution to its parent company’s successes – and this importance may be even greater now, in the wake of another Darden restaurant, Red Lobster, going through bankruptcy and widespread closings. Any reduction of food waste should be taken seriously.

The conclusion and the beg …

Pepperoncinis are small, but still easy to eat around. Servers already have a lot of things to think about each time they visit a table. But is avoiding the inconvenience of asking the pepperoncini question worth losing a conservative $8.5 million per year?

This leads to a more personal, perhaps selfish question: Would saving Olive Garden that kind of change earn me free soup and salad for life?

If so, hold the pepperoncini. And keep going for another moment with that cheese …

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