JACKSONVILLE — Housing and homeowners insurance costs are the biggest issues Floridians say they are currently facing, according to a University of North Florida (UNF) poll released Tuesday.

The poll asked 871 randomly selected active and registered Florida voters their opinions on state and national policy issues, as well as public figures and companies. Forty percent of respondents are registered Republicans, 31% are registered Democrats and 29% are independents. The poll was conducted from Feb. 5 to Feb. 14. Thirty-four percent of the voters polled by UNF's Public Opinion Research Lab (PORL) indicated that housing, including mortgages, rent and property insurance costs are the most important problems in 2025. Twenty-one percent of the voters said the economy is the second most important issue currently. Immigration and education followed as the next important issues, both coming in at 9%. And healthcare and the environment rounded out the top six list of most important problems, both at 6%.

• Housing costs - 34%

• Economy (jobs and inflation) - 21%

• Immigration - 9%

• Education - 9%

• Healthcare - 6%

• Environment - 6%

When the voters were asked "if they had the choice," would they pay for homeowners insurance or go without it, 73% of respondents said they would pay for insurance, while 22% said they'd go without it. These numbers "roughly" reflect around the same percentage of respondents who reported owning a home and those who do not.

UNF PORL faculty director and political science professor Michael Binder said in the poll that concern in Florida voters over housing costs and homeowners insurance has seen a "big jump" over the last few years.

"Back in 2022, only 2% of respondents said housing costs were the most important problem, which shot up to 25% in the span of a year, and seems to be continuing on an upward trend," said Binder. "With the high cost of property insurance and growing public concern across the state, it doesn't shock me that over 20% of homeowners said they'd go without it if they had the choice."

With Florida's gubernatorial election a year away, the poll also asked respondents their opinions on the several speculative candidates for the race: Matt Gaetz, Casey DeSantis, Ashley Moody, Byron Donalds and Wilton Sampson.

The poll shows the highest favorability is for Casey DeSantis, with 30% reporting a favorable opinion, while 39% of the voters reported Gaetz unfavorable, the highest percentage among all the "speculative candidates." A majority of respondents said they have never heard of Moody (54%), Donalds (66%) and Simpson (79%).

"Casey DeSantis was the top early pick for potential Republican primary candidates when we asked back in late 2023, albeit with only 22% support," Binder said. "She likely enjoys some favorability by association as Florida's first lady, but most of these potential candidates suffer from a lack of recognition--some suffering more than others. That said, I expect we'll see a few of them become household names by the time the August 2026 primary rolls around."

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