LabPOP survey finds 32% of Puerto Rico residents support statehood

The 2025 resident survey and the 2024 plebiscite measured different populations, producing statehood figures of 32% and 58.6%.

The Puerto Rican Public Opinion Lab—a University of Michigan and University of Puerto Rico partnership—surveyed 1,266 adult residents between April 26 and November 23, 2025. It found 32% supported statehood, 31% opposed it and 37% neither supported nor opposed it.

What else the survey found:

42% identified with no political party, nearly twice the 22% aligned with the pro-statehood Partido Nuevo Progresista.
72% said Puerto Rico’s government has little or no power to make independent decisions without federal intervention.
68% said the federally appointed Fiscal Oversight Board has more power over Puerto Rico’s laws than its elected government.

ContextWhy the numbers differ LabPOP weighted its survey to all adult Puerto Rico residents, including voters and non-voters. The 2024 plebiscite counted completed ballots from people who voted. The 32% and 58.6% figures therefore have different denominators; the gap is descriptive, not evidence that support fell by 26.6 points. How reliable is LabPOP? This was a stratified probability sample of households across Puerto Rico, not an opt-in internet poll. LabPOP used a three-stage area-probability design, surveyed people in person, by telephone and on internet-connected devices, then weighted responses for selection probability and nonresponse. A simple random sample of 1,266 would have a margin of sampling error of about ±2.8 percentage points at the 95% confidence level; the report says the actual margin varies because of the complex design. Its 19.2% response rate remains a limitation: weighting can reduce nonresponse bias, but cannot prove that respondents and nonrespondents held identical views.