Florida is experiencing rapid change—and voters across Collier County are feeling the impact in their daily lives. From rising costs to environmental risks, several key trends are driving the concerns of our community.

The dominant forces shaping voter concerns in Collier County and Florida are:

• Economic pressures on everyday cost of living – caused by national and international events, including the current Iran War and its significant impact on the cost of energy and petrochemicals
• Housing affordability and property insurance – due to insufficient building of non-luxury homes relative to population growth
• Climate and storm risk – this underlined by major hurricane storms in recent years and the significant property damage incurred
• Inadequate roads, schools and basic infrastructure – driven further by strong population growth as a result of the effects in Northern states of COVID in 2019 and the comparatively lower tax environment of Florida
• Healthcare access and rising costs – this worsened by recent GOP policies and the Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed by the Trump administration and the GOP majority Congress, which cut both healthcare programs like Medicaid and cost subsidies made available by the Affordable Care Act.
• Public education and the use of culture wars – which has included restricting approved curriculum subjects, prohibited the teaching of Black history, and banned many books in school classrooms and libraries.
• Reproductive freedom / abortion – this issue is particularly important to women and younger voters
• Attacks on freedom of speech and voting rights – an issue where voters have growing concerns for the coming elections (midterm and presidential) given aggressive tactics and measures being taken and proposed by GOP leadership in Florida and several other states. This includes President Trump’s ongoing statements,  executive actions, and threats against the judicial system, media and the impartiality of established electoral processes across the country.

International events, national security and U.S. foreign policy have also become major issues as the Trump administration has entered into increased confrontation with its longstanding allies in Europe and the Americas. The Trump administration has ended the global leadership position of the United States by rejecting its prior strong advocacy of moral leadership and international rules of order as well as its withdrawal from many important international organizations. This is evidenced with its weakening support of Ukraine, the intervention in Venezuela, and its initiation, with Israel, of the Iran War.