Whose Voices Count? Researcher’s focus asks U.S. territory residents to define their own futures

By Rebecca Cohen

Ford School of Public Policy

Ostfeld points to a similar lack of federal representation for residents in Washington, D.C., and the Freely Associated States, which include the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of Palau and the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

Ostfeld is working with Ph.D. candidate Ignangeli Salinas-Muñiz; Mayra Vélez Serrano and Luis Cámara Fuertes at the University of Puerto Rico; and with community organizations in Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands to build high-quality public opinion data. Their research methodology includes surveys, focus groups, and interviews — gathering data in a transparent, locally grounded way that fosters public trust.

“We don’t go in with preconceived notions,” Ostfeld said. “We started by listening to residents and their understanding of what their futures could look like.”

The early findings reveal a complex relationship with the United States.

“Residents view the relationship with the U.S. as both a lifeline and a threat,” Ostfeld said. “The relationship can bring funding, security and infrastructure. But it can also limit self-governance, drive displacement and turn these communities into targets for foreign aggression — outcomes residents had no role in making.”

Beyond the referendum

Referendums have long been one of the primary ways territorial residents are asked to express preferences about political status. In Puerto Rico, voters have been asked in multiple plebiscites, or direct votes, to weigh options such as statehood, independence and the current territorial arrangement. But referendums can compress complex political futures into a few ballot choices, leaving little room for residents to explain the fears, trade-offs and everyday concerns behind their votes.

“A referendum can tell you what people choose among the provided options,” Ostfeld said. “But it can’t tell you why — the conditions, fears, hopes and trade-offs behind that choice or the future they were actually imagining when they made it.”

Residents see possibilities beyond the traditional status options

In Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, substanial shares express no support for the three primary status options presented, while large majorities are open to stronger economic relationships within the Caribbean and Latin America.

Note: Questions about regional economic relationships differed between Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands and should not be interpreted as directly comparable measures.
Source: Puerto Rico results based on a 2025 weighted survery of 1,266 adult residents; U.S. Virgin Islands results based on a 2025 unweighted survery of 696 adult residents.

The surveys suggest that conventional status options may not capture the full range of futures residents are willing to consider. In Puerto Rico, one-third of respondents did not support statehood, independence or the current territorial status, yet two-thirds supported exploring an economic union with other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

A similar pattern emerged in the U.S. Virgin Islands: 22% of respondents did not support any of the three primary status options presented, while 89% said it was possible for the territory to secure a strong economic future through partnerships with other Caribbean and Latin American countries.

For Ostfeld, these findings point to a distinction between rejecting the choices people are typically offered and lacking ideas about what should replace them. Residents describe possible futures through questions that extend beyond formal political status: whether communities can build sustainable economies; protect land and cultural sites; maintain access to housing, utilities and health care and exercise greater control over development.

“When people don’t choose one of the options we give them, we often interpret that as uncertainty or disengagement,” Ostfeld said. “But it may also mean that the choices we are offering don’t capture the futures they can imagine.”

What the research shows

The first wave of Puerto Rico data shows deep distrust and a sense of constrained power.

Half of residents surveyed said most or all elected officials are corrupt. Sixty-three percent said the government does not address their needs, and 71% said their voices are not heard in government decisions.

At the same time, 72% said Puerto Rico’s government has little or no power to make independent decisions without U.S. federal intervention, and 68% said the federally appointed Fiscal Oversight Board holds more power over local laws than the island’s elected government.

Puerto Ricans report limited political voice and constrained self-government

Percent of adult residents who agree with each statement

Source: Laboratorio Puertorriqueño de Opinión Pública (LabPOP), 2025.
Survey of 1,266 adult residents or Puerto Rico; weighted estomates.

Data from the U.S. Virgin Islands reveal a different kind of democratic disconnect.

Residents are expected to vote in 2027 on whether to ratify a locally drafted constitution. A survey of residents across St. Croix, St. John and St. Thomas found that 65% believe it is important for the territory to ratify its own constitution, yet 63% reported little or no awareness of the ongoing Sixth Constitutional Convention. Only 43% said they were somewhat or very likely to vote in the 2027 referendum.

Unlike states, the U.S. Virgin Islands is governed under a federal statute rather than a locally ratified constitution, making the convention a rare opportunity for residents to shape more of their own governing framework.

“People care about self-government, but many are not connected to the process that is supposed to make it possible,” Ostfeld said.

In Guam, focus groups led by Ostfeld and Salinas-Muñiz have found that residents’ views of political status are shaped by military history and Pacific geopolitics. Some residents see close ties to the U.S. as essential protection from foreign aggression. Others see the same relationship as making Guam more vulnerable, turning the island into a military target while limiting local control over land and development.

“Residents are thinking about survival in a region shaped by superpower conflict,” Ostfeld said.

Additional perspectives will emerge from a survey currently underway.

Envisioning the future

Ostfeld says the focus groups also ask residents to imagine possibilities beyond the political options usually placed on ballots. One Guam focus group participant described that work as a matter of rebuilding political imagination.

“You really need to believe in our human potential and capacity,” the participant said. “I think that’s part of colonization’s casualties, the death of imagination. That’s why it’s so inspiring to hear all the imagination in terms of what we can change and shift for the better. But we have to bet on us being able to do it.”

For Ostfeld, that is the point of the research.

“This is precisely why listening matters,” she said. “Residents have complex, informed views about what comes next. The question is whether the institutions shaping their futures are willing to extend the long-heralded democratic principle of popular sovereignty to all of the people whose lives and futures it governs.”