Methodology
How we get these numbers.
We lead with the bias-adjusted numbers, and we make no apology for it. Here is exactly how we get them, and why they are the honest ones. Every step is public and checkable.
The floor everyone quotes
In February 2024, YouGov, one of the largest polling firms in the world, ran its daily survey of 35,307 American adults and asked a simple question: would you support your state seceding from the US. The answers made headlines. Alaska topped the list at 36 percent. Texas came in at 31. Nine states hit 25 percent or higher, and another fifteen sat between 20 and 24.
Those are real numbers from a serious pollster. But they are the floor, not the ceiling. The survey asked an abstract question, handed people a “not sure” escape hatch, and never mentioned that independence would be peaceful. That is not the question a ballot asks.
Same pollster, same month, two questions. YouGov's daily survey put California at 29%. The Independent California Institute's YouGov poll put it at 58%.
The gap the honest question opens up, confirmed in two states. That is the entire adjustment we apply.
The proof: one pollster, two answers
Days after that daily survey, the Independent California Institute commissioned its own poll from the exact same firm, YouGov, in the exact same month. California came back at 58 percent support for leaving the union, against YouGov’s own 29. A thirty-point swing, from one pollster, on one subject, in one month.
The only thing that changed was the question. The Institute’s poll did three things differently:
- It dropped the “not sure” option and forced a choice, the way a ballot forces a choice.
- It asked about peaceful secession, not the vague word that makes people picture conflict.
- It asked whether people would be better off out than in, which is the actual decision.
Texas says the same thing. In 2022, SurveyUSA asked Texans about peaceful secession and got 66 percent of likely voters, against YouGov’s 31. Two states, two pollsters, one result: ask it the way a vote asks it, and support runs about thirty points higher.
The adjustment
So we add thirty points to every state’s YouGov number. That is the whole adjustment. No models, no weighting sleight of hand, just the gap that two natural experiments proved is real. A referendum is binary, it is peaceful, and it is worded like a decision. Texas already wrote its wording into law: the Texas Independence Referendum Act asks whether the state should “reassert its status as an independent nation.” That is the question that counts, and it is not the one the pollsters asked.
What that shows
States that reach a majority once the question is asked the way a ballot asks. On a ballot tomorrow, they win.
States within striking distance: above 40%, inside ten points of a majority, and still climbing.
Corrected, half the country is already at a majority, and the other half is not far behind.
Why 40 percent is already a winning hand
Look at Brexit. Averaged year by year from 2013 to 2016, support for “Leave” never once crossed 42 percent. It won. On the day, the people the pollsters never reached, the ones who kept their answer to themselves, walked into the booth and voted. Forty percent at the start of a referendum is not a long shot. It is a strong opening hand, and the side fighting to keep you knows it.
We show our work
We could lead with the smaller, safer number and let people assume the worst. We do not. The bias-adjusted number is the honest one, because it measures the decision people will actually be asked to make. The full walk-through is in the podcast below, and every source is named.
Sources: YouGov daily survey (February 2024, n=35,307); Independent California Institute and YouGov (February 2024); SurveyUSA (2022). Full analysis: “Will Your State Leave In A National Divorce?”, the Texas News podcast.