State of Cascadia 2020

The State of Cascadia is the only ongoing survey of supporters of the Cascadia movement.

Each year we ask Cascadians and supporters of the Cascadian movement to share about themselves and their current thoughts, fears, hopes, and wants for Cascadia. Then, we crunch the data in order to better understand who is supporting Cascadia and how we can better address their evolving needs.

Although this data is merely a sample of Cascadian supporters, it’s a great way to get keep on the pulse of relevant Cascadian interests. And, it serves as a reminder of Cascadia’s increasingly diverse pool of support, both within our bioregion and internationally.

top take-aways:

AN INDEPENDENT CASCADIA:

  • 95% would support a referendum for Cascadian independence

  • 87% think independence is as likely or more likely than this time last year

  • 94% think the movement has grown or stayed steady in the last year

WHO SUPPORTS THE MOVEMENT?

  • 51% of supporters were born outside of the bioregion

  • 86% live here right now

HOW DID THEY FIRST HEAR ABOUT CASCADIA?

  • 22% learned of Cascadia through social media or the internet

  • 21% heard about it from friend, family member, or an acquaintance

  • 21% were introduced to Cascadia through the news, an event, documentaries, or through literature like Ecotopia

  • 12% got interested in Cascadia after seeing the Doug flag

  • 8% first heard about Cascadia through academia or within an educational atmosphere

  • 3.5% got interested in Cascadia because of a sticker

Data on hot button issues:

“Are all Cascadians white? Are there any conservative Cascadians? Are all Cascadians secessionists? Do Cascadians care about First Nations issues?”

If you’ve been involved with the Cascadian movement for a while, it’s likely that you’ve had to answer pointed questions or encountered someone who has gotten the wrong idea about Cascadia. We find data to be a powerful way to address these issues.

We acknowledge that there’s a certain amount of privilege that comes with being able to answer the State of Cascadia survey: the time to do it uninterrupted, the able-ism needed to complete it, and being able to answer succinctly about one’s self such as gender, ethnicity, and political views. We also acknowledge that because of our vision for an autonomous and independent Cascadia, our survey-takers are likely to align to those views.

However, even factoring for those elements, we’re happy to provide some data that might help if you’re ever faced with inaccurate perceptions of Cascadia and the Cascadia movement.

Ethnicity of Surveyed Cascadians

21.3% of respondents had non-white or mixed ethnic backgrounds:

  • 8% of State of Cascadia 2020 respondents reported having a mixed ethnic background

  • 3.3% reported being Hispanic/Latinx

  • 3% reported being Indigenous/Native

  • 2.2% had Jewish heritage

  • 1.8% said they were of Eastern European decent (vs. mainstream European, Scandanavian, or Nordic decent)

  • 1.5% of respondents said they were Black

  • 1.5% were ethnically Asian

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Cascadia’s population is majority white, with Washington being 76% and Oregon being 86.8% non-mixed white and with BC having similar statistics. The same goes for our survey respondents: 73% reported being white, caucasian or European (meaning German, French, Irish, or other “mainstream” European ethnicities and excluding Eastern Europeans).

The political labels of Cascadians

While much of the United States looks at Cascadia and quickly labels it Liberal AF, not all Cascadians are so quick to use such an amorphous term. Liberal compared to what?

We allow any answers to be input into this section of the State of Cascadia survey – and boy, do we get a wide variety of answers! We do our best to tally them categorically. But what is always obvious to us is the amazing diversity of ways that Cascadians describe themselves politically, from Pinko Commie to Purple to Independent Pro-gun Socialist Transhumanist to Apolitical Earthling.

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All in all, we divided the answers into 50 different categories based on self-selected word usage and context.

Here’s some data from outside of the more popular “Democratic Socialist,” “Liberal,” “Left,” and “Progressive” labels:

  • 12% of State of Cascadia 2020 respondents labelled themselves as Independent

  • 8.4% are Anarchists

  • 9.7% called themselves Centerists or Moderates

  • We had almost equal amounts of Libertarians and Democrats respond at 5.8% and 5.5% respectively (excludes Democratic Socialists, which are their own category)

  • 3.6% claimed to be Conservatives or Right

  • 3.6% said they were apolitical, non-partisan, non-affiliated, or refused labels (this does not include those who chose not to answer at all)

  • 1.5% specifically called out being pro-gun or pro-2nd amendment, rega
    rdless of any other label they chose to use

  • Less than 1% (0.73%, to be exact) are monarchists

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Having a final count of 50 different categories was a 51% decrease from last year’s data, which was divided into 97 unique categories. We saw slightly less diversity in the answers we received this year, and noted some key differences such as less “anti-facists” and more “anarchists,” and no use of the word “feminist” (which was mentioned enough to become one of our categories in 2019).

Are all Cascadians secessionists?

What about first nations support?

Digging into the data:

In this section, we’ll

Who answered the survey?

This year, we surveyed 284 people

  

It all started when…

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