GOP Rep. Sam Garrison, in line to be the next Fla. House speaker, said he was glad Newsom acknowledged ‘the damage chronic homelessness does to communities and businesses.’

Top Florida Republicans, including a leading lawmaker and governor’s office staff, are applauding Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom for his executive order to remove homeless encampments across the Golden State.

“I’m glad to see Governor Newsom finally accept reality and acknowledge the damage chronic homelessness does to communities and businesses,” said state Rep. Sam Garrison, R-Fleming Island, in a statement.

Garrison, who is in line to be Florida House speaker in 2026-28, thanked Gov. Ron DeSantis for signing “Unauthorized Public Camping and Public Sleeping” (HB 1365), which prohibits local municipalities from allowing people to camp or sleep on public property.

“The Free State of Florida rejects the siren song of comfortable inaction and instead chooses to lead the way,” Garrison added.

The order requires state departments and agencies in California to address encampments on state property. Notices to vacate must be posted at least 48 hours in advance, and personal property will be bagged, tagged and stored for at least 60 days, according to the executive order.

“No more excuses. We’ve provided the time. We’ve provided the funds. Now it’s time for locals to do their job,” Newsom wrote in a post on X.

California’s move to ban homeless encampments comes after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in late June it’s not “cruel and unusual” to fine and jail people for being camping and living in public spaces.

DeSantis spokesman Bryan Griffin urged California to make the executive order a state law. “Keep following the Florida model,” he posted on X.

Christina Pushaw, the special projects director for DeSantis’ communications team, wrote in a social post that she was doubtful Newsom could enforce his executive order.

“I do hope California is able to clean up the homeless encampments because they’re squalid, dangerous, and should not exist in a civilized society. However, as with anything Newsom says, I’ll believe it when I see it,” she wrote.

As previously reported, the deadline to comply with Florida’s new anti-camping law is drawing near, and local municipalities are scrambling to comply.

In March, the City of Orlando was looking at facilities for an emergency overnight shelter, said spokesperson Ashley Papagni.

And the Tampa Bay Times recently reported Pinellas County law enforcement agencies have started to track the location and number of homeless people who sleep outside.

DeSantis has touted the state’s anti-camping law as the “Florida Model,” a way to keep the state from looking like San Francisco, a city that he had previously said “collapsed because of leftist policies.”

DeSantis and Newsom have a fierce rivalry, even debating each other last year on Fox News. Newsom has criticized DeSantis over abortion and immigration, and DeSantis has consistently used California as an example of what Florida isn’t.

“We’re basically saying in the state of Florida, a municipality or county is just simply not allowed to embrace San Francisco-style policies,” DeSantis said in March. “You can make other choices, but you can’t make that choice. Why? Because every time that choice has been made, the result has been destructive.”

In 2023, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) counted 18,815 year-round shelter beds in emergency, safe haven and transitional housing in Florida. That same year, the state had 30,756 people experiencing homelessness, with 15,482 people unsheltered.

In 2023, the Annual Homelessness Assessment Report to Congress by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development found Hardee, Hendry and Highlands counties had the second-highest rate of homelessness in the nation.

Ana Goñi-Lessan, state watchdog reporter for the USA TODAY Network – Florida, can be reached at agonilessan@gannett.com.

How This Poll Was Conducted

Here are the key things to know about this Times/Siena poll:

• We spoke with 1,142 registered voters across the country from July 22 to 24, 2024.

• Times/Siena polls are conducted by telephone, using live interviewers, in both English and Spanish. About 96 percent of respondents were contacted on a cellphone for this poll.

• Voters are selected for the survey from a list of registered voters. The list contains information on the demographic characteristics of every registered voter, allowing us to make sure we reach the right number of voters of each party, race and region. For this poll, we placed more than 140,000 calls to nearly 54,000 voters.

• To further ensure that the results reflect the entire voting population, not just those willing to take a poll, we give more weight to respondents from demographic groups that are underrepresented among survey respondents, like people without a college degree. You can see more information about the characteristics of our respondents and the weighted sample at the bottom of the page, under “Composition of the Sample.”

• The poll’s margin of sampling error among registered voters is plus or minus 3.3 percentage points. In theory, this means that the results should reflect the views of the overall population most of the time, though many other challenges create additional sources of error. When computing the difference between two values — such as a candidate’s lead in a race — the margin of error is twice as large.

If you want to read more about how and why we conduct our polls, you can see answers to frequently asked questions and submit your own questions here.

Full Methodology

The New York Times/Siena College poll of 1,142 registered voters nationwide, including 1,004 who completed the full survey, was conducted in English and Spanish on cellular and landline telephones from July 22 to 24, 2024. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.3 percentage points for registered voters and plus or minus 3.4 percentage points for the likely electorate. Among those who completed the full survey, the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points for registered voters and plus or minus 3.7 percentage points for the likely electorate.

Sample

The survey is a response rate-adjusted stratified sample of registered voters on the L2 voter file. The sample was selected by The New York Times in multiple steps to account for differential telephone coverage, nonresponse and significant variation in the productivity of telephone numbers by state.

First, records were selected by state. To adjust for noncoverage bias, the L2 voter file was stratified by statehouse district, party, race, gender, marital status, household size, turnout history, age and home ownership. The proportion of registrants with a telephone number and the mean expected response rate were calculated for each stratum. The mean expected response rate was based on a model of unit nonresponse in prior Times/Siena surveys. The initial selection weight was equal to the reciprocal of a stratum’s mean telephone coverage and modeled response rate. For respondents with multiple telephone numbers on the L2 file, the number with the highest modeled response rate was selected.

Second, state records were selected for the national sample. The number of records selected by state was based on a model of unit nonresponse in prior Times/Siena national surveys as a function of state, telephone number quality and other demographic and political characteristics. The state’s share of records was equal to the reciprocal of the mean response rate of the state’s records, divided by the national sum of the weights.

Fielding

The sample was stratified according to political party, race and region and fielded by the Siena College Research Institute, with additional field work by ReconMR, the Public Opinion Research Laboratory at the University of North Florida, the Institute of Policy and Opinion Research at Roanoke College and the Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research at Winthrop University in South Carolina. Interviewers asked for the person named on the voter file and ended the interview if the intended respondent was not available. Overall, 96 percent of respondents were reached on a cellular telephone.

The instrument was translated into Spanish by ReconMR. Bilingual interviewers began the interview in English and were instructed to follow the lead of the respondent in determining whether to conduct the survey in English or Spanish. Monolingual Spanish-speaking respondents who were initially contacted by English-speaking interviewers were recontacted by Spanish-speaking interviewers. Overall, 13 percent of interviews among self-reported Hispanics were conducted in Spanish, including 20 percent of weighted interviews.

An interview was determined to be complete for the purposes of inclusion in the ballot test question if the respondent did not drop out of the survey by the Biden job approval question — and answered at least one of the age, education, race or presidential election ballot test questions.

Weighting — registered voters

The survey was weighted by The Times using the R survey package in multiple steps.

First, the sample was adjusted for unequal probability of selection by stratum.

Second, the sample was weighted to match voter file-based parameters for the characteristics of registered voters.

The following targets were used:

• Party (party registration if available in the state, else classification based on participation in partisan primaries if available in the state, else classification based on a model of vote choice in prior Times/Siena polls) by whether the respondent’s race is modeled as white or nonwhite (L2 model)

• Age (Self-reported age, or voter file age if the respondent refuses) by gender (L2)

• Race or ethnicity (L2 model)

• Education (four categories of self-reported education level, weighted to match NYT-based targets derived from Times/Siena polls, census data and the L2 voter file)

• White/non-white race by college or non-college educational attainment (L2 model of race weighted to match NYT-based targets for self-reported education)

• Marital status (L2 model)

• Home ownership (L2 model)

• National region (NYT classifications by state)

• Turnout history (NYT classifications based on L2 data)

• Method of voting in the 2020 elections (NYT classifications based on L2 data)

• Metropolitan status (2013 NCHS Urban-Rural Classification Scheme for Counties)

• Census tract educational attainment

Finally, the sample of respondents who completed all questions in the survey was weighted identically, as well as to the result for the general election horse race question (including leaners) on the full sample.

Weighting — likely electorate

The survey was weighted by The Times using the R survey package in multiple steps.

First, the samples were adjusted for unequal probability of selection by stratum.

Second, the first-stage weight was adjusted to account for the probability that a registrant would vote in the 2024 election, based on a model of turnout in the 2020 election.

Third, the sample was weighted to match targets for the composition of the likely electorate. The targets for the composition of the likely electorate were derived by aggregating the individual-level turnout estimates described in the previous step for registrants on the L2 voter file. The categories used in weighting were the same as those previously mentioned for registered voters.

Fourth, the initial likely electorate weight was adjusted to incorporate self-reported intention to vote. Four-fifths of the final probability that a registrant would vote in the 2024 election was based on their ex ante modeled turnout score and one-fifth based on their self-reported intentions, based on prior Times/Siena polls, including a penalty to account for the tendency of survey respondents to turn out at higher rates than nonrespondents. The final likely electorate weight was equal to the modeled electorate rake weight, multiplied by the final turnout probability and divided by the ex ante modeled turnout probability.

Finally, the sample of respondents who completed all questions in the survey was weighted identically, as well as to the result for the general election horse race question (including leaners) on the full sample.

The margin of error accounts for the survey’s design effect, a measure of the loss of statistical power due to survey design and weighting. The design effect for the full sample is 1.27 for registered voters and 1.40 for the likely electorate. The design effect for the sample of completed interviews is 1.29 for registered voters and 1.43 for the likely electorate.

Historically, The Times/Siena Poll’s error at the 95th percentile has been plus or minus 5.1 percentage points in surveys taken over the final three weeks before an election. Real-world error includes sources of error beyond sampling error, such as nonresponse bias, coverage error, late shifts among undecided voters and error in estimating the composition of the electorate.

In an unofficial video doing the rounds on TikTok, a beaming Kamala Harris jives through the street with school children decked out in a glittery LGBT pride jacket while holding an umbrella. The clip then cuts to images of Donald Trump with notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — all set to a diss track by rapper Kendrick Lamar.

In the four days since Harris became the lead candidate to replace Joe Biden as Democratic presidential nominee, the internet has exploded with memes of the US vice-president giggling, dancing and telling zany stories.

On platforms such as TikTok and X, Gen Z users are creating and sharing content featuring the vice-president, with added colours and electro beats, and spliced with other niche pop culture references.

Democratic strategists say the positive memes are part of a new, youth-led wave of enthusiasm for the party, which Biden, the oldest main party candidate in America’s history, failed to muster.

Although Biden won 59 per cent of voters aged 18-29 in 2020, a YouGov/Yahoo news poll taken before he withdrew from November’s election showed his support had dropped to 43 per cent. Trump’s rating in the same age group was 31 per cent.

“Young voters will be one of the arteries needed to make sure this campaign is alive and well,” said Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist. “I certainly think we’re seeing energy, interest and participation that we had not seen before.”

Some of the most popular memes describe Harris as a “brat” — a reference to pop singer Charli XCX’s hit summer album that Gen Zers across the US and Europe are having to explain to their elders.

Far from being an insult, the singer said it refers to “that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes”.

After Charli XCX’s post about Harris went viral, the vice-president’s campaign adopted Brat trappings, changing the colour and font of its X account to those of the singer’s album, an in-joke that has resonated with Gen Zers.

An analysis of Harris’s popularity on TikTok shows a recent leap in the use of #kamalaharris on the video platform, with mentions going up 455 per cent in the past 30 days.

Her campaign has been quick to lean into the online buzz, by making memes referencing XCX and other artists popular with Gen Z, like Chappell Roan.

Part of Harris’s appeal is her relative youth and historic status as the first main party Black and Asian-American female presidential candidate. But she has also tapped into Gen Z’s irreverent and obscure brand of online humour.

In another viral clip Harris shares an anecdote about her mother admonishing young people: “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”

“In an alternative universe we would see the coconut tree clip and think it’s sort of an incoherent phrase — like I don’t exactly know what she’s talking about, but because of that it’s funny,” said Haley Ellant, a 20-year-old junior at Bernard College.

“We don’t know if she can beat Trump but Gen Z is kind of rallying behind her, because there’s not much else we can do and her personality fits our humour.”

There is already some evidence that the online enthusiasm could translate into tangible support.

In the 48 hours after Biden withdrew from the race, Vote.org, a voter registration non-profit, said it registered 40,000 new voters, 83 per cent of whom were aged 18-34.

Gen Z political advocacy group Voters of Tomorrow said that it had seen more chapter sign-ups since Harris kicked off her campaign than in the previous two months combined, and its political action committee had its best fundraising day in its history on Sunday, raising nearly $125,000 from grassroots donors.

“That money rolling in the door is a big deal. It costs us about $4.77 to register one voter, so that’s a whole lot of new young voters that we can register,” said Marianna Pecora, Voters of Tomorrow’s director of communications.

Harris is also seen as being to Biden’s left on some crucial policy issues that appeal to young voters, such as climate change, student debt forgiveness and the war in Gaza, as well as having being the administration’s standard bearer on reproductive rights.

“I think she should obviously claim credit for the foundation Joe Biden laid,” said Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, a progressive advocacy group. “But she would do well to take it a step further and get to the root causes of some of these issues.”

But while Harris is enjoying a newfound popularity on social media platforms, engagement data shows that Trump’s numbers still dwarf those of the Democratic vice-president. 

Despite Trump posting only five TikToks to date, their viewership ranges from 3mn-164mn, far above the Democrat’s average of 330,000 views per post.

Similarly, on Instagram Harris posts more often across her three accounts but Trump receives more engagement.

The internet has also been flooded by racist posts about Harris. One, which harks back to birther conspiracies about Barack Obama, says that because her parents were immigrants, she is not a “natural born citizen” and ineligible to hold the office of president.

Another depicts a T-shirt with a sexually explicit edited photo of the Harris, reading “Cumala”.

There are also signs that Harris’s ‘memeability’ appeal to Gen Z may be off-putting to older voters.

“On the one hand they now have a candidate who can walk across the stage and complete a sentence,” said Terry Nelson, a Republican strategist. “On the other side she has a reputation for a word-salad speech pattern.

“Right now you have a rush of excitement about her candidacy — that may last for three months, it may not.”

Data visualisation by Peter Andringa and Sam Learner