Photograph Source: World Economic Forum – CC BY 3.0

Recently, Faunalytics, the animal-welfare research nonprofit, put out a report about how American voters respond to nonhuman policy proposals. I’ve seen activists with views similar to mine despair about the findings on social media, specifically in regards to cultivated meat. Cellular agriculture may or may not take off, but I don’t think the report, in and of itself, is a reason to give up on trying to advance the industry through the electoral process. I should note at the outset I am not a science or political wonk, so take from my thoughts what you will.

The relevant findings of the October 25 report by Zach Wulderk, Sparsha Saha and Allison Troy were as follows. All else being equal, 53.8 percent of voters supported candidates who proposed banning cultivated meat. Meanwhile, 45.1 percent of voters supported increased public investment in cultivated meat. Predictably, conservatives were more hostile to cultivated meat than liberals. Somewhat counterintuitively, however, given demographics of the animal movement, women were more hostile to cultivated meat than men.

Honestly, in my view, these numbers don’t seem so bad, considering the novelty of cultivated meat, conservative demonization of the protein, and what I........

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