It has been an uncommon 12 months for poll measures in California — and that might result in election night time surprises throughout the Golden State.
Paid promoting has plummeted in comparison with current years, and a few of the greatest gamers who sometimes talk with voters have remained largely silent, due partly to an particularly busy negotiating season that resulted in a record number of measures being faraway from the poll forward of the June deadline to qualify.
Collectively, these dynamics imply voters have heard far much less concerning the 10 statewide questions they’re being requested to weigh in on, pointing to the opportunity of some late swings that might ship outcomes removed from what polls have proven.
“I actually do assume that is an uncommon cycle,” stated longtime Sacramento-based ballot-measure strategist Gale Kaufman. “The shortage of natural data, the shortage of individuals paying any consideration in any respect or listening to something in any respect that’s useful to them making a call, is at a document excessive.”
Dave Metz, an Oakland-based associate on the ballot-measure polling powerhouse FM3, stated he sometimes thinks of poll measure leads to three classes.
First are these the place little cash is spent however on which voter opinions are already well-formed. Proposition 3, for instance, would match the invoice: The marketing campaign to take away dormant language about same-sex marriage from the state structure will get broad assist among the many citizens, so its backers haven’t needed to wage a very energetic marketing campaign to assist it.
Second are measures the place a well-funded marketing campaign has emerged to persuade voters and has largely succeeded in doing so. That would embrace the marketing campaign to go Prop 35, which has spent $50 million to make the case for a everlasting tax on sure well being care plans to fund Medi-Cal.
After which there are these the place the citizens seems confused or doesn’t have sturdy views, and the place little has been spent to form them. Take into consideration Prop 6: The constitutional modification to ban involuntary servitude has no opposition, however has struggled to elucidate the measure to voters with restricted sources.
“Those the place it’s a lot tougher to attract a line between the polling and the ultimate conclusion are sophisticated topics the place voters don’t essentially have a tough and quick preliminary notion and there aren’t big campaigns on both facet which are clearing that up for voters,” stated Metz, whose agency is polling for 4 totally different statewide ballot-measure campaigns this fall.
This 12 months, quite a lot of measures — Prop 6, but in addition Prop 5 and Prop 32 — would possible match into that third class. With little or no campaigning and never a lot new info reaching voters, it’s robust to inform precisely the place issues stand and whether or not the handful of pre-election polls on these measures are right.
“Poll measures are campaigns to outline points in your phrases. On points the place voters have competing values or attitudes or beliefs, the definition actually issues,” stated ballot-measure specialist Ned Wigglesworth. “Absent sturdy campaigns to outline the problems, it may be troublesome to understand how voters will finally stability these competing concerns.”
“Those the place it’s a lot tougher to attract a line between the polling and the ultimate conclusion are sophisticated topics the place voters don’t essentially have a tough and quick preliminary notion and there aren’t big campaigns on both facet which are clearing that up for voters,” stated Metz.
Metz and others energetic within the ballot-measures world additionally talked about an extra factor of uncertainty this time round: It’s the primary 12 months through which a measure’s supporters and opponents are listed on the poll itself, together with the poll title and label and the fiscal affect abstract from the Legislative Analyst’s Workplace.
For undecided voters who’ve paid little consideration to the measures earlier than casting their vote, these names could play an outsize position of their choice — notably if a measure has no supporters or opponents listed. (Props 6 and 35 don’t have any listed opponents, and Prop 32 has no listed supporters.)
“If I’m a type of late-deciding voters, I have never even learn the voter handbook and I am trying on the poll and I see there are all these teams for it however nobody on the opposite facet,” stated Metz. “Is that going to tip the undecideds in a extra systematic manner?”
Like this content material? Take into account signing up for POLITICO’s California Playbook PM publication.
