I see one piece of important analysis is missing: the money differential
Campaigns that lost in 2024 (TLDR: 4 of the 5 were outspent)
No on Measure J (California) outspent the yes campaign 8 to 1 (according to the yes campaign). Measure J is losing by 70 percentage points with 75% of the vote reported.
As of Sept 30: in favor of Initiatives 308 & 309 (Colorado) spent $244,000; Hands off my Hat (this biggest group opposing 308 and which also opposes 309) spent $368,000. 308 lost by 16 percentage points.
As of Nov 4: proponents of Iniaitive 309 spent $0.6 million whilst opponents spent $3.8 million. 309 lost by 30 percentage points.
Proposition 127 (Colorado) had $2.3 million spent against it and had $2.8 million spent for it. It lost by 10 percentage points.
Yes on Amendment 2 (Florida) outspent the opposition $1.1 million to $0.1 million. It won by 34 percentage points.
Previous campaigns that won (TLDR: 0 of the 3 were outspent)
Advocates for Proposition 12 (California, 2018) outspent opponents $12.5 million to $0.3 million. It won by 26 percentage points.
Advocates for Question 3 (Massachusetts, 2016) outspent opponents $2.7 million to $0.3 million. It won by 55 percentage points.
Advocates for Proposition 2 (California, 2008) donated $10.6 million to $8.9 million donated by its opponents. It won by 26 percentage points.
The correlation between money spent/outspending your opponent is clear.
This is interesting and exactly the sort of consideration I was worried my anecdote-based feelings could miss. A bit of googling suggests to me that there is some evidence in favor of increased spending correlating with significant changes in ballot measure outcomes (I’ve heard it’s more uncertain with electoral politics).
If it’s true that the ballot initiative failures were just a funding issue rather that a broader reflection of the electorate’s willingness to support, I think that’d be a big deal, and maybe an argument in favor of investing more in this work.
Also, side note — I’m really surprised that there was such weak opposition to Prop 12, especially given the costs to industry and the fight it’s put up since then. It makes me wonder of Ballotopedia missed anything here.
I’m of the opinion EAs are underutilizing ballot/voter initiatives. This is something I plan on writing up on the Forum at some point. (If anyone is interested in exploring voter initiatives as an intervention, please reach out)
The veto of SB 1047 should also raise the salience of ballot initiatives in EA.
I think one of the most compelling cases is using voter initiatives for political system reform.
The short argument is that a large portion of EA has bought into policy as high EV because the high-leverage impact more than compensates for the hits-based nature of it. However, upstream of policy is politics. Generally, the problem is not a lack of solutions but a lack of political will. Yet, even upstream of politics is the political system which creates the selection effects for who gets into office and the incentives that act on them while in office.
Political system reform, while more challenging to quantify, theoretically has very very very high ROI because you are addressing the coefficient of a coefficient acting on policy.
However, legislators have proven resistant to changing the rules of how they got to power. Hence, prominent people/organizations in the money-in-politics and electoral reform space have opted to use ballot initiatives to circumvent the legislature.
In the US context, I am curious how tractable mail-in ballot reform is. This was passed in Arizona in 1991 and Colorado in 2013, although I’m unsure what the progress looks like at a large scale.
It seems plausible that J/309/etc advocates knew at some point that the initiatives were very unlikely to pass, and that low financial investment from that juncture onward was thus more a consequence of low public support earlier in the campaign season more than a cause of low public support.
Does anyone have information that could evaluate that possibility, such as longitudinal records of spending and polling outcomes?
Yes, we did polling when we were preparing for Measure J. We paid a professional polling service (phone and texting polls) and also collected data in face-to-face interviews with voters in Sonoma County. We also used Survey Monkey to do a poll. All 3 polling methods that we used before commencing Measure J showed that more than 50% of voters in Sonoma County would vote Yes on Measure J. That’s why we decided to even proceed with Measure J.
I see one piece of important analysis is missing: the money differential
Campaigns that lost in 2024 (TLDR: 4 of the 5 were outspent)
No on Measure J (California) outspent the yes campaign 8 to 1 (according to the yes campaign). Measure J is losing by 70 percentage points with 75% of the vote reported.
As of Sept 30: in favor of Initiatives 308 & 309 (Colorado) spent $244,000; Hands off my Hat (this biggest group opposing 308 and which also opposes 309) spent $368,000. 308 lost by 16 percentage points.
As of Nov 4: proponents of Iniaitive 309 spent $0.6 million whilst opponents spent $3.8 million. 309 lost by 30 percentage points.
Proposition 127 (Colorado) had $2.3 million spent against it and had $2.8 million spent for it. It lost by 10 percentage points.
Yes on Amendment 2 (Florida) outspent the opposition $1.1 million to $0.1 million. It won by 34 percentage points.
Previous campaigns that won (TLDR: 0 of the 3 were outspent)
Advocates for Proposition 12 (California, 2018) outspent opponents $12.5 million to $0.3 million. It won by 26 percentage points.
Advocates for Question 3 (Massachusetts, 2016) outspent opponents $2.7 million to $0.3 million. It won by 55 percentage points.
Advocates for Proposition 2 (California, 2008) donated $10.6 million to $8.9 million donated by its opponents. It won by 26 percentage points.
The correlation between money spent/outspending your opponent is clear.
This is interesting and exactly the sort of consideration I was worried my anecdote-based feelings could miss. A bit of googling suggests to me that there is some evidence in favor of increased spending correlating with significant changes in ballot measure outcomes (I’ve heard it’s more uncertain with electoral politics).
If it’s true that the ballot initiative failures were just a funding issue rather that a broader reflection of the electorate’s willingness to support, I think that’d be a big deal, and maybe an argument in favor of investing more in this work.
Also, side note — I’m really surprised that there was such weak opposition to Prop 12, especially given the costs to industry and the fight it’s put up since then. It makes me wonder of Ballotopedia missed anything here.
I’m of the opinion EAs are underutilizing ballot/voter initiatives. This is something I plan on writing up on the Forum at some point. (If anyone is interested in exploring voter initiatives as an intervention, please reach out)
The veto of SB 1047 should also raise the salience of ballot initiatives in EA.
I think one of the most compelling cases is using voter initiatives for political system reform.
The short argument is that a large portion of EA has bought into policy as high EV because the high-leverage impact more than compensates for the hits-based nature of it. However, upstream of policy is politics. Generally, the problem is not a lack of solutions but a lack of political will. Yet, even upstream of politics is the political system which creates the selection effects for who gets into office and the incentives that act on them while in office.
Political system reform, while more challenging to quantify, theoretically has very very very high ROI because you are addressing the coefficient of a coefficient acting on policy.
However, legislators have proven resistant to changing the rules of how they got to power. Hence, prominent people/organizations in the money-in-politics and electoral reform space have opted to use ballot initiatives to circumvent the legislature.
In the US context, I am curious how tractable mail-in ballot reform is. This was passed in Arizona in 1991 and Colorado in 2013, although I’m unsure what the progress looks like at a large scale.
It seems plausible that J/309/etc advocates knew at some point that the initiatives were very unlikely to pass, and that low financial investment from that juncture onward was thus more a consequence of low public support earlier in the campaign season more than a cause of low public support.
Does anyone have information that could evaluate that possibility, such as longitudinal records of spending and polling outcomes?
Yes, we did polling when we were preparing for Measure J. We paid a professional polling service (phone and texting polls) and also collected data in face-to-face interviews with voters in Sonoma County. We also used Survey Monkey to do a poll. All 3 polling methods that we used before commencing Measure J showed that more than 50% of voters in Sonoma County would vote Yes on Measure J. That’s why we decided to even proceed with Measure J.