How Did so Many City Revenue Measures Pass in this Economy?

The following is a guest column by John Fairbank, principal at the polling firm of Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates.

As reported last week in Michael Coleman’s analysis, the majority of the city revenue measures on Tuesday’s ballot passed, even in the face of an increasingly negative economic climate (which may be the understatement of the year).  Nearly three-quarters (73%) of measures requiring a simple majority vote passed (41 out of 56) and even a majority of measures requiring a two-thirds vote (52%) passed (11 out of 21).  How was this possible?  Shouldn’t voters have felt that this was the absolutely worst time to raise taxes upon themselves?

We at Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates provided public opinion research for more than 70 local finance measures in various capacities, resulting in a win rate of over 95%, and have identified several explanations for their success.  Regardless of the election climate, it is always important to emphasize the key services and programs funded by a city finance measure that resonate most strongly with voters (e.g. police, fire, street and pothole repair, parks, traffic safety, storm drain upgrades, etc.).  However, a more focused analysis of this year’s results points to three key factors unique to this election cycle:

• Planning for high voter turnout by turning out the “right” voters – It appears that by identifying infrequent or new voters likely to participate in the November election and directly reaching out to them, California cities were able to take advantage of the high turnout associated with a  presidential election.

• Addressing economic concerns head-on – Messages that more often served as effective secondary appeals in past elections – local control over revenues and strong oversight and accountability provisions – were resonating more strongly with voters in this electoral environment

• Targeting early voters – With somewhere between 40 and 45 percent of voters casting their ballots early – either by mail or in-person – communications were sent out earlier and tailored specifically to these early voters.

In this week’s posting, I’ll spend some time talking about the first factor -– planning for high voter turnout –- and I’ll address the other factors in upcoming posts.

Planning for High Voter Turnout

Conventional wisdom holds that when turnout goes up, we see higher numbers of Democratic voters, younger voters, and voters of color participating in elections, demographic groups that are by-and-large more supportive of local finance measures.  With more years of experience in this field than I care to admit, I can tell you that this conventional wisdom is basically true – cities should almost always try and place their finance measures on the highest turnout elections possible (recognizing that this isn’t always going to be an option).  While that’s a good start, it’s by no means sufficient to ensure passage. 

During this election cycle, we anticipated an upsurge in infrequent or new voters primarily focused on the presidential election (particularly Obama supporters).  One of our big worries was that these voters would vote for a presidential candidate, the high profile statewide propositions and then skip the rest of the ballot, including local finance measures.  To address this, we conducted survey research early in the process to identify these “surge” voters in each city.  (Though these voters share some common characteristics, they can be slightly different in every community.)  This enabled us to target communications to these specific demographic groups, reminding them that there was an important city or local measure at the bottom of the ballot that needed their attention. 

There is mounting evidence that turnout this year was actually not higher in most areas of the state when compared to the 2004 presidential election.  It appears that Democrats, Latinos, African-Americans, voters ages 18-40, women, renters and infrequent voters more likely to support a local revenue measure comprised a greater share of the electorate compared to 2004 because of the Obama candidacy, but overall turnout did not increase.  By conducting research early in their planning processes, California cities identified these voters and directly reached out to them, enabling them to not just rely on increased turnout due to the presidential election, but also to take advantage of the high turnout among the “right” voters. 

However, we realize that most cities do not have the luxury of waiting for the perfect turnout to occur every four years.  If you are looking at a spring 2009 municipal or special election, your electorate is simply not going to include the same mix of voters we saw this November.  However, the same planning and strategic principals apply – conduct research early in your planning process to identify both the predicted composition of your electorate and which demographic groups are most supportive of your measure.  Lower turnout elections tend to include a higher percentage of voters less inclined to support finance measures, making reaching out to the “right” voters an even more important strategy.

Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll spend more time discussing the remaining two factors – addressing economic concerns head-on and targeting early voters – on CaliforniaCityNew.org.  Feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss our findings in any more detail.

Comments

[Bob Whalen]

There was a recent editorial in the LA Times accusing governmental entities of using taxpayer dollars to engage in "educating" the public. There is something very wrong about taking taxpayer dollars to try to convince the taxpayer to give the government more money, the editorial opined. Such voter identificafion and outreach, discussed in this article is expensive. I am hoping it was not taxpayer dollars which were used in these measures. If it was, that is the origin of why these measures were passed. I would expect the use of taxpayer dollars for these purposes to be challenged in any future campaigns.