Posted on 11/09/2020 9:45:41 AM PST by CheshireTheCat
...It’s not unusual for voters to tell pollsters early in an election cycle that they are undecided on complex ballot initiatives. What was notable was how, in several California initiatives, virtually all those undecideds eventually voted against them, suggesting that voters may simply have been reluctant to tell pollsters how they really intended to vote. Both Prop. 21, which would have expanded local rent control in the Golden State, and Prop. 25, which would have ended cash bail for those awaiting trial, were leading in polls throughout the fall, but with a heavy percentage of voters saying that they hadn’t made up their minds. Prop 21—backed by the California Democratic Party, the state’s nursing union, Black Lives Matter, and the Democratic Socialists of America—garnered opposition from just 27 percent of respondents in one September poll, with an equal number of undecideds. Though opposition to the ballot question started to grow in the fall, nothing in the polling suggested that a decisive 60 percent of voters would say no. Similarly, polls showed Prop. 25, which would have upheld a new state law replacing cash bail with a risk-assessment program for those accused of crimes, in the lead going into the election, with almost a third of voters undecided. In the end, all but a small percentage of those undecideds broke against the ballot question, rebuking their state legislature by repealing the controversial law eliminating cash bail.
State ballot initiatives have become a costly proposition, with supporters and opponents spending some $1 billion this fall. Before leaping into some of these campaigns, advocates typically do polling to see how the questions play among the public. Given how unreliable polling has been this year, future ballot-backers may think twice about throwing good money after bad data.
(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...
Really great to see something from City Journal linked on this forum. It’s an absolutely fantastic public policy publication.
So both initiatives failed to pass?
Rent control across the state. That would be a disaster.
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