Regional transit tax pollster: It's a toss-up
Transit tax boosters’ own internal pollster warns the initiative’s small polling lead (54-46) relies on “soft support.” This means the onerous sales tax hike has an extremely narrow track to victory and, if historic trends hold, could be headed off the rails. Research from the Public Policy Institute of California points to four reasons why the race looks to be so close, below.
1. “Yes” support generally sags as election day approaches
“The pollster warned that ‘shoring up soft support will be critical to ensuring success.’”
~Politico CA Playbook
But plans to “shore up” usually end up unfulfilled. CalMatters’ analysis of the PPIC data reveals:
“Support generally sags. The public’s net support for ballot initiatives (that is, how much public support exceeds opposition) declined by an average of about 7 percentage points each month. An equivalent change would be an initiative polling with 53% in support to 47% against in October, but then narrowly losing in November.”
~CalMatters
2. Voters really don’t like tax increases
“Voters have been quicker to sour on measures that tinker with education policy and raise taxes, but more steady on bond measure and tax decreases.”
~CalMatters
3. This is an off-year election
“The biggest drop off in net support for a measure occurred during low-turnout, non-presidential years.”
~CalMatters
4. There’s an emerging “No” campaign
“The vast majority of ballot measures analyzed saw a decline in public support as election day approached.
The most common theory comes down to timing, said Dean Bonner, a survey director at the institute. A new policy proposal may sound good on paper. Then the attack ads and editorializing begins.
‘Wherever a ballot measure campaign starts off, it’s starting off without there being a ‘No’ campaign,’ he said.”
~CalMatters
Read further analysis of the survey data here.
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