A Murder of Cows

The narrow (52.4% to 47.6%) passage of Proposition 8 is a real heartbreaker. I was cautiously optimistic about it, but seeing it pass, in a very liberal state, in a high-turnout election, where a lot of liberals felt particularly motivated to vote, is certainly a little demoralizing. A number of thoughts about this are running through my head, both relating to my line of work (political polling and demographics) and not.

• First of all, the involvement of the Mormon Church was a major problem. Not many Californians are themselves Mormons, but the church commands an almost bottomless pit of money, and having decided this was their fight, they were able to move literally tens of millions of dollars around. This enabled the campaign to reach not just the conservative parts of the state, but to make themselves highly visible in the state’s most liberal (and expensive) media markets. In Los Angeles County, they held the No vote to 49.6%. This was possible because of huge sums of money to completely saturate TV and radio.
• Religion is a huge factor. People who attend religious services every week voted yes on 8 by a whopping 82%-18%. People who never attend religious services voted no on 8 by 83%-17%. So be sure to hug an atheist today. Religion is deeply at the core of the marriage issue, and it’s clear people infuse the term “marriage” with a lot of very specific religious ideas.
• The Yes on 8 campaign was extremely successful among black voters. According to CNN’s exit poll, 75% of black women in California voted yes on 8. 70% of black people overall voted against it. This was a significant factor in Prop 8’s victory, both because of high black turnout to vote for Obama, and because the standard model for winning liberal campaigns in California usually involves big margins in traditionally liberal counties, including those with large black populations. Alameda County (where Oakland and Berkeley are located) is usually the most liberal county in the state. Yet 38% of its voters voted yes on 8, compared to other liberal counties with low black populations, like Marin (25% voting yes) and San Francisco (24% voting yes).
• Older voters voted for Prop 8 by a significant margin. 61% of voters over 65 voted yes on 8, while only 39% of voters under 30 did. This is a self-correcting problem over time as young people replace old people through demographic churn. At the same time, the Obama campaign may prove to be a unique event in driving up turnout of young people. Will they be equally motivated in 2010 or 2012? No one knows.
• There’s an interesting relationship between income and voting for Prop 8. It follows a curve People who make less than $30k/year voted no on 8 by a slight margin; people who make more than $150k/year voted no on 8 by a slight margin. But the people between those two poles voted for it. I’m sure the under-$30k group includes a lot of young people, but the numbers among high-income voters were interesting. College graduates voted against Prop 8, which probably explains the difference. It also shows that California is indeed still the land of brie-eating limousine liberals, and the presidential results bear this out. In some states, high-income voters voted Republican in large numbers, but in California, Obama won about 3/4 of the vote of people who make under $30k/year, and won about 3/5 of the vote of everyone who makes between $30k and infinity.
• There was a lot of talk in the presidential campaign about fears of a “Tom Bradley effect” where voters told pollsters they were voting for the black candidate but, in the privacy of the voting booth, voted for the white one. The Tom Bradley effect didn’t materialize in the presidential race last night. And, in fact, the Tom Bradley effect has always been something of a myth. It’s named after the loser of the 1982 race for governor of California. Tom Bradley, the black mayor of Los Angeles, led slightly in the polls over George Deukmejian, the white state attorney general, but lost narrowly on Election Day. This difference was attributed to voters being reluctant to admit they were voting for the white guy, but in fact, there are lots of reasons the polling understated support for Deukmejian. Republicans ran a highly effective absentee ballot campaign that year, and a gun control measure on the ballot caused conservative turnout to soar beyond the turnout assumptions of the poll. But the myth of the “Tom Bradley Effect” persists.

  However, we may be seeing a real Tom Bradley effect on gay issues. Polls understated the support for Prop 8, and the possibility that some people are reluctant to admit to a pollster that they oppose same-sex marriage may be a factor in that. It’s also possible that polls simply underestimated conservative turnout in the state. But the Field Poll that showed Prop 8 losing also showed Obama beating McCain by 22 points; in the end, the real margin was 24 points, so it doesn’t seem to me that Field was all that wrong about liberal and conservative turnout, so either voters changed their mind at the very last minute, or they didn’t tell the truth when asked by the pollsters.

• All the Yes on 8 ads about how gay marriage would be taught in school didn’t connect with voters, but the ad where they show San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom talking about how gay marriage is coming “whether you like it or not” was a very effective one in my opinion. And it points out some of the problems of winning rights through the courts as opposed to the ballot box. The Yes on 8 people ran that ad constantly, and I’m sure it’s because their research showed it was effective. People don’t like it when the courts bulldoze them, and resentment of that was surely a factor in Prop 8’s passage. I’m not saying we should never try to win equal rights through the courts, but I’m warning that doing so can create a nasty backlash, and that rights won through means considered more democratic are more likely to last.
• The No on 8 ads often seemed to be talking around the issue of same-sex marriage, talking in vague terms about equality and fairness while only hinting at the issue of same-sex couples. Many references were made to examples of discrimination in the past, but the ads kept the references to same-sex marriage as vague as possible. “And that’s why we should protect marriage for everyone” seemed to be the theme of those ads. Voters may have felt like the No on 8 campaign was trying to pull a fast one. I don’t have any polling to support that point; it’s just a hunch.
• The margin is close enough that a rematch at the ballot box is likely. California will hold elections in June and November of 2010, and a pro-same-sex marriage ballot measure could fare well in the 2010 election, both because the culture will continue to shift in our direction and because a certain number of old voters will die off or move to states with lower taxes on retirement investment income in the meantime. November 2010 is likely to be a high turnout election because the governor’s office will be open, and there will probably be a competitive race as Sen. Boxer seeks re-election.
• Same-sex couples married between the Supreme Court decision and the election (or, more exactly, the certification of the election, which usually takes a couple of weeks) are in legal limbo now. California’s attorney general, Jerry Brown, has said that it’s his opinion that such marriages will continue to be recognized. Whether the courts will agree remains to be seen. Even some of Prop 8’s backers have said they honestly don’t know where the legal status of couples married during the post-decision, pre-election period will end up.
• A number of legal challenges are being launched against Prop 8, but few of them show any promise. One suit alleges that Prop 8, because marriage affects so many parts of California law, constitutes a revision of the state constitution, and not an amendment. Revisions require the approval of the legislature, but amendments don’t. This argument is sure to be a tough sell. Even former California Supreme Court justice Joseph Grodin—a judge so liberal that voters, many years ago, removed him from the bench—expressed skepticism about this line of argument.