For progressives trying to find a path forward, the astounding recent success of state and municipal ballot measures may offer a small glimmer of hope for the future. Activists have won victories for higher wages and better healthcare in deep-red states, often bucking national or even state-level trends. Organizers in these states see those victories as delivering real benefits to voters almost immediately, while building a foundation for greater progressive change in the future.
Donors and political activists interested in serious, long-term change shouldn’t just be supporting ballot measure campaigns, but learning from their success. With the midterms fast approaching and the Democratic money machine revving up, here are three major lessons from dozens of winning ballot measures, all worth keeping in mind while gearing up for 2022.
Partisanship and ideology are not one in the same
Despite evidence that Americans are more politically polarized than any other time in recent history, results from ballot measures over the last decade indicate that some of these divisions may be more complicated. Voters in states like Idaho and Oklahoma have passed Medicaid expansion while simultaneously reelecting Republican leaders opposed to the program.
These mixed victories show the strange influence of parties and partisanship for voters. Pollsters have often found that a majority of Americans across the political divide support certain progressive policies, even when those same ideas are directly opposed by the person’s political party. For Democrats, this is cause for both optimism and despair; the electorate in deep-red states will support some of your policies, but they still won’t vote for many of your candidates. At least not yet. Successful ballot measures in red states could be the first step toward blurring some of those partisan divisions, leading to future inroads for progressives to expand their base.
Good campaigns build for the future, win or lose
Elections are far too often discussed in the framework of absolute success or absolute failure. While one side has to win and the other has to lose no matter how close the final votes, this dichotomy can obscure political reality.
“The worst thing we can do is fight a losing battle that wins nothing,” said Molly Fleming, who has been involved in multiple successful ballot measures through Missouri Organizing and Voter Engagement Collaborative (MOVE). “But the second-worst thing we can do is fight a winning battle that wins nothing.”
Liberals wracked with anxiety during the Trump years were often eager to support any campaigns that promised to beat Republicans, even if it meant supporting candidates that were conservative, unreliable, incompetent or all three. As Blue Tent explained in our resolutions for small donors in 2022, high-profile senate candidates like Jaime Harrison and Amy McGrath were poor investments, not just because they lost, but because their campaigns did little to build progressive infrastructure or connect with voters in a way that will last beyond election day.
Successful ballot measure campaigns, on the other hand, can both deliver satisfying short-term results while mobilizing voters and connecting with communities that could become important constituencies. But even losing campaigns can still be considered successful. Beto O’Rourke’s 2018 senate race in Texas, for instance, helped bring national money and attention to a state that Democrats had long been ignoring, and despite losing the race, O’Rourke’s campaign helped lift many down-ballot Democrats to upset wins. He’s since used his high profile in Texas to register large numbers of voters and lay the groundwork for a credible gubernatorial run this fall.
Keep your focus local, and ignore national narratives
Along with showing the benefits of nonpartisan messaging and building for the future, state and municipal ballot campaigns are a strong reminder that the old cliche “all politics is local” remains truer than ever. Just ask the folks over at the Fairness Project, the leading progressive ballot measure group that has supported winning campaigns across the country. While the Fairness Project’s funding, expertise and ability to convene coalitions has been crucial to many winning ballot initiatives, the organization enters every new campaign with an open mind and deference to state and local leadership.
“They come to the table wanting to learn more, wanting to learn the lay of the land, wanting to understand their partners,” said David Benson of the American Cancer Society Action Network, who has worked with the Fairness Project on passing Medicaid expansion in South Dakota in 2022. “They’re not coming to the table with all the answers.” (See our research brief strongly recommending the Fairness Project to donors.)
This focus on delivering local victories is also a good reminder to ignore most commentary that attempts to spin individual elections into a national meta-narrative. Political pundits took Democratic disappointments in a handful of states and districts in 2020 and 2021 as evidence of impending doom for progressives, ignoring a number of successful ballot measure campaigns in those same cycles. Similarly, while police reform activists have been a popular punching bag for commentators and politicians alike, referenda implementing civilian review boards for law enforcement sailed to victory in Cleveland, Ohio, and Albany, New York, while voters in Austin, Texas, soundly rejected a measure to increase police staffing and pay.
While those narratives are often wrong, for activists and organizers, they’re also usually irrelevant to their real goals.
“We’re not out to prove that we can break through a national conversation,” Benson told Blue Tent. “Our singular focus is to ensure that South Dakota voters understand the incentives and benefits for the 42,500 individuals who would benefit.”