Behind the numbers of Prop. 8

August 03, 2010

Posted by David Fleischer on latimes.com:

"Immediately after Proposition 8 passed, many who supported the freedom to marry tried to make sense of the results. A set of assumptions gained wide acceptance. Some are correct. Most, however, are just plain wrong. And it's crucial that we know what happened in the last election before launching another attempt to legalize marriage for all.

"I recently headed a team that analyzed data from polls conducted by the No on 8 campaign during the run-up to the election. Our analysis sheds new light on what fueled the Proposition 8 victory.

"One big question after the election: Who moved? Six weeks before the vote, Proposition 8 was too close to call. But in the final weeks, supporters pulled ahead, and by election day, the outcome was all but certain.

"After the election, a misleading finding from exit polls led many to blame African Americans for the loss. But in our new analysis, it appears that African Americans' views were relatively stable. True, a majority of African Americans opposed marriage equality, but that was true at the beginning and at the end of the campaign; few changed their minds in the closing weeks.

"The shift, it turns out, was greatest among parents with children under 18 living at home — many of them white Democrats.

... "Another misconception was that those who voted for Proposition 8 were motivated by hate. This does not describe most of the 687,000 who changed their minds in the closing weeks. After all, they supported the freedom to marry before the opposition peeled them away. Yes, they turned out to be susceptible to an appeal based on anti-gay prejudice. But they were frightened by misinformation. No on 8's one TV ad that directly responded to the fear-mongering helped assuage some of the fear, but it was too little, too late.

... "One final false assumption by marriage equality supporters was that the election was so close that it will be easy to pass marriage for same-sex couples the next time out.

"It's true that the official election results — 52% to 48% — appeared quite close. But the truth is more complicated. The data we analyzed show that the No on 8 campaign benefitted from voter confusion.

"Polling suggests that half a million people who opposed the freedom to marry mistakenly voted against the proposition. They were confused by the idea that a "no" vote was actually a vote for marriage equality. This 'wrong-way voting' affected both sides, but overwhelmingly it helped the 'no' side. Our analysis suggests that the division among California voters on marriage equality at the time of Proposition 8 was actually 54% to 46% — not so close. We are actually 1 million votes away from being able to reverse Proposition 8.

"This analysis makes absolutely clear that supporters of the freedom to marry have a lot of work to do before we return to the ballot. But that work is already underway, and now real knowledge can underpin our efforts."

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