Democrats lead on Proposition 50 vote

from Maya S. MillerCalMatters

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A day before the end of voting for Proposition 50California voters appear poised to approve Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to rig the state’s congressional districts in favor of Democrats.

Recent opinion polls show strong support for the Yes side. Newsom’s campaign is flooding the airwaves with star ads and silences his opponents” a weak last shot at voters. And the governor even asked supporters to forego donations, such was the influx of donations state campaign finance website crash.

“You may stop donating now. Thank you,” read the subject line of an email from Newsom’s campaign to supporters last week. “We met our budget goals and raised what we need to pass Proposition 50.”

If approved, the measure would suspend California’s current congressional maps, which were drawn by an independent citizen commission, and replace them until 2030 with districts drawn by Democratic Party insiders.

Newsom and his allies say California must resist mid-decade gerrymandering efforts in Republican-held states like Texas, Missouri and North Carolina to give Democrats a fair chance to retake the U.S. House of Representatives in next year’s midterm elections. Postal voting has now been underway for more than four weeks.

Some of the main opponents of Prop. 50 are also personally coming to terms with the reality that the measure will pass, even though they look defiant.

“I’m not running from a fight,” insisted Rep. Doug LaMalfa, an Oroville Republican whose district will be drastically changed under the new cards, at a recent No on 50 press conference.

But just moments before, LaMalfa also admitted that the opposition had been “outnumbered two to one” on spending in the crucial final days of the campaign.

“We’re ahead of the curve on the fundraising side,” he said.

A spokesman for the No on 50 campaign did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

Two of California’s most respected nonpartisan pollsters last week found that a solid majority of likely voters support or have already voted for Prop. 50.

The Public Policy Institute of California found that 56 percent of likely voters said they would support the measure, compared to just 43 percent who said they would oppose it. The survey also found that nearly seven in 10 Californians, regardless of party, said the outcome of the special election was “very important” to them. This is a record high level of voting interest.

“The PPIC survey has not registered such a high level of interest in a ballot proposal since we began measuring it more than 20 years ago,” said survey director Mark Baldassare. The poll is based on responses from 943 likely voters and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.

The Berkeley Institute for Governmental Studies found an even wider gap between yes and no voters, with as many as 60 percent of likely voters saying they would vote to pass Proposition 50 and just 38 percent saying no. Like PPIC, the IGS survey also found extremely high levels of engagement, with 71% of likely voters saying they had heard “a lot” about the measure.

“There are a lot of indicators that suggest the Yes side will win comfortably,” Mark DiCamillo, director of research at IGS, said in an interview.

The poll interviewed 4,946 Californians who had already voted or were thought likely to vote, and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

DiCamillo noted that Proposition 50 likely defies conventional wisdom on ballot measures, giving the party an advantage against undecided voters who want to maintain the status quo because of its hyperpartisan and nationalized message.

“The results suggest that Democrats have been able to shape the debate around the proposal around support for or opposition to President Trump and national Republicans, rather than on voters’ more general preference for nonpartisan redistricting,” said Eric Schickler, IGS co-director.

Still, Democrats are taking nothing for granted and are investing heavily in mobilizing their constituents. The Yes campaign has mobilized tens of thousands of volunteers to knock on doors, make phone calls and send text messages to up to 16 million voters, campaign spokeswoman Hannah Milgrom said. Newsom will also travel the state as part of the latest push.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.