We were engaged by a coalition of business, labor and agriculture groups to lead the campaign to defeat Measure Q, a citizen-qualified anti-growth measure to allow voters to vote (veto) open space development.
Measure Q had received thousands of signatures and had broad and seemingly intractable appeal: it started off leading by a whopping 24 points in early polling.
Even more daunting, this same measure was undefeated in other California counties where it had been on the ballot.
We conducted polling and focus groups that told us that our only path was to go BOLD with our messaging. We simply couldn’t concede the #1 issue - traffic - even though our opponents considered it their signature argument. So we boldly led with that exact same issue.
We produced a multi-media digital and direct mail campaign reinforced by validators from across the county that Measure Q would make traffic worse in the county seat of Hollister.
We used 6-second digital to reach younger voters with crisp messaging, to reduce the chance that they would skip voting on this complex land use issue.
Canvassers reported from the field that Measure Q was successfully defined among large swaths of voters as a traffic-inducing measure, and an economically destructive measure that seemingly couldn’t fail DID, losing convincingly after a 36 point drop in support.
CASE STUDY
Initially losing in polls 33%-57% to a popular NIMBY measure that had already passed in other California counties, our bold messaging and relentless multi-media campaign changed voter opinion 36 points in our client’s favor: from a 24 point loss into a 12 point win.
“Our bold messaging and relentless multi-media campaign changed voter opinion 36 points in our clients’ favor: from a 24 point loss into a 12 point win. A popular NIMBY measure that had been previously undefeated across California went down to defeat for the first time.”
