Gubernatorial Endorsements and Ballot Measure Approval

Abstract

Voters often make decisions on ballot measures with limited information. Research shows, however, that elite endorsements can help voters overcome their information deficiencies. Using survey experiments, we examine the effect of a gubernatorial endorsement on three recent ballot measures. We find that identifying the governor as a proponent of a particular measure had a significant effect on respondents’ professed support for only one of our three ballot measures: a highly-publicized health initiative in 2000 that saw elites publicly debate its merits. When voters considered lower-profile referendums on bonds supporting higher education (in 2006) and roads (in 2011), a gubernatorial endorsement proved ineffective in our experiments. Such divergent results suggest that elite endorsements, while valuable to some voters, are even more conditional than previously thought.