How would you vote and what would be the results of this nationwide ballot referendum? (user search)
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  How would you vote and what would be the results of this nationwide ballot referendum? (search mode)
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Poll
Question: What would be the results of this nationwide ballot referendum on abortion?

YES: Abortion will be banned in all cases, including rape or incest, with the sole exception of saving the life of the mother.

NO: Abortion will be legal in all circumstance
#1
I vote yes/yes wins
 
#2
I vote yes/no wins
 
#3
I vote no/no wins
 
#4
I vote no/yes wins
 
Show Pie Chart
Partisan results

Total Voters: 80

Author Topic: How would you vote and what would be the results of this nationwide ballot referendum?  (Read 1772 times)
Vosem
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Posts: 15,625
United States


Political Matrix
E: 8.13, S: -6.09

« on: December 23, 2022, 02:25:56 PM »

I do wonder if the US had a nationwide referendum, which question lead to a result closest to current partisanship and be the most divisive?

Gun control could end up as a 50-50 issue and match partisanship, but I'm not sure if it is the most divisive issue. Anything racial would be incredibly divisive but it would be hard to get a question that doesn't favor one side. After all, many moderate Democratic positions on it poll well but a question that leans too much to the 'abolish ICE' or 'defund the police' side would likely be a blowout the other way.

Well it depends on how gun control is phrased. Something like 'eliminate the 2nd amendment' probably fails by at least 65-35, while something like 'institute background checks for gun sales' probably passes by double digits.

'Institute background checks for gun sales' has run behind normal Democratic numbers in a bunch of states (NV and ME come to mind); I suspect it would be a narrow loser. (OTOH, affirmative action has run like 40 points behind Democratic numbers). On the still other hand, an abortion referendum can easily run like 30 points ahead of Republican numbers, as KS and WV demonstrated recently. Marijuana runs well ahead of Democrats, but other drugs run well behind them; I kind of suspect a decade from now some form of general drug decriminalization would run at about 50/50 nationally.

Legitimately a toughie. Maybe taxes very explicitly meant to help some very sympathetic constituency, like teachers or the military? Taxes for even kinda-sympathetic constituencies, or where who they're targeted at is emphasized (even if that's a seemingly-unpopular group like billionaires or whatever) go down hard, but certain things to tend to match general partisanship. (On the hyper-local level, even to exceed it, and at the state level this would've been true even 10-15 years ago, but not really so much anymore).
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Vosem
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 15,625
United States


Political Matrix
E: 8.13, S: -6.09

« Reply #1 on: January 29, 2023, 08:49:07 PM »

I do wonder if the US had a nationwide referendum, which question lead to a result closest to current partisanship and be the most divisive?

Gun control could end up as a 50-50 issue and match partisanship, but I'm not sure if it is the most divisive issue. Anything racial would be incredibly divisive but it would be hard to get a question that doesn't favor one side. After all, many moderate Democratic positions on it poll well but a question that leans too much to the 'abolish ICE' or 'defund the police' side would likely be a blowout the other way.

Well it depends on how gun control is phrased. Something like 'eliminate the 2nd amendment' probably fails by at least 65-35, while something like 'institute background checks for gun sales' probably passes by double digits.

States have literally conducted basically this exact referendum. Background checks are less popular than the Democratic Party, always, generally in ways that imply a national Republican victory (R+1 in the Nevada case, R+2 in the Maine case).

Yes, I know polling shows >80% of Americans support background checks, and sometimes >90%. But those aren't the Americans who vote.

My guess is background checks would lose a national referendum, but it would be very very close and they could win in principle. (Although I actually think that support for 'repealing the Second Amendment' might run ahead of 35% -- you sometimes see really maximalist gun-control referendums win in blue states, in a way that suggests to me something like that could well hit the low 40s.)
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