Correlation on Support for 2020 California Propositions and the Presidential Vote

Author's Note: There will not be a post next Sunday, August 15th, 2021. This blog will resume the following week. 

Correlation on Support for 2020 California Propositions and the Presidential Vote

Introduction: In addition to elections of public officials, California ballots also contain propositions on an array of policy topics for citizens to approve or reject. 2020 was no exception, with a total of 12 making it onto that year's ballot (Christopher). Several of these propositions were heavily-followed and watched due to being about high-profile policy topics such as property taxes, affirmative action, voting rights for ex-prisoners, and restrictions on the usage of internet data. Today's post will conduct a correlational quantitative analysis of California's 2020 proposition results relative to the simultaneous Presidential results to will reveal broad trends related to voting coalitions between propositions and the presidential election. 

2020 Presidential Results: Democratic nominee Joe Biden won California with 63.5% of the state's popular vote, while Republican nominee and incumbent President Donald Trump won 34.3%. Third party and independent candidates took the remaining 3.2% ("Statement of Vote," 20). 

Rundown of 2020 Propositions:

• Proposition 14 (Stem Cell Research Bonds) (PASSED 51.1%-48.9%): If passed with a majority voting "Yes," this measure would have borrowed over $5 billion in bonds to fund the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which performs stem cell research (Christopher).
• Proposition 15 (Commercial Property Taxes) (FAILED 48%-52%): The phrase "Third Rail of Politics" refers to political issues that are extremely contentious to the point where touching it ensures political death (similar to the third rails used on urban rail systems) ("The History"). In California, property taxes are often described as the state's biggest political third rail due to the past history and current attitudes around this policy area (Coupal). In 1978, voters passed Proposition 13, which capped annual county-level property taxes at 1% per year, mandated property taxes be assessed based on a property's purchase value, and increased the threshold for local governments to raise other taxes through propositions (Chu and Uhler 1-2). Since then, support for the Proposition has remained quite high, despite there also being intense passion among opponents to reform or even reverse it entirely (Coupal). Proposition 15 in 2020 proposed to tax commercial institutions based on a property's original purchase value, especially those who own over $3 million in property. A "Yes" vote on this proposition would have enacted the new rules (Christopher). 
• Proposition 16 (Affirmative Action by Public Institutions) (FAILED 42.8%-57.2%): Alongside property taxes, affirmative action could be considered another "third rail" in California politics due to past history and the state's overall political lean. In 1996, Proposition 209 was passed by voters, which banned affirmative action from being used by the California higher education system, and like Proposition 13, has also attracted a significant movement to reverse it. A majority "Yes" vote would have allowed state-level public institutions to take race into account when dealing with admissions or hiring decisions (Christopher). 
• Proposition 17 (Voting Rights for Parolees) (PASSED 58.6%-42.4%): California has allowed ex-poisoners to vote since the 1970s, although that popular measure did not include those on parole. Proposition 17 proposed to rectify this by allowing parolees full voting rights, of which there were estimated to be around 40,000 in California before election 2020. A majority "Yes" vote would have given voting rights to parolees (Christopher). 
• Proposition 18 (17-Year Old Voting Rights in Primaries) (FAILED 44%-56%): A majority "Yes" vote on Proposition 18 would have allowed 17-year olds to vote in primary elections if they were going to turn 18 before the corresponding general election. Prior to this measure, 23 other states had similar voting rules in place allowing 17-year olds to vote in primaries provided they would turn 18 before the general (Christopher). 
• Proposition 19 (Changes Some Property Tax Rules) (PASSED 51.1%-48.9%): Like Proposition 15, Proposition 19 also was in regards to property tax policy, although the specific issue being addressed was different. In this case, Proposition 19 aimed to allow certain groups of homeowners (such as seniors, the disabled, and those affected by natural disaster) to claim some of their property tax base when buying a new house and selling another simultaneously. Furthermore, the Proposition would address the "Lebowski loophole" (named after the movie character) where those who inherit a house from their parents or grandparents pay lower property taxes than what would be assessed in the present. Finally, the measure would direct funding generated by the measure's new rules to go towards fighting wildfires. A majority "Yes" vote on this measure would instate the new regulations (Christopher). 
• Preposition 20 (Restriction of Parole for Certain Offenses) (FAILED 38.3%-61.7%): During the second tenure of Governor Jerry Brown (D), he sought to undue damage caused by "tough on crime" policies enacted during his first administration in the 1970s. With that, several propositions passed in the early 2010s to reform criminal justice, including reduced punishments for parole violators, reducing some felony crimes to misdemeanors, and allowing some nonviolent offenders early release (Christopher). A majority "Yes" vote on this proposition would reverse these propositions and would make it difficult for convicted child molesters to be released early (Alpert). 
• Proposition 21 (Local Rent Control) (FAILED 40.1%-59.9%): In 2018, Californians voted down a proposition by double-digits that would have given local jurisdictions more freedom to enact rent control. Going into 2020, the same proponents managed to put the same issue on the ballot as a proposition. The 2020 version featured some minor differences to bring more voters on board, such as rent control exemptions for landlords only holding less than three small family residences. A majority "Yes" vote on this measure would have implemented this Proposition's provisions (Christopher). 
• Proposition 22 (Employment Status of App-Based Transportation and Delivery Employees) (PASSED 58.6%-41.4%): In recent years, the global economy has been transformed by the rise of app-based transportation and delivery companies such as Lyft, Uber, and Doordash. The rise of these institutions have given new opportunities for ordinary people to make income either as a side gig or career through these companies. However, this has also created a contentious debate as to how to classify such workers due to the application of labor law. A 2019 State Assembly bill sought to classify workers in these situations as employees, thus making them subject to regular hour and wage regulations. The proposition proposed to re-classify app-based transportation and delivery employees as independent contractors, thus removing hour and wage law protections. The same measure also proposed to guarantee some wage and other benefits to the same employees to compensate. A majority "Yes" vote on this measure would reverse the 2019 bill (Christopher). 
• Proposition 23 (Regulations on Kidney Dialysis Clinics) (FAILED 36.6%-63.4%): If passed, this proposition would have enacted new rules on kidney dialysis clinics, mandating that a licensed physician be present at each clinic and that patient infection data would have to be reported to the state. A majority "Yes" vote would have enacted these new regulations (Christopher). 
• Proposition 24 (Amends Consumer Privacy Laws) (PASSED 56.2%-43.8%): This proposition builds on the 2018 California Consumer Privacy Act, which gives internet users more power to control the usage of their internet data by data companies. The proponent behind that act, Alastair MacTaggart, got enough popular support to add Proposition 24 to the ballot, which proposed stringent penalties on violators of the law and the power of internet users to request their data not be shared with any third parties. A majority "Yes" vote on this measure would implement the new regulations (Christopher). 
• Proposition 25 (Eliminate Cash Bail) (FAILED 43.6%-56.4%): California Senate Bill 10 was passed in 2018 with the intention to end cash bail and replace it with a "risk assessment" done by judges to determine if those accused of felony-level crimes should be held or allowed to go free until their trial. Those facing misdemeanor charges would be required to be released within 12 hours unless there was a significant risk to plaintiffs or the public. However, the law was not enacted immediately due to this proposition making it to the 2020 ballot (Arzy and Merkl). A majority "Yes" vote on this proposition would have enacted SB 10, thus eliminating California's cash bail system (Christopher). 

Data Collection and Methodology: Data used in this post was manually extracted from the 2020 Statement of Vote, which can be found on the California Secretary of State's website ("Statement of Vote"). To make comparing the presidential vote to proposition results easier, I converted Trump's and Biden's percentages to 2-party vote share by eliminating votes for third-party, write-in, and independent candidates. As the non-binary vote only totaled 3.2% (as detailed above), the recalculated values only moved slightly, with Biden winning 64.9% and Trump winning 35.1%. 

Table 1: Correlation Matrix

Notes: All correlation outcomes are statistically-significant at the 0.001 level. To determine the correlational values between Donald Trump's percent share of the two-party vote and the proposition results, simply add a negative sign to the value to the values in column 1 (Biden%). The scale I used to determine correlational strength came from a statistics course lesson page hosted by the Boston University School of Public Health (LaMorte). 

Data Source: "Statement of Vote"

Analysis and Discussion: As shown on Table 1, California counties generally supported Joe Biden and 2020 propositions with similar strength and direction, evident by the number of "Very Strong" correlational results. Furthermore, county-level voting patterns between propositions generally also featured strong correlation regardless of direction. Proposition 24's county-level support saw the weakest correlation with the presidential and other proposition results, notably Proposition 22, whose correlation was -0.5, the weakest on Table 1. Furthermore, Proposition 22's correlational values also seemed to be weaker than the others, although most were still "Very Strong." Proposition 20's coalition of support saw a similar pattern of weaker correlation when compared with other Propositions, possibly because of the wide breadth by which it was rejected statewide. On the contrary, most of Proposition 17's correlational values were "very strong" despite the opposition prevailing by double-digits, which could potentially be a sign that relative levels of support between that and the other variables studied was still high.

The county-level election results provided in the 2020 Statement of Vote reveal some clues as to why Proposition 24 saw weaker correlation with the presidential results and other propositions held that year. For context, in the presidential election, Alameda (Oakland, Berkeley, and suburbs) and San Francisco City were the two most pro-Biden counties in the state ("Statement of Vote," 18-20). Meanwhile, support for Proposition 24 in those two counties was far lower than other blue counties, and in the case of San Francisco, a slight majority voted against the proposition. Meanwhile, some normally red counties such as Kern (Bakersfield), Yuba (Yuba City, Beale AFB), and Del Norte (Crescent City) narrowly rejected the measure as well ("Statement of Vote," 64-66), thus making their level of support almost on par with that of San Francisco's. Normally blue Marin (north of SF) and Yolo (Davis) also narrowly voted for that measure, thus showing a significant deviation from the presidential results. These observations also support the low level of correlation (at 0.5) between support for Propositions 22 and 24 due to the extensive deviation from normal county-level patterns that occurred in the latter. 

Conclusion: As stated on a previous post exploring another state's 2020 referendum results, examining county-level data has significant limitations, especially for large and diverse counties, since county-level results combine aggregate totals into a single number, thus hiding significant trends that lurk among individuals and groups. Even so, one of the main implications from the correlation results is the extent of partisan polarization around policy issues, even if there is some deviation from the presidential-level voting at the sub-level. For example, even though Proposition 17 (affirmative action) was rejected by double-digits at the same time Biden won the state by almost 30%, the high correlational strength between the two indicates that higher support for Biden was still strongly correlated with higher support for Prop. 17. The same can be said for Propositions that featured negative correlational values when compared to other propositions or the presidential result, although Proposition 24 was a semi-exception, as explained above. Beyond revealing partisan trends, these referendum results also indirectly reveal trends in popular opinion towards specific issues, either showing the popularity of existing policies (reflected especially in the rejection of Propositions 15 and 16) or the continuing unpopularity of newer policy ideas that have picked up steam in recent years (such as Proposition 18). 

Election Data:

"Statement of Vote - General Election November 3, 2020." Secretary of State Alex Padilla, 11 Dec. 2020, elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/sov/2020-general/sov/complete-sov.pdf, 58-66. Accessed 5 Aug. 2021. 

Works Cited: 

Alpert, Adrienne. "What is Prop. 20? Measure would allow prosecutors to reclassify some misdemeanor crimes as felonies." ABC7, 30 Oct. 2020, abc7news.com/prop-20-california-2020-ca-what-is/6623811/. Accessed 7 Aug. 2021. 

Arzy, Leily, and Taryn A. Merkl. "California’s Referendum to Eliminate Cash Bail, Explained." Brennan Center for Justice, 2 Oct. 2020, www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/californias-referendum-eliminate-cash-bail-explained. Accessed 7 Aug. 2021.

Christopher, Ben. "Props to you, Californians: A preview of what’s on your November ballot." CalMatters, 29 Jun. 2020, calmatters.org/explainers/california-november-2020-ballot-propositions-final-list/. Accessed 6 Aug. 2021. 

Chu, Carolyn, and Brian Uhler. "Common Claims About Proposition 13." California Legislative Analyst's Office, 2016, lao.ca.gov/reports/2016/3497/common-claims-prop13-091916.pdf. Accessed 8 Aug. 2021. 

Coupal, Jon. "Prop. 13 is still third rail of California politics." The Daily Breeze, 8 Nov. 2020, www.dailybreeze.com/2020/11/08/prop-13-still-third-rail-of-california-politics/. Accessed 8 Aug. 2021. 

LaMorte, Wayne W. "The Correlation Coefficient (r). Boston University School of Medicine, last modified 17 Apr. 2021, sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/MPH-Modules/PH717-QuantCore/PH717-Module9-Correlation-Regression/PH717-Module9-Correlation-Regression4.html. Accessed 7 Aug. 2021. 

"The History of the Third Rail: From the subway to Politics." Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/the-history-of-third-rail. Accessed 7 Aug. 2021. 

     Nathan Parmeter

     Author and Host, The Parmeter Politics and Policy Record