Washington ballot initiatives lose ground with voters in new poll

Surveys using actual ballot language reveal waning support for repealing the capital gains tax, cap-and-invest program and WA Cares program.

A photo of a processing plant in Washington

A Washington refinery reflected in Puget Sound. (Grant Hindsley for Cascade PBS)

Washington voters appear ready to reject at least two of the four Republican-sponsored initiatives on the November ballot, according to the latest Cascade PBS/Elway poll

Only one of those initiatives, which would prevent the state from phasing out natural gas, got close to majority support, with 47% of registered voters polled saying they will vote Yes on the initiative to ensure that utilities and local governments continue to provide natural gas, and 29% opposed. A majority of Republicans and independents polled said they would vote Yes on the measure, while Democrats were split. In Seattle the initiative was trailing, but voters in all other parts of the state were in favor.

The latest Cascade PBS/Elway poll was conducted statewide Sept. 3-6 with 403 registered voters. About 23% participated on landlines; 28% by cell phone calls; and 49% participated online after a text message invitation. 

It has a margin of error of ± 5% at a 95% confidence level, which means if the same survey was conducted 100 times, the results would be within five percentage points at least 95 times.

Support for three of the ballot measures has waned since the previous Cascade PBS/Elway poll conducted in May, when three of the four initiatives polled well among voters. I-2066 on natural gas was not included in that polling, as it had not yet been certified for the ballot by the Secretary of State.

Unlike the May poll, when ballot language for the initiatives was not yet available, this poll included the exact language of the ballot measures. Polling also included information about how the repeal of the measures would impact state funding and government programs. 

A majority of polled voters, 52%, said they would vote No on I-2109, an initiative to repeal the capital gains tax, with 30% saying they would vote Yes to eliminate the 7% tax on profits over $250,000 from the sale of assets including stocks, bonds and mutual funds. 

In the May poll, 46% said they would vote Yes on I-2109, while 36% said they would vote No. 

In September, Democrats were strongly opposed to the repeal, with 74% saying they would vote No on the initiative. Of Republicans polled, 55% were leaning in favor of the initiative, while 43% of independents are leaning toward a No vote.

I-2117 is an initiative to prohibit carbon tax trading such as cap-and-trade programs and would also repeal the state’s current cap-and-invest program aimed at reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Polling on that issue showed that support was down from the May poll, with 46% saying they would vote No and 30% saying they would vote Yes. In May, 41% said they would vote Yes while only 31% said they would vote No. 

Asked about the initiative to make the state’s long-term care program optional instead of mandatory for Washington workers to pay into, 39% of respondents said they would vote Yes to repeal the program and 33% said they would vote No. In May, 47% said they wanted to repeal it and 25% said they would vote against the repeal. 

Of those polled, 43% identified as Democrats, 24% as Republican, and 34% as independents. 

Voter opinion on the issues is not unanimous, as only 16% of polled voters said they would vote No on all four initiatives. Only 14% said they were voting Yes for all four. 

Stuart Elway, who has been conducting public-opinion research since the ’70s, said that it is typical for initiatives to lose support over the course of a campaign, as 63% of initiatives have done since 1992.

He said the main reason initiatives lose support over time is because they may sound generally reasonable at first.

“As the pro/con campaigns gear up and as voters learn more about them and their implications, support goes down,” Elway told Cascade PBS. “It is notable that none of these measures was over 50% in the May poll, so it is not like they were wildly popular in the first place. This may be due in part to the relatively technical nature of the initiatives. The ballot titles are not easy for a lay person to grasp. Plus, they are all ‘reverse votes’ –  you vote Yes to oppose the existing law – adding to potential confusion.”

In a text message to Cascade PBS, Lexi Koren, a spokesperson for the NO on 2109 Campaign, said that these latest polling numbers show that the messaging about the initiative to repeal the capital gains tax is resonating with voters. 

“However, we are taking nothing for granted,” she said. “Our opponents are running a campaign to deliberately mislead voters about what I-2109 does. That’s why we’re ramping up our voter contact efforts with just a few weeks before ballots go out.” 

In a phone call with Cascade PBS, Brian Heywood, the millionaire sponsor of Let’s Go Washington, the political action committee behind all four initiatives, said that he was not overly concerned with the latest Cascade PBS/Elway poll results. 

“There’s a lot of things I’ve stayed up at night about, and this isn’t one of them,” Heywood said. 

He told the news outlet that his own internal polling still showed all four initiatives “above water,” but that there are still a “significant amount” of undecided voters.

Ballots will be mailed Oct. 18, and voters have until Nov. 5 to turn them in. 

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About the Authors & Contributors

Shauna Sowersby

Shauna Sowersby

Shauna Sowersby is the state politics reporter for Cascade PBS. She previously covered the Legislature for McClatchy’s northwest newspapers and freelanced for several local and national publications. Before that, Shauna worked for the U.S. Navy as a photographer and journalist. You can find her on X at @Shauna_Sowersby.