CASE STORY:
How Fair Share Massachusetts Passed a Millionaires Tax
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Introduction
The Fair Share Massachusetts (FSMA) campaign pursued a strategy that utilized unique approaches to coalition building and relationships, base building, messaging and persuasion, and voter engagement programs. This executive summary and the full case story showcases how FSMA’s victory offers an important opportunity for the broader economic justice community and the progressive community to learn how public revenue raising ballot measure campaigns can win and be a tool in long-term movement building.
We acknowledge that each state and its municipalities have different rules and laws about how to place ballot questions, especially revenue raising questions, before voters, however, the FSMA campaign offers applicable lessons learned and best practices for others who are considering a similar millionaire’s tax policy or other economic justice policies. This executive summary is an abbreviated version of the case story, and highlights the six strategic takeaways for use in other states.
Background
The success of FSMA was rooted in the long-term, localized, power-building, and narrative shifting of the Raise Up Massachusetts (RUM) coalition. RUM began in 2013 and is made up of over 150 community organizations dedicated to progressive economic policy reform. In 2015, RUM implemented an incremental progressive strategic plan that focused on winning policy measures that would build on each other: minimum wage, paid family and medical leave, and eventually the millionaires tax. The foundations the coalition laid in passing minimum wage and paid family and medical leave before the fair share tax amendment allowed them to build on and learn from each subsequent economic justice ballot initiative win before it tackled the one policy coalition members knew would be the hardest to win at the ballot.
“People who are thinking of doing campaigns like this in other states shouldn’t be too quick to jump to the tax question. Tax questions are hard, and you need a strong base and it takes time to build that kind of strong base. One of the things we did really well is we had a longterm strategy that put Fair Share late in the strategy.”
The Fair Share Massachusetts’ campaign strategy was to retain as much voter support as possible for the Fair Share Amendment. In order for the strategy to be effective, each component of the campaign had to reinforce each other. The strategy was underpinned by seven assumptions, with the main one being that the campaign would lose voter support as it got closer to the General Election. The other assumptions are shown here.
This set it apart from other ballot campaigns where all campaign activities are focused on growing and then maintaining support — not just retaining it over time. For example, the campaign’s voter persuasion activities were focused on ensuring voters continued to support the ballot question despite opposition messaging.
Based on this strategy and the assumptions underpinning, FSMA determined its path to victory had four components:
The Results
The Fair Share Amendment was passed with 52.3% of the vote, with over 1,267,132 Massachusettans casting a ballot in support of the amendment. While successful, it earned fewer overall votes than other similarly high profile issues and candidates on the ballot, most notably, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Maura Healey, (63.8%) and Question 4 (53.9%).
In the Governor’s race, FSA underperformed Governor Healy most significantly in the Boston suburbs, while only overperforming in a handful of townships in Western Massachusetts. Blue Door Strategies’ post-election analysis of the voter file suggests that much of the drop-off came from Democratic base areas where Governor Healey performed the best. Rollover the following map to compare the two campaigns:
THE SIX STRATEGIC TAKEAWAYS
The following are six strategic takeaways that future campaigns should take into consideration as it develops their strategies to win.
The four components of FSMA’s path to victory mentioned above are transferable to similar efforts.
1.
Being proactive and getting out ahead of your opponent gives your campaign the ability to tell its story on its own terms, and do it through multiple channels and with different trusted messengers. Start this work now by building a coalition of organizations and groups in your state that can coalesce – when the timing is right – around issues like the fair share amendment. Create an inclusive and caring campaign that leans on grassroots organizing to tell its story and build a base of supporters.
A simple, clear, and consistent argument needs to be made to the public about what the millionaire’s tax will solve, who it will impact, and how the money will be used.
2.
This includes checking your own assumptions – there is a balance between what your message actually needs to be and what you may think is more applicable and potentially good for the overall movement. FSMA found through extensive polling and message testing that progressive messages with themes about “Eat the Rich” and “Tax the Rich” did not persuade voters to remain in support of the millionaire’s tax and with some voter groups created backlash. This messaging focuses on attacking individuals and that did not fit within the values-aligned messaging for FSMA.
Instead, FSMA’s message was focused on fairness and then invest in Massachusetts. The campaign's messages covered "who pays" and then extensively defined "who it will impact" as everyone - everyone will benefit from better roads, bridges, and public education. These two ads here highlight FSMA’s messaging strategy.
This “win-win” ad tested the highest out of the ads produced.
The campaign made clear each chance it got that this money is obligated to be spent on transportation and public education systems, and that it’s not up to the politicians to spend it wherever they please – or to never spend it at all. This mail piece showed clear and concise bullets around what the fair share amendment is, who will pay for it, and how the money will be allocated:
Winning on revenue raising is different than most issues, and it requires reaching audiences early and building a grassroots-up approach to sustain public support. Start where voters are, not where you hope they will get to. Understand your audience and know where voters’ mindsets are by being grounded in research.
3.
FSMA demonstrated that being guided by polling and research are essential to developing a successful strategy and message. When they began hearing on the doors and saw it in the tracking polls that the opposition’s attack messages were beginning to resonate, they worked with their consultant team to create a response that kept the opposition at bay, like this 15 second ad:
The data showed that BIPOC and Democratic voters want to support revenue raising measures, however a successful campaign will still need to include them in persuasion voter contact programs and not just automatically consider them as part of a mobilization-only voter contact program.
Lean into allied organizations and aligned stakeholders who are trusted by targeted communities in order to reach a broader set of voters than the campaign could by itself.
4.
The campaign built a field program where they included the most trusted messengers for targeted constituencies and trusted those messengers to be effective in communicating to those voters. This program was seen as a strategic advantage for the campaign over the opposition because it was one of the best avenues for FSMA to reach a broader audience and have in-person touch points with its target voters. To actualize this, FSMA created a granting process through the Massachusetts Voter Table, financially supported the community organizations to continue to engage their community organizing work and also voter education and contact about the ballot question in their communities.
Create an internal campaign culture where people are the priority. If campaign leadership prioritizes and is intentional in this, then they will have a staff that is committed to meeting their individual and collective goals despite the long hours and workload.
5.
The people that sign up to work on campaigns are dedicated people willing to work long hours for a cause that matters to them. FSMA treated their staff exceptionally well - it was clear they were valued, paid competitively, and had the tools and support to do their jobs. Leadership was also mindful of staff well-being and preventing burn-out, they were intentional around the timing of hires as much as who was being hired, and there were clear lines of communication and mutual accountability that created deep trust amongst the staff.
Work to raise half of the budget from in-state donors, and diversify those sources so as to not over rely on labor funding. Make sure the budget is realistically based on what it will take to win, not what you think you can raise.
6.
In-state funds need to come first in order to leverage national funding, as well as prioritizing a small dollar fundraising program early. This is something FSMA had underutilized capacity for and something it would have done differently. The following is a general break out of FSMA’s funding sources.
This is just a high-level summary of the strategic takeaways FSMA learned from its successful campaign to pass the fair share amendment in Massachusetts. As mentioned above, each state and election cycle has its own nuances dynamics, however what is presented is adaptable to multiple contexts and landscapes.
read the full case story of the Fair Share Massachusetts Campaign
Prepared by: Grassroots Solutions
In collaboration with:
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Grassroots Solutions would like to thank the staff at State Revenue Alliance for their time and support in data collection and thought partnership. We would also like to thank FSMA staff, consultants, steering committee members, and community partners for generously giving your time to talk to us. You gave us invaluable insights that provided nuance and color about what went on during the campaign, what worked well, what was challenging, and lessons for future efforts. Lastly, thank you to our collaborators, Blue Door Strategies and Protagonist.