The midterm elections were almost entirely bad news for Republicans and conservatives, and so were ballot initiatives on abortion. Both are costly defeats. But looking at the rest of the picture of voting on popular referenda, there is a lot more to like than dislike.
Some of the highest-profile fights were on taxes. Florida’s Amendment 3, the final major initiative of Ron DeSantis’s term as governor, dramatically expanded the exemption of primary homes from property taxes, with an exclusion that phases in to a $250,000 exclusion by 2028. It passed by a whopping 62 percent to 38 percent. DeSantis has argued, with some justice, that the initiative was key to Florida Republicans’ keeping the state mostly red amid the blue tsunami and persuading voters that the party hears their concerns about the cost of living. Voters in North Carolina passed a limit on local property taxes, while Tennessee voters banned the state from enacting statewide property taxes without repealing local property taxes.
In California, Proposition 40 — the union-backed “one time” billionaire wealth tax that threatened to erode the state’s tax base — didn’t just lose by ten points; it was accompanied by a victory for Proposition 42, which placed in the California constitution a ban on taxes of savings, retirement holdings, and other individually owned assets, and a prohibition on retroactive taxes. The combination leaves proponents of confiscatory wealth taxes in a much worse position than had they not taken the question to the Golden State’s voters at all. If wealth confiscation can’t win in California, it’s a bad bet anywhere. Washington voters, however, rejected a repeal of the state’s new tax on incomes over $1 million per year.
It remains to be seen whether Democrats have learned any lessons on transgender ideology other than to obfuscate their positions on the campaign trail. But voters struck back at letting men and boys into women’s and girls’ sports, with bans passing in Nebraska and appearing to pass in Washington and Colorado, while a ban on males in female bathrooms, locker rooms, and other private spaces passed in Arizona. Voters also approved Question 3, a ban on race discrimination in public employment or contracting by a 13-point margin in Wisconsin, a setback for proponents of racial preferences.
On voting, Arkansas, Kansas, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Alaska all passed initiatives to ban noncitizens from voting in state and local elections (noncitizens are already barred by statute from voting in federal elections). The only defeat was in Arizona. New voter ID provisions passed in Nevada, North Carolina, and Ohio, while losing in Arizona, California, and Colorado. The two Arizona proposals were combined in a single ballot question. The news was worse elsewhere on the voting front. Virginia voted for automatic restoration of felon voting rights. Missouri rejected a partisan gerrymander, while Maryland approved one. While the votes are still being counted, it appears that Alaskans will narrowly reject Ballot Measure 2 to get rid of its combination of jungle primary and ranked-choice voting.
Voters still want toughness on crime. Limits on bail were passed in Indiana, Louisiana, and Tennessee, while Coloradans voted for mandatory life imprisonment for child sex traffickers. Arkansas reaffirmed its right to bear arms.
The often-irrational backlash against data centers was almost uniformly successful at the ballot box, with over three dozen jurisdictions (mostly localities) voting to ban or restrict development. That’s not enough to stop the nationwide buildup, but it should give the industry pause about how badly it has lost the trust of the voting public.
Finally, in what was doubtless the most consequential vote of the year, Idaho voters picked the Winchester Model 1873 as the official state gun.