Monday Morning Quarterbacking? Without a followup poll and a real analysis of why people voted the way they did, I think that is what this is. Nice PR for Nienstadt though. Hmmm.... all this says to me that San Diegans (er... chula vistans) are negligently tax averse and while we like to entertain the notion of fairness and civic sacrafice we really aren't willing to put our money where our mouth is... At least, and especially when the whole economy is falling apart around us. I wonder how much of the vote was influenced by the fact that CV politicians seemingly exuded nothing but incompetence over the 6 months leading up to this vote. First it was the City Manager debacle, then the gaylord/charger meltdown and all the other little nasty infighting over everything. That... and it seems that half of CV has been foreclosed on in the last 6 months.

Posted by Greg | reply to this comment
June 3, 2009 12:58 pm

Wasn't this supposed to be a vote-by-mail? I know I didn't get any voting materials, and I am a registered voter. I wonder if everything got sent out, or if there are stacks of mail sitting somewhere...

Posted by Gloria | reply to this comment
June 3, 2009 2:48 pm

(I cannot get the full poll when I click on the link) The opposition that came out for this proposition was not organized and truly grassroots. There wasn't a single person who I asked that supported this (unless they worked for the city). Some people were actually angry about this measure. To me, this was a half-baked idea that shouldn't have been put into effect. The people I talk to would like to see reform in spending before there is any talk of raising taxes. We seem to stuck to the gold-plated labor contracts that former Mayor Padilla arranged but those won't last forever. I would love to see a list of who makes over $100,000 at the city. And, no one in a small city like ours needs to be paid in the $200,000 range.

Posted by WJR | reply to this comment
June 3, 2009 4:09 pm

Polls taken months early are never predictions about election outcomes. Most famously, George Bush the first had some of the highest popularity ratings in modern times following Gulf War the first but ended up losing to a hillbilly accused of draft dodging. Nienstadt himself released a poll last year showing that John Hartley had over a 60% approval rating within District 3 even though he was a arrested for lewd conduct. Hartley ended up getting less than 20% of the primary vote. That's great local knowledge... Why these disparities? Maybe because stuff happens in between the snapshot of the poll and the actual election, such as: campaigns, media coverage or other events. In Chula Vista's case, maybe the attempt by the state to raise sales taxes caused voters to rethink their support for a local tax rise. Nienstadt is a joke.

Posted by Niendstadt is a joke | reply to this comment
June 4, 2009 5:34 am

It's probably a waste of my time to comment on a post where my name is spelled wrong twice, but I'll just point out that the poster is also wrong about the Hartley poll Competitive Edge released in April '08. What CERC found was that 54% of San Diego voters had less favorable opinions of candidate Hartley due to his "incident." The interesting point of the survey was that voters in the 3rd District where he was running were more forgiving of his indiscretion than voters in the rest of San Diego. CERC did not ask about Hartley's approval rating, so it's a mystery where the poster's numbers come from. Oh, and when you're attempting to call someone out -- no matter how feeble -- have the courage to sign your real name . . .

Posted by John Nienstedt | reply to this comment
June 8, 2009 4:21 pm

Thank you for fixing the link. I noticed that on question 14 there are 101 responses (even though there were only 100 polled). An obvious typo but it is on one of the most important questions.

Posted by WJR | reply to this comment
June 4, 2009 8:17 am

I haven't looked at the poll, but if only 100 people were surveyed, that too seems to be a weakness. Were the 100 persons polled registered voters? Likely voters? How were the 100 picked? Sounds like this may have been a really crappy undertaking.

Posted by Robert | reply to this comment
June 4, 2009 12:29 pm

What is it about having a sample size of 100 that you feel weakens the methodology of the poll? I haven't wrapped my head around stats in a month of Sundays, but I do remember that the sample size alone is not generally enough to compromise these things. What specifically is the problem you see with that number?

Posted by Omar | reply to this comment
June 4, 2009 2:42 pm

This fiasco just shows what a loser strategy it is to base your political campaign on what polls say. When will poll whores ever learn?

Posted by Robert | reply to this comment
June 4, 2009 12:18 pm

(Disclosure: from a pollster & competitor to EMC and Neustadt) WJR & Robert: There were 400 respondents. "100" in Q2 is "100 percent." "n=400" means 400 responses. So why did the survey fail so badly? There's no question about "reducing taxes to help out families in economic hard times" (should be with Q6-12). Most important, the results were misread: Q18's "disagree" and "somewhat disagree" figures are the key ("the city already has enough money, it's just not spent properly"). That question showed only 37% disagreed with that sentiment -- and that's within the margin of error of the percentage of voters supporting new taxes (32.5%). The ballot item is also HORRIBLY written. How did they mention a "citizens review committee" and not stick the word "Independent" in there? It would not have saved this blowout, but it definitely cost 4-5 points.

Posted by Doug | reply to this comment
June 4, 2009 3:16 pm

EMC can spin any way they want, but the fact is, they blew it. This tax increase was doomed from the start with a recession in place. Anybody with common sense knows that.

Posted by larry | reply to this comment
June 5, 2009 8:26 am

There's a lot wrong with a survey that shows a ballot measure winning with 69% support only to have it lose less than four months later with 33% of the vote. True, California’s sales tax increase happened after the poll was conducted and caused some voters to oppose the measure. But the 180 degree flip is incredible – literally. In 21 years of polling I’ve never seen a turn like that in such short a time span. One reason: there never was 69% support among the real electorate. Part of the problem is that 43% of the respondents should not have been surveyed to begin with. That’s the percentage in the sample who were unlikely to vote in a low turnout election (crosstabs, page 8). If only hard core voters had been surveyed, support would have been 63%. More to follow...

Posted by John Nienstedt | reply to this comment
June 8, 2009 1:13 pm

I am not a pollster, and have no dog in this fight, but I can cite several big changes between the January poll and May election date -- tanking of the stock market, the CA budget "deal" that required Californias to voluntarily increase their taxes, unemployment reaching double digits, the May revise that essentially changed the ballot items from a budget solution to a $6 B drop in a $24 B bucket. That last one was the clincher because it only added to the measures' "hold your nose while voting" unpopularity which, when buffeted by a near universally negative reaction by various media outlets and political commentators, made voting for any tax measure appear futile as well as hard to swallow.

Posted by George Harris | reply to this comment
June 13, 2009 3:25 pm

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