In 2010, Rasky Baerlein was tasked with helping to defeat a statewide ballot question that would repeal the state's affordable housing law.
Client:
"No on 2" 2010
Practices:
Trade Associations/Coalitions
Expertise:
Ballot Campaign Management
Our Work
Rasky Baerlein served as the paid media consultant and strategic campaign consultant to the No on 2 Committee – a coalition of affordable housing advocates, faith-based and human services advocate and developers. Our work included providing guidance on the content, placement, and timing of all paid media for the campaign. Our efforts helped soundly defeat a question that would have repealed the state's affordable housing law, sometimes referred to as 40B.
With the campaign’s polling showing that voters did not understand the basic subject of the initiative, let alone the details of the question, we faced the challenge of developing paid media that our targeted voters would understand and which would persuade them to vote No. As a result, we eschewed a traditional paid media campaign arguing the merits of the question in favor of media showing who benefited from the state's affordable housing law and what would happen if it was repealed. With a moderate campaign budget, Rasky Baerlein developed the paid media, including two television spots, which highlighted two things: which organizations opposed Question 2; and who benefited from the affordable housing law. Through our paid media, we were able to persuade voters that this law positively impacted real people in their communities and the law should not be repealed.
On November 2, 2010 Q2 was defeated by 58%- 42%.
