we win ballot measures
BaughmanMerrill has over two decades of experience executing mail programs and managing initiative campaigns from coast to coast.
Our general consulting, digital, and direct mail helped pass San Francisco’s $628 million earthquake emergency and fire safety bond Prop B in 2020 with 83% of the citywide vote—the second highest percentage ever for a San Francisco earthquake bond., Maryland, Massachusetts, and Maine.
Our GOTV mail in California increased turnout among targeted pro-environment voters to beat back the Valero-backed Prop. 23—despite their $10.6 million war chest to roll back California’s greenhouse gas laws—and we led Prop. 35 initiative to combat human trafficking to victory with over 81% of the vote. In 2016, we lead the ballot campaign for Prop. 59 to a 53%-46% victory and affirmed the state's commitment to getting unlimited corporate dollars and dark money out of politics. In Oregon last cycle, we created the digital toolkit for Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems (OAHHS) in support of the overwhelmingly approved statewide Measure 108 to curb vaping and e-cigarette use in the state.
BaughmanMerrill has also produced the YES mail for Ohio’s Marijuana Legalization Initiative in 2015, as well as for various other statewide and local measures in Arkansas, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Maine.
In 2011, we were lead strategists for a broad coalition of unions and business groups chaired by the AFL-CIO and the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce to pass a consensus pension reform measure and defeat an opposing measure in the city. We ran the campaign in collaboration with a coalition of public safety officials to defeat a measure to eliminate binding arbitration that same year in neighboring Palo Alto.
As the sole mail vendor for the labor-backed Ohio Casino Issue 3 in 2009, we developed and implemented the micro-targeted mail plan that expanded vote-by-mail turnout and secured a statewide victory with nearly 53% of the vote. Our direct mail for No on Issue 2 crushed then-Governor Kasich’s efforts to deny public employees collective bargaining rights in 2011. And we served as the persuasion mail vendors for the successful no side of 2014’s Arkansas Alcoholic Beverage Initiative Issue 4.