Morning Digest: What's on your ballot? Psychedelics, state flags, school funding—and much more

Plus a bizarre battle in California pitting the rental industry against a healthcare provider

Maine voters will decide if they want to keep their current state flag (left) or adopt the “Pine Tree Flag” (credit: Maine Secretary of State)

Leading Off

Ballot Measures

Ballot measures to protect abortion rights have taken center stage this year, but they represent just a fraction of the nearly 160 proposals that will go before voters in 41 states this fall.

Politico's Emily Schultheis helps winnow down this long list by taking a look at some of the most important measures to watch across the country. In addition to abortion, many focus on familiar issues, like ending restrictions on marijuana; revamping election systems; raising the minimum wage; and banning gerrymandering.

But many others focus on a wide range of different topics and are worth following. Below we take our own dive into some of the top measures highlighted by Schultheis and several more we're keeping an eye on. Our list is by no means exhaustive, though—for that, you'll need Ballotpedia—so consider this just a sampler of what's on offer to voters.

California: Crime, Housing, and Healthcare

Voters in California have 10 ballot measures to decide on, but the highest-profile proposal is an initiative that would increase the punishment for several crimes related to drug possession and theft whose penalties were reduced a decade ago. An August UC Berkeley poll showed a 56-23 majority in favor of the plan, which will be identified on the ballot as Proposition 36.

Separately, there's also an intense fight underway over two warring proposals that, at first glance, might seem to be unrelated to one another. Proposition 33 would give local governments more power to institute rent controls, while the passage of Proposition 34 would require certain healthcare providers "to follow new rules about how they spend revenue they earn from a federal drug discount program," according to the state's voter guide.

However, the organization spearheading Proposition 34, the California Apartment Association, is hoping to restrict just one provider: the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the chief backer of Proposition 33—which the Apartment Association, a rental industry trade group, strongly opposes.

Christopher Cadelago explained in Politico last year that the founder of AIDS Healthcare, Michael Weinstein, has directed over $100 million toward ballot measures and other political efforts, including some that were "only loosely tied to the central mission of the sprawling AIDS organization."

Kentucky: Private School Funding

Kentucky's Republican-run legislature placed an amendment on the ballot that would allow the state to fund private schools. The Louisville Courier Journal's Hannah Pinski reports that the effort to defeat Amendment 2 has outraised its supporters $3 million to $1.5 million through early September.

Maine: The State Flag

A proposal to replace Maine's current flag with one inspired by the banner used during the early 20th century has attracted national attention, as well as ardent support and opposition within the state.

Question 5's backers argue that the current flag is too cluttered, saying that the new "Pine Tree Flag" would offer a welcome change. But as the Boston Globe explained last year, many of those who want to preserve the status quo aren't motivated just by aesthetic preferences.

"They want to take the farmer and the fisherman off the flag, to disappear them," one Maine resident told the paper, "and to me that’s like what’s been done to the lobstermen and the fishermen in real life, over-regulating them and making it harder if not impossible to make a living."

Four other ballot measures are also going before voters including Question 1, which would place contribution limits on state-level super PACs.

Massachusetts: Labor Law and Psychedelics

Massachusetts voters will decide the fate of five different ballot measures, which the Boston Globe says is the most in 24 years. Perhaps the most high-profile one is Question 3, which would allow rideshare drivers to unionize. Question 4, meanwhile, would allow people over the age of 21 to possess a limited amount of psychedelic substances.

North Dakota: Ballot Initiatives

North Dakota's GOP-dominated legislature is asking voters to approve Constitutional Measure 2, which would require all future citizen-initiated measures to win voter approval in both a June primary and the subsequent November general election. This new rule, however, would not apply to amendments that lawmakers might put before voters.

Oregon: The "Oregon Rebate"

A high-profile battle is underway in Oregon over Measure 118, which would increase corporate taxes in order to distribute around $1,600 to every state resident, regardless of age. A similar proposal to implement what supporters call "The Oregon Rebate" failed by a wide 59-41 margin in 2016, and an unusual alliance wants to ensure a similar outcome this year.

Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek, Democratic legislative leaders, several major unions, and business groups are all urging a "no" vote, with business interests contributing over $9 million to beat it. Measure 118's backers, who have considerably less money at their disposal, include Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Washington: Carbon Trading, Capital Gains, and Natural Gas

Backed by more than $6 million from a hedge fund manager named Brian Heywood, the Washington Republican Party qualified four initiatives for the November ballot that would roll back several laws passed by the state's Democratic-controlled legislature.

A new poll from Elway Research for Cascade PBS showed voters decisively rejecting plans to repeal the state's capital gains tax and bar carbon trading. However, a 47-29 plurality backs Initiative 2066, which would undo a law to phase out natural gas in homes. Initiative 2124, which would allow employees to opt out of long-term healthcare coverage, also holds a 39-33 edge.

Senate

OH-Sen

The crypto-aligned super PAC Defend American Jobs has now spent $27 million to help Republican Bernie Moreno unseat Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, notes analyst Rob Pyers, which is far more than the $12 million it said it would deploy on Ohio's Senate race. Pyers adds that outside groups on the pro-Moreno side have spent a total of $56 million, which is more than five times as much as allies of Brown have deployed so far.

These numbers only tell part of the story, though, because, under federal law, candidates are entitled to cheaper ad rates than outside groups. Brown raised more than $50 million for his campaign as of the end of June, which was more than three times as much as what Moreno took in from donors or through self-funding. The incumbent also ended the second quarter of 2024 with more than twice as much cash on hand available as his opponent. 

New fundraising numbers due Oct. 15 will tell us if the wealthy Moreno has used his funds to close this gap, or if Brown will be able to spend enough to offset the conservative super PACs' ad blitz.

House

CA-41, IA-03, NY-19

U.S. Term Limits, whose mission is exactly what its name suggests, has released a trio of House polls from RMG Research that show Democrats with small leads over Republican incumbents:

• CA-41: Will Rollins (D): 41, Ken Calvert (R-inc): 35

• IA-03: Lanon Baccam (D): 42, Zach Nunn (R-inc): 39

• NY-19: Josh Riley (D): 42, Marc Molinaro (R-inc): 39

After the initial horserace question, the poll informed respondents that Rollins, Nunn, and Molinaro have signed the group's pledge while their respective opponents have not. The release did not include presidential numbers for any of these three constituencies.

We've seen one prior poll from each of these three battlegrounds, though they're all fairly dusty. A May internal for Rollins showed him edging out Calvert 45-44 in their rematch from two years ago. Donald Trump carried California's 41st District, which includes Palm Springs and the southern Riverside suburbs, by a slender 50-49 margin in 2020. Calvert won his 16th term the following cycle by holding off Rollins 52-48.

The only prior survey we'd seen out of Iowa's 3rd District, likewise, was a June internal for Baccam that found him tied at 43 apiece with Nunn. Trump prevailed by a slim 49.3-48.9 spread four years ago in this district, which includes Des Moines and southwestern Iowa.

Finally, a mid-July internal from Molinaro found him dispatching Riley 47-38 two years after the New York Republican won their first match 52-48. Joe Biden carried the 19th District in southeastern upstate New York 51-47 in 2020.

SC-02

Republican Rep. Joe Wilson's staff said Friday that the South Carolina congressman was "recovering quickly" days after he was hospitalized for what his son previously characterized as "stroke-like symptoms." Wilson's team added that he had been given a pacemaker and was "expected to be discharged from the hospital in a matter of days."

VA-02

Christopher Newport University finds Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans with a 45-40 lead over Democrat Missy Cotter Smasal in the first independent poll of the race for Virginia's 2nd District. 

Respondents deadlock 46-46 between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump four years after Joe Biden scored a small 50-48 victory in this district, which includes Virginia Beach and other communities in the Hampton Roads area. The sample also favors Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine 43-32 in his reelection campaign against Republican Hung Cao.

CNU dropped these numbers one day after Cotter Smasal's allies at the House Majority PAC publicized a late August internal poll from Impact Research that showed her trailing Kiggans by a smaller 48-47 spread. The only prior data we'd seen here was a May survey from the other major Democratic House group, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, that placed the incumbent ahead 48-44.

Ballot Measures

NE Ballot

The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled on Friday that dueling abortion amendments could both appear on the November ballot, rejecting claims that both measures violated the state's single-subject requirement in a pair of opinions.

The Right to Abortion Initiative, designated Initiative 439, would allow abortions to take place until fetal viability; it would also permit them afterward if necessary to protect a pregnant patient's life or health. By contrast, its opposite number, known as Initiative 434, would prohibit abortions after the first trimester, writing the 12-week ban passed by Republican lawmakers last year into the state constitution. It would also allow the state to implement harsher restrictions, including a total ban, in the future.

Should both amendments pass, the state constitution says that the one with the most "yes" votes "shall thereby become law as to all conflicting provisions." The lone public poll of both measures, conducted late last month for the election analysis site Split Ticket by SurveyUSA, showed both amendments ahead, with the anti-abortion proposal up 56-29 and the pro-abortion one ahead by a smaller 45-35 margin.

Mayors & County Leaders

New York City, NY Mayor

State Sen. Jessica Ramos announced Friday that she would challenge New York City's increasingly beleaguered Mayor Eric Adams in what could be a crowded ranked-choice Democratic primary in June.

The Adams administration, writes the New York Times, is the target of four different federal investigations, and one of them dominated the headlines just a day before Ramos' announcement.

Police Commissioner Edward Caban resigned days after the FBI confiscated his phone, a development that led Ramos to question why another prominent member of Adams' inner circle, adviser Timothy Pearson, remains at his post after the same thing happened to him.

Ramos expressed concern "that one of the top ranking Latinos seems to be the only one getting the pressure to remove himself from a seat of power." She then asked of Pearson, "How many strikes does Mr. Pearson need before he gets pressured to resign?"

Ramos, who used her launch video to call for restoring trust in local government, entered the primary weeks after City Comptroller Brad Lander kicked off his own bid against Adams. Two other local politicians, former city Comptroller Scott Stringer and state Sen. Zellnor Myrie, also formed an exploratory committee earlier this year, and the field is likely to continue to grow in the coming months.  

Ramos, who would be both the first woman and first Hispanic person elected mayor of America's largest city (her parents are originally from Colombia), is running six years after she first won office.

Ramos was serving as an aide to Adams' predecessor, Bill de Blasio, when she decided to wage a 2018 primary bid against state Sen. Jose Peralta, a Queens Democrat who was a member of the infamous Independent Democratic Conference that for many years had allied with Republicans. Ramos prevailed 55-45 on the same night that five other candidates, including Myrie, unseated members of the now-defunct IDC.

Ramos emerged as a prominent progressive member of a chamber that, for the first time since World War II, had a stable Democratic majority. She attracted widespread attention this spring when she refused to sponsor legislation to help New York Mets owner Steve Cohen (not to be confused with the Democratic congressman from Tennessee with the same name) build a casino in her district.

Ramos, though, has come into conflict with a far-better known New York City progressive. The state senator took to social media in 2022 to charge that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who represents some of the same areas of Queens, was "barely ever present in the community." Ramos acknowledged in a recent interview with Politico's Jeff Coltin that the two still do not have a relationship.

Portland, OR Mayor

Portland will host its first-ever ranked-choice elections this November, with the battle to succeed retiring Mayor Ted Wheeler taking center stage. As Oregon Public Broadcasting's Alex Zielinski explains, the frontrunners in this officially nonpartisan race appear to be a pair of members of the city council, City Commissioners Rene Gonzalez and Carmen Rubio, but they're making very different pitches for why they should lead Oregon's largest city.

Gonzalez, who has described himself as a "centrist" and a "Biden Democrat," is arguing that the city has failed to protect its residents from crime. He told Zielinski in March that, while he's a progressive on major issues like combatting climate change and abortion rights, his more conservative views on criminal justice have left him "politically homeless" in this dark blue city.

Gonzalez has the support of Multnomah County District Attorney-elect Nathan Vasquez, an independent who won his post in May by attacking Democratic incumbent Mike Schmidt as weak on crime. Also in Gonzalez's corner are the local police and firefighter unions as well as Multifamily Northwest, a group that lobbies for landlords.

Rubio, meanwhile, is touting herself as a more dependable Democrat with "progressive values." She has the backing of Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek, SEIU Oregon State Council, and two prominent local progressive organizations.

Another 17 candidates are also in the running, though only a few have attracted much notice. One is City Commissioner Mingus Mapps, whom Oregonlive.com has characterized as a "relative moderate." Mapps, however, has struggled to raise money or attract major endorsements.

Another notable contender is businessman Keith Wilson, who owns what the Willamette Week's Sophie Peel says is Oregon's "first fossil fuel-free trucking company." Wilson has focused on ending homelessness, though as Peel writes, skeptics argue that his pitch to do so in 12 months is not realistic.

This will be the first municipal race in the City of Roses since voters approved a ballot measure in 2022 to revamp local government.

Until now, candidates for mayor and for each citywide seat on the four-member city council competed in a May nonpartisan primary, with a runoff taking place in November only in races where no one earned a majority of the vote. The mayor and the four council members each lead different city bureaus with the assignments being given out by the mayor, who historically almost always claimed the police commissioner spot.

But this system, as Oregon political consultant Kari Chisholm discussed last year on an episode of The Downballot podcast, often led to problems.

"[T]he challenge is that there are lots of problems in a city that are cross-agency, cross-bureau," Chisholm explained. "Our homelessness problem right now is a parks issue and a law enforcement issue and a fire issue and relates to all the other city agencies. And so you tend to have this fighting amongst the agencies about who's responsible for what."

The passage of Measure 26-228 two years ago ended Portland's status as the last major city in America to still use a commission-based system, a legacy of the Progressive Era. Wheeler's successor will not only be elected using ranked-choice voting, but they'll also supervise an appointed city manager who will run the city's various bureaus.

Meanwhile, the council will expand from four members to 12. These members will be elected under a variant of proportional representation called single transferable voting, which uses ranked-choice voting in multi-seat districts. Under this plan, each of the city's four new council districts will use a ranked-choice process until there are just three victorious council candidates left per district.

The new district lines were drawn up by a 13-person commission that included Chisholm. In our interview, he highlighted the challenges of drawing districts when there were "literally an infinite number of ways you could draw a map to divide Portland, a city of 640,000 people, into four districts of roughly 160,000 people each," and the many geographical considerations that went into the process.

"I was pleasantly surprised that we were able to work in a way that was collaborative and effective," Chisholm said of the complex undertaking. A total of 98 people are now campaigning for the city council in this inaugural election.

Poll Pile

• MI-Sen: Cygnal (R): Elissa Slotkin (D): 44, Mike Rogers (R): 43 (47-46 Harris)

• MO-Sen: GQR (D) for Lucas Kunce: Josh Hawley (R-inc): 50, Lucas Kunce (D): 46 (55-44 Trump)

• TX-Sen: Lake Research Partners (D) for Texas Public Opinion Research: Ted Cruz (R-inc): 47, Colin Allred (D): 43, Ted Brown (L): 5 (51-43 Trump)

• IN-Gov: Lake Research Partners (D) for Destiny Wells: Mike Braun (R): 41, Jennifer McCormick (D): 39 (52-42 Trump)

The numbers from Indiana are part of the same internal poll for Democrat Destiny Wells that showed her trailing Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita 44-41. Both McCormick and Wells have struggled to raise money in a red state where Democrats last won a statewide race in 2012.

Ad Roundup

• MD-Sen: Larry Hogan (R) and the NRSC

• MI-Sen: Great Lakes Conservative Fund - pro-Mike Rogers (R); GLSF - anti-Elissa Slotkin (D)

• NV-Sen: Sam Brown (R) (in English and Spanish)

• AL-02: Caroleene Dobson (R) and the NRCC

• NE-02: Deb Fischer (R-inc)

• NY-22: John Mannion (D)

• OR-05: Winning for Women - pro-Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-inc)

• PA-10: DCCC - anti-Scott Perry (R-inc)

• FL Ballot - Yes on 4 - pro-abortion rights