Campaigns & Elections: Three's a crowd: how Arizona's complex three-way casino campaign was won:

In 2002, Arizona was the arena for a unique ballot measure battle involving three competing casino gaming initiatives.

The winning campaign in this unusual three-way vote was run on behalf of a coalition of 17 Arizona Indian tribes. Their opponents were wealthy racetrack owners on one hand and a single but well-financed Indian tribe on the other.

It was a campaign in which winning required the 17-tribe coalition to do more than just convince voters to approve the initiative they were sponsoring. They also needed to convince voters to reject the other two gaming measures on the November state ballot. If their initiative failed to pass, Arizona tribes could be forced to shut down their gaming facilities. If voters approved more than one measure, the tribes would face a complex legal quagmire of conflicting gaming regulations.

Unfortunately for the tribes, Arizona voters weren't given an either--or choice. They could vote for or against any or all of the three measures. Mathematically, this meant that there were eight possible outcomes, only one of which would provide a clear win for the 17-tribe coalition.

The campaign was made tougher still by the fact that sponsors of the other two measures spent millions promoting their initiatives and attacking the coalition's measure. On top of that, anti-gaming Christian groups mounted their own advertising and grass-roots campaign urging a no vote on all three measures. This meant that by late October, the 17-tribe coalition was faced with opposition from three distinct campaigns, all running major statewide media campaigns seeking to defeat the 17-tribe measure.

"We've been the consultant on over 130 ballot measure campaigns," said Paul Mandabach, president of Winner & Mandabach, the firm that managed the campaign. "But we'd never seen anything as complicated as the 2002 gaming campaign in Arizona."

Ultimately, the 17-tribe coalition and their consultants succeeded in passing their measure and defeating the other two. The story of how this was accomplished actually begins nearly two years before the November 2002 election. Because our firm, Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates, did the polling for the tribes starting in early 2001, we were involved in the many complex strategic decisions that shaped this long and unusual campaign.

Initial Battles: Legislature and the Courts

Indian casinos in Arizona operate under the terms of gaming agreements (called compacts) with the state government, as required by federal law. By 2000, many of Arizona's existing state-tribal gaming compacts were nearing their 10-year expiration dates, so the state and tribes began the process of negotiating new compacts.

But in the spring of 2001, before the compact renewal process was completed, the Arizona racing industry mounted a major attack. Using a barrage of TV, radio and print ads, the racetracks claimed that Indian casinos threatened to put Arizona's horse and dog tracks out of business. Unlike racetracks, they argued, tribes were allowed to have lucrative casino games, but were exempt from state taxes. Therefore, they said, the legislature should either allow tracks to have casino games or reject the renewal of Arizona's Indian gaming compacts.

The tribes responded with a series of TV, radio and print ads developed by Winner & Mandabach. These ads countered that the racetracks were using transparent scare tactics and misinformation simply to try to block Arizona's Indian gaming agreements and put the tribal casinos out of business.

Ongoing surveys done in 2001 showed that the tribes' ads were more credible and effective than those run by the tracks, and the legislature did not pass the tracks' legislation. However, the racetracks had another card to play: A lawsuit that claimed that previously overlooked errors in the state's Indian gaming laws conflicted with the state constitution, thus making it illegal for the state to reauthorize the tribal gaming compacts. A U.S. District judge made an initial ruling in the tracks' favor.

Moving to the Ballot

When it became clear that the racetracks had enough lobbying clout to block a legislative solution to the problem created by their lawsuit and the expiration of the compacts, the tribes decided to ask Arizona voters to resolve the issue. Guided by polling and advice from attorneys and campaign consultants, the coalition developed and filed a ballot initiative in May 2002 called "The Arizona Indian Self-Reliance Initiative."

This initiative aimed to resolve the legal issue the racetracks' lawsuit raised by making it clear that the state could authorize casino gaming agreements with the tribes. Our polling data showed that while Arizona voters supported the continuation of Indian gaming in the state, they did have a number of concerns about the conditions under which gaming would continue, and there were many messages that could be used to undercut that base of support. Accordingly, the tribes and their consultants carefully designed the initiative to address those concerns and defend against potential attacks as much as possible.

Tribal leaders and their consultants knew that the racetracks might propose a competing initiative to achieve their own gaming goals--or simply as a tactic that might create confusion and increase the odds of defeating the tribes' measure. And, in fact, the tracks soon filed a competing measure they called "The Fair Gaming Act."

The tracks' measure allowed casino games at both tribal casinos and racetracks. It had two major advantages over the tribes' measure. First, it channeled a much bigger share of casino gaming revenues to empty state coffers than the tribes' measure--more than $300 million per year, according to the tracks. Second, it required public disclosure of all tribal casino finances, something polling showed to be a significant issue with the public.

Ballot measure campaigns with two competing measures tend to be more complicated for voters to sort out--and more complicated for consultants to--do but are not entirely uncommon.

However, another development created a unique challenge.

A group of Indians known as the Colorado River Indian Tribes (known as CRIT; which is essentially one tribe), decided that the 17-tribe initiative gave too much revenue and regulatory control to the state. So during the legislative process, CRIT filed its own measure and portrayed it as the option that was fairest to Arizona Indian tribes and to all Arizonans. To voters unfamiliar with the circumstances surrounding Indian gaming, the CRIT measure and the one sponsored by the 17 tribes were likely to seem equally appealing. Both were sponsored by Indians, both promised revenue--sharing with the state, and neither would allow the expansion of gaming outside of Indian reservations.

"The CRIT initiative threatened to split the pro-Indian vote and, combined with the tracks' measure and voter confusion, to send our numbers significantly below 50 percent, Mandabach said. "As a result, we had to develop a strategy that would reduce confusion and convince voters that our measure was the best option flu" both Indian tribes and the state as a whole."

Laws and Order

One initial strategic consideration was the order of the initiatives on the ballot. All three campaigns were funded well and used paid signature-gathering firms. Under state law, the order in which the measures would appear on the ballot was decided by the order in which the required number of signatures to qualify, the measures for the ballot were submitted. Because they had a head start getting signatures, CRIT was able to submit first, thus establishing first position on the ballot. Winner & Mandabach recommended against being second, believing that being in the middle of three measures--the NO-YES-NO position--would be the most difficult. Ultimately, the consensus confirmed by our opinion research--was that being third and having the NO-NO-YES vote would be optimal. Thus, the coalition waited outside the state offices to submit its petitions until after the racetracks had turned in theirs.

A few weeks later, the secretary of state confirmed that all three measures qualified. The CRIT initiative was designated Proposition 200, the racetracks' measure was Prop 201, and the 17-Tribe initiative became--as planned--Prop 202.

The media developed for the signature-gathering phase was designed to provide a solid foundation for a multi-phase media plan. These foundation ads focused on the benefits of Indian gaming and explained why the 17-tribe initiative was needed to allow Indian gaming to continue.

The ads and mail in this phase also urged people to become members of the campaign coalition organized to support the measure. It was Winner & Mandabach's advice that locking in a large base of voters could be especially crucial in the three-way Arizona battle.

By the May 2002 signature deadline, more than 65,000 Arizonans had joined the coalition, called "Arizonans for Fair Gaming and Indian Self-Reliance." During the next few months, membership swelled to more than 100,000, making it the largest ballot measure committee ever formed in Arizona.

Branding Phase

During the summer, after the three competing gaming measures had qualified for the ballot and received proposition numbers, the 17-tribe coalition implemented what it called the branding phase of its media campaign. The previous phase had been entirely positive and focused exclusively on the 17-tribe measure and Indian gaming in general. The branding phase, however, was designed to create distinctive impressions of all three measures in voters' minds.

Accordingly, during the branding phase the campaign consistently used distinctive, memorable names for the three measures: Prop 200, the "CRIT Single Tribe Initiative," Prop 201, the "Racetrack Gambling Proposition," and Prop 202, the "17-Tribe initiative." This three-way name recognition was reinforced by using consistent visual images for each measure, such as shot of racing dogs and horses when Prop 201 was mentioned and group shots of the leaders of 17 tribes when Prop 202 was named.

Prior to this phase, both of the initiatives sponsored by Indians (Prop 200 and Prop 202) had nearly identical support among voters. Prop 201, which allowed Indian gaming to continue but also allowed slots at the racetracks, had significantly less support. Voter confusion, coupled with significant ad buys by the other campaigns, made it imperative to shift from straight "YES on 202" efforts to a combined "NO on 200/NO on 201/YES on 202" ad wave. This was accomplished through a television ad featuring Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who some called the toughest cop in Arizona. His appearance in the 60-second ad basically branded all three measures in an emphatic way.

Two weeks after the initial airing of the Arpaio ad, voter support for both 200 and 201 had eroded significantly, while support for 202 increased. To the surprise of political observers who doubted that voters would be able to distinguish between three competing measures and remember which number was which, polls showed that most Arizonans soon understood the basics of each proposition, and many had formed strong opinions (though voter confusion was far from eliminated).

The Arpaio commercial spot was followed by a series of credibility ads focusing on the revenues Prop 202 would provide for education and health care programs. In addition, some ads were used to rebut claims made in ads run by the racetracks.

The tracks' ads featured a fictional character cleverly named Joe Arizona, who made various satirical attacks on Indian gaming and Prop 202. His attacks stated that Prop 201 was the only measure that would help all Arizonans by giving the state $300 million in gaming revenue, and that 201 would assure full disclosure of Indian gaming operations.

Meanwhile, the CRIT tribe ran ads portraying their measure as the best option for both Indians and the state. Initially, the CRIT ads focused on supporting a yes vote on Prop 200. But that would soon change.

Three Campaigns Attack 202

By early October, our surveys showed that the majority of voters supported Prop 202 and opposed both 200 and 201. As a result, the Prop 200 and 201 campaigns began running negative ads attacking the 17-tribe initiative. The racetrack ads said that 202 would allow a massive expansion of gambling with little regulation or oversight, and without providing any significant benefits to the state.

The CRIT tribe said 202 was unfair to rural and non-gaming tribes, and that it was an attempt by rich, urban tribes to get even richer. It was at this point that a coalition of Christian groups also attacked 202 with a pro-family, anti-gaming message, running ads that urged a no vote on all three measures.

During the month of October, these massive negative attacks through print and TV ads, as well as in direct mail, caused a creeping erosion of the yes on 202 vote. By the end of the month, our firm's polls (as well as those conducted by media organizations) showed that Prop 200 and 201 were opposed by a 2-to-1 margin and were clearly dead. Prop 202 was hovering beneath the 50 percent mark--not a good position to be in a ballot measure campaign with a week to go and heavy paid opposition continuing on a daily basis. Most local pundits were predicting that all three measures would be defeated.

Crisis Point

Five days before Election Day, Mandabach and colleagues held a final strategy meeting with tribal leaders.

"On the conference table was a front-page story in the Arizona Republic showing new polling that predicted we would lose. What followed in that meeting was a moving experience. Instead of throwing in the towel or complaining about the negative trend, the tribal leaders took a warm, positive approach," Mandabach recalled. "Each tribe spent a few minutes talking about the activities they were doing to help achieve victory."

Mandabach's team then discussed their strategy liar the campaign's closing days.

"People left the meeting unified, positive and determined to beat the odds," he said.

Final Five Days

During the last five days of the election, the tribes kicked grass-roots and get out-the-vote (GOTV) campaigns into high gear throughout the state. The final yes on 202 ads and mail featured both tribal leaders and well-known third parties like Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to reiterate the message about the measure's benefits and counter the attacks used in the ads run by the racetracks and CRIT.

The campaign's last creative touch was based on polling and qualitative research that showed voters were tired of the intense, year-long gaming campaign and of being told how to vote. So, for the final three days of the campaign, we ran a novel spot that psychologically acknowledged the voters' weariness and didn't even tell them how to vote:

"Our 17-tribe coalition has done its best to explain how important Proposition 202 is for all Indians in Arizona," said tribal leader Ivan Makil, "and how it will benefit the state by providing new" funds for education and health care. We thank all Arizonans from our hearts for listening to us. Now, the decision is in your hands. Please be sure to go to the polls and vote. Thank you."

Said Christine Aghassi, vice president of Winner & Mandabach, "We felt the final 5 percent of undecided voters would base their decision more on their potential feelings, than on the issues raised by final ads. So we decided to go for an ad that had a nice, low-key emotional touch in the last three days."

As planned, this polite, soft-sell approach contrasted dramatically with the many other hard-edged and negative political ads that were on the air for candidates and other ballot measures. In the final days before the election, in combination with the tribes' final GOTV push and a final mail piece rebutting the tracks' ads, it succeeded in pulling the Prop 202 campaign out of the proverbial fire.

The Final Numbers

On Election Day, the CRIT measure was squashed by a vote of 85 percent no to 15 percent yes. The racetracks' measure, Prop 201, did slightly better; it was rejected by a crushing vote of 80 percent no to 20 percent yes.

In contrast, 51 percent of Arizona voters voted yes on Prop 202, giving 17 Arizona tribes a narrow, hard fought and sweet victory in the most heavily saturated, hotly contested, strategically complex issue campaign in Arizona history.

David Metz is senior vice president at Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin & Associates, a polling firm based in based in California.