Poll Analyst Nate Silver Thinks Gay Marriage Ban Likely to Fail in Maine
Back in April, I conducted an analysis of the prospects of a gay marriage ban becoming law in each of the 50 states. The analysis found that support for gay marriage bans was strongly tied to two factors: the degree of religiosity in a state, as measured by 2008 Gallup tracking surveys, and the year that the initiative was up for vote -- marriage bans have lost support at a rate of about 2 percent per year, ceteris paribus. That analysis concluded that a Maine is one of 11 states that would probably vote to reject a ban on gay marriage if a referendum were held this year.
Mainers, in fact, will soon have a chance to test this proposition. In November, they will go to the polls to vote on Question 1; a yes vote would overturn a law passed earlier this year by the state's legislature that permits gays and lesbians to get married in the state.
I decided to re-visit my model, which consists of a relatively simple data set of all previous anti-gay marriage initiatives. 31 of 32 such initiatives have passed, the sole exception being Arizona Proposition 107, which failed in 2006, although Arizona's voters decided two years later to approve a similar measure that limited its scope to marriage rather than civil unions. I've expanded the model to include a new variable, which -- pursuant to the Arizona case -- is whether the initiative sought to ban civil unions in addition to marriage. (Although I'd given this a cursory look before, I evidently wasn't careful enough, because it turns out to be highly statistically significant).
