Yes on Proposition 22, also known as the Save App-Based Jobs and Services coalition, hired Rodriguez Strategies to build and run a unique field program for the 2020 statewide ballot measure campaign.
Prop 22 provided expanded benefits to app-based drivers while allowing them to maintain their independent contractor status, thereby preserving the freedom to drive for rideshare and delivery services when, where, and how often they chose. In addition to being supported by the vast majority of drivers themselves, Prop 22 was supported by a broad coalition of 140 community, advocacy, disability rights, public safety, veterans, and business groups.
Rodriguez Strategies created a plan to communicate directly with those drivers impacted by the ballot measure, a group that was by nature independent and self-motivated. The drivers themselves represent a culturally and geographically diverse coalition of hard-to-reach individuals, many historically disenfranchised and a significant portion of whom face economic and physical challenges and rely on the supplemental income they earn from this work to survive. Many work every available moment they have and proved difficult to reach; but our statewide field team consisting of 25 staff members made more than 104,000 calls during the course of the year contacting drivers who spoke dozens of different primary languages.
Utilizing an online database, we created a tiered ranking system to identify and track those who were most supportive and able to promote the campaign in earned and paid media efforts. We also identified and secured permission from more than 100 drivers to appear in mailers and campaign collateral materials.
To further reach this community, we held events, tele-townhalls, online rallies, and other outreach efforts to help grow the list of driver supporters from 27,000 at the start of our engagement to 120,000 at the end. We also added hundreds of merchants who utilize the services and thousands of customers and riders. Over the final month of the campaign, we built and scaled a volunteer texting effort, delivering more than 1.7 million messages to California voters by our driver and supporter volunteers.
In the end, Prop 22 passed by a historic margin for a yes campaign, garnering 9.8 million votes (59%), mainly due to the amplification of voices from the impacted community.
The work of our team was highlighted in a post-mortem analysis published in the LA Times that stated:
"An eight-page report provided by the Yes on 22 campaign on the measure’s success offers some clues as to how it cut through the din of a pandemic and presidential election to persuade voters.
The report attributed the win to the campaign’s emphasis on providing freedom and flexibility to drivers, and its “great lengths to make driver voices the focus and face” in messaging. More than 120,000 drivers signed up to support the campaign, the report said, and numerous paid ads featured “driver voices providing a simple and easy-to-understand description of what the initiative would do.”
The report also credited assembling a “transcendent coalition” that “reflected the driver base, who predominantly represent communities of color,” touting endorsements from the state’s chapter of the NAACP, as well as California’s Hispanic, Black and Asian American chambers of commerce."