MassFiscal does a lot of important advocacy work. Our legislative scorecard at www.MassFiscalScorecard.org shows all 200 lawmakers and how they vote on key issues. Our direct mail program is sent to millions of constituents sharing with them how their lawmakers vote in the statehouse. Our radio ads are targeted to Massachusetts listeners who care about state issues. Our digital and online team use state of the art microtargeting to educate online viewers of the important work we do.

You may have heard about a recent statewide poll MassFiscal conducted on the legislative pay raise and Prop. 80. We’ve linked to an article here if you haven't. But now, we’d like to share with you results from another poll we've run. This poll was developed specifically to test the effectiveness of a pilot advocacy campaign.

The results were outstanding. Because of them, we're going to replicate the campaign across the state.

The campaign and the poll were both conducted in a single legislative district: Rep. Brian Murray of Milford. The data, which you can read more about on charts below, show shifts in attitude toward Rep. Murray when the public is educated on his favorable vote on the legislative pay raise.

The results are just one more reason MassFiscal plans to keep at February's pay raise vote like a dog with a bone.

In the model campaign, our approach was intensive, but simple. We called every available phone number and mailed every available address, pushing out the message: Rep. Murray voted for the monster pay raise bill before he was even assigned a permanent office.

Similar advocacy campaigns begin this week with mailers to districts represented by state Rep. Joan Meschino (D-Hull), Rep. Corey Atkins (D-Concord), and Rep. Alice Peisch (D-Wellesley). More mailers into more districts will be going out. If you want to see how your lawmaker voted on the pay raise vote, Prop. 80, or other important votes, please visit our legislative scorecard at www.MassFiscalScorecard.org.

Aggregated Data from Polling Post-Pilot Advocacy Campaign Below:

SUMMARY

Table 1 aggregates the " favorable" responses toward various federal and state officials. Governor Baker earned the highest marks, as he has consistently in statewide and national polling. Rep. Murray and Sen. Fattman scored similarly, scores that make sense as both won elections by similar margins.

In Table 2, 70 percent of those surveyed knew about the pay raise vote. The strength of that number shows how effective our advocacy has been. Generally, knowledge of any particular bill is quite low. Most folks don't pay any attention to the state legislature.

The question used to get the data in Table 3 was posed as a contrast to results we'd get about Murray. In our efforts, people received information about Murray but NOT about Fattman. About 20 percent of people polled knew Fattman voted against the bill, and just as many got it dead wrong. Sixty percent admitted to having no idea. Fattman's numbers indicated misinformed the public can be without educational advocacy like ours.

Table 4 demonstrates that our advocacy worked. Well over half of Rep. Murray’s constituents knew he voted for the pay raises. 

Tables 5 and 6 present data for questions of overall support for Fattman and Murray. Senator Fattman's constituents give him high marks; 47 percent of those surveyed are likely to vote for him again, while only 32 percent are not so inclined. For Fattman, the remainder are undecided. Rep. Murray's numbers, however, are upside down. More people, 42 percent, say they would vote for someone else; only 36 percent would likely vote for him again.