Nate Silver: California Voters Would Overturn Proposition 8 In 2012

Elections prognosticator Nate Silver has published another super-complicated voting trends analysis. Even though there's no plan to place a repeal of Prop 8 on the 2012 California ballot, Silver predicts that voters would overturn the measure if given the chance.

Even the relatively cautious Linear Model predicts that 54 percent of Californians would vote against a measure like Proposition 8 if one were on the ballot next year, while 55 percent of Oregonians would vote against a ban on same-sex marriage like the one the state’s voters approved in 2004. Neither prediction seems too far out of line: Oregon’s marriage ban was rejected by 43 percent of voters seven years ago, and California’s by 48 percent two years ago, and public opinion has shifted meaningfully in favor of same-sex marriage since then.