Opinion Change in Nonpartisan Contexts: The Case of Residential Zoning Reform

How do voters form policy preferences in nonpartisan contexts? This paper answers this question through the case of residential zoning, a key policy domain of largely nonpartisan local governments. Drawing on fieldwork during a residential zoning initiative in Menlo Park, CA, I show how a local campaign shaped residents’ opinions by providing them with both ideological information and nonpartisan group cues. I then show that key components of this argument generalize beyond the case of Menlo Park: both kinds of information are commonplace in residential zoning campaigns across California, and a survey experiment with a sample of Democratic homeowners shows that this information affects other cross-pressured voters in similar ways. These findings contribute to research on local political behavior by showing that when voters have access to the same kinds of nonpartisan information they use to form opinions on national policies, they will similarly use them to form opinions about local policies.