Why ‘vote no’ groups say they can beat stadiums tax despite Chiefs’, Royals’ big spending

With the Royals and Chiefs spending $3.2 million as of Monday on ads, consultants and people to knock on doors to promote the stadiums sales tax, opposition groups with far fewer dollars are relying on public skepticism and committed volunteers canvassing neighborhoods to defeat Question 1 on April 2.

That’s not to say that KC Tenants and the Committee Against New Royals Stadium Taxes aren’t also buying ads, sending out mailers and printing up yard signs.

KC Tenants is, like the teams, active on social media and even has a TV commercial out, albeit without superstar spokesmen like Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, to motivate their side to participate in what would typically be a low-turnout spring election.

But when you are being outspent roughly 20-to-1, you have to be a bit more strategic. You need a message that will resonate with several segments of the electorate if you want a chance at defeating the ballot measure that would repeal the current stadiums tax and implement a new 3/8-cent sales tax for 40 years to help pay for a new Royals ballpark in the East Crossroads, renovate Arrowhead Stadium and provide the teams with money to operate and maintain the stadiums.

The opposition’s target voters include those who resent the teams’ implied threat that they would leave town if voters don’t approve the sales tax. Or as one of KC Tenants’ mailers says, “Don’t let the team owners threaten us for our tax dollars. Don’t let the teams’ owners hide a bad deal behind good players.”

Also in the “vote no” camp are those who in general oppose public subsidies for “billionaire owners” through a sales tax that, like all sales taxes, would place a heavier burden on people with low incomes.

And then there are those who might favor paying for renovations at the Truman Sports Complex but oppose a downtown ballpark for any number of reasons, from concerns about parking to the displacement of Crossroads businesses to their fondness for Kauffman Stadium.

“Save the K,” is the key message that the Committee Against New Royals Stadium Taxes is pressing, in the hopes that nostalgia and anti-tax sentiment will be a winning mix.

Any combination of the above gives opponents a lot to work with, they say, against the teams’ mostly positive messaging to keep the city’s momentum moving forward.

“We are winning the battle on the ground,” said Tim Smith, campaign manager for the Committee Against New Royals Stadium Taxes. “And our people are fired up about this issue. That’s why we’re probably gonna see maybe the highest turnout municipal election in some time.”

Big dollar difference

Naturally, the teams are also banking on a big turnout to help their causes and are spending plenty to get out the yes vote.

The mandatory campaign finance reports that are due to come out early this week should provide details on how both sides have been spending their campaign cash. But while the details might be revealing, the top-line numbers should be no surprise.

The Committee Against New Royals Stadium Taxes and KC Tenants are being drastically outspent by the Committee to Keep the Chiefs and Royals in Jackson County. Anyone watching March Madness games over the weekend could sense the imbalance as the teams’ commercials sometimes ran back to back.

The Royals and Chiefs each gave $1.5 million to their committee in $500,000 increments over the past several weeks. On top of that $3 million, the Royals separately gave $235,000 to five established campaign committees across the county for get-out-the-vote efforts as of Monday’s campaign finance reports.

The team gave $25,000 to the La Raza Political Club last week, and $125,000 to the East Side political club Freedom Inc. on Monday. Earlier, the team contributed a combined $90,000 to three established committees with ties to Jackson County Legislator DaRon McGee, who introduced the ordinance that put the tax issue on the April ballot.

Two of the committees — Forward Jackson County and Democratic Coalition Kansas City — share the same mailing address with McGee’s own election campaign committee, McGee for Jackson County.

Southland Progress was the other committee. Byron Townsend, who served with McGee on the Hickman Mills school board, is treasurer of all three.

“We’re gong to do what we always do,” he said when asked how the Royals’ cash would be spent. “Hire poll workers, pay for mailers and put ads in the papers.”

By comparison, KC Tenants estimates it will spend $125,000 for its entire campaign operation, with about $75,000 of that budgeted for broadcast and cable television commercials, said Tara Raghuveer, one of the group’s co-founders.

The budget also includes paying for mailers the group sent to 55,000 households recently. Another one is set to go out at the end of this week.

But the key to the group’s strategy is similar to what has worked for KC Tenants to mobilize public support in the past. The willingness of its 10,000 members in yellow T-shirts to show up when called upon to knock on doors and engage with people one-on-one in public spaces.

“We know that the Royals and the Chiefs are putting $2 million into the campaign and trying to buy the election through drowning us in mail and ads and whatever,” Raghuveer said. “So we have to be firing on all cylinders. Our door knocking strategy is really about doing what KC Tenants does best, which is engage people where they are about the issues that matter to them.”

Different lanes, same goal

The two opposition groups are not working together, they say, and are only somewhat aware of what the other is planning in terms of strategy. But they have each chosen a lane, so to speak.

“We’re both encouraging people to vote no,” Smith said. “They have their reasons for that. And we have ours…Kauffman Stadium should be preserved,” Smith said. “There’s nothing wrong with that stadium. There’s no need for a new stadium.”

The Committee Against New Royals Stadium Taxes is only a little more than a month old and grew out of an 8,000-member Facebook group whose members question the need for a new Royals ballpark. The group had raised $11,511 as of Monday’s campaign finance report, mostly from small donations ranging from $10 to a few hundred dollars from more than 150 donors. Much of it was spent on printing and Facebook ads.

Former Kansas City Councilwoman Becky Nace posted often on the Save Kauffman (Royals) Stadium at Truman Sports Complex Facebook page and, as committee chairwoman, has been representing the opposition on the debate stage, sparring with former Kansas City Mayor Sly James, who works for the teams’ campaign committee as a paid consultant.

KC Tenants announced its opposition to the tax before Nace and Smith formed their committee. Since its founding five years ago, the citywide tenants union has grown to become an influential and effective force in local politics.

As a measure of that, the group successfully lobbied Kansas City to pass a tenants bill of rights and an ordinance that prohibits landlords from refusing to accept federal housing vouchers from renters.

Four of the six candidates the group’s political arm endorsed in last year’s Kansas City Council elections won their races. Among them was one of the group’s active members, Jonathan Duncan, the only member of the council who has taken a public stance in opposition to the tax.

He said the money spent on stadiums would be better used to provide affordable housing and public transit, themes that KC Tenants is also pressing throughout this campaign.

“Billionaires do not need public investments, our people do,” he wrote in a letter he posted last week on X, formerly Twitter.

In addition, KC Tenants and the Committee Against New Royals Stadium Taxes have also been playing up the uncertainty that surrounds the issue.

With only a week to go before the ballots are counted, neither team had signed anything beyond a letter of intent describing the broad outlines of what would be in their stadium leases. Their community benefits agreements were announced only last week, after several key negotiating groups abandoned the deal disappointed with the teams.

And neither team has yet announced how much money they expect to get from Kansas City and the state of Missouri for the Royals’ estimated $2 billion baseball village project and the $500 million gap in funding for the $800 million renovations the Chiefs announced.

Defeating Question 1 would provide more time for that discussion, said KC Tenants organizer Dajanae Moreland, who thinks the teams are unlikely to move outside the Kansas City area if this tax measure fails when they both have seven years left on their leases.

“While the Royals, and the Chiefs may be threatening to leave, what is actually more likely is that, if this tax fails on April 2, they will try to get their process together and then come back for the money in a year,” she said.

Are the teams bluffing? KC Tenants and the Committee Against New Royals Stadium Taxes think so and believe calling them on it is worth the risk.

This story was updated Tuesday March 26 to reflect new campaign finance totals.