Was Amendment 3 ever meant to pass?
The newest poll has the property-tax amendment at 50% — ten points under the 60% bar its own champions defend. The governor who called the special session won't campaign for it, no organized yes-campaign ever appeared, and a judge threw out its ballot label. At some point the pattern stops looking like bad luck.
- UNF's poll, released Oct. 21: Amendment 3 stands at 50% support, 35% opposed, 14% undecided — ten points short of the 60% it needs, with early voting already open.
- The polls range from 42% to 63%, and the number moves with what voters are told: when UNF gave respondents the state's own $11.86 billion revenue figure in July, support fell from 61% to 45%.
- The 60% bar was the Legislature's own proposal, passed by voters in 2006 with 57.8% — less than the standard it set. In 2024, the abortion and marijuana amendments both won majorities and failed anyway.
- Gov. DeSantis called the special session that produced Amendment 3, then said he will vote for it but won't campaign for the Legislature's version — and told an Alabama audience, 'I don't know if it's going to pass with 60%.' A judge threw out the amendment's original ballot title in August as misleading.
Two weeks out, the biggest tax cut ever put in front of Florida voters is short of the votes it needs. A University of North Florida poll released Wednesday, Oct. 21, puts Amendment 3 — the legislatively written plan to raise the homestead exemption to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028 for non-school taxes — at 50% support, 35% opposed and 14% undecided. A constitutional amendment needs 60%. Early voting is already open across most of the state, and Election Day is Nov. 3.
It is not the only number available, which is part of the story. A James Madison Institute poll of likely voters, taken Sept. 28 to Oct. 4, found 63% support — the only recent survey with the amendment clearing the bar. An Associated Industries of Florida poll from the same weeks found 53% among voters who heard the full ballot language, short of 60% in every media market in the state, bottoming at 48% in Orlando. St. Pete Polls found 45% in mid-September and 42% in early October. In the summer, Sachs Media measured 64% and 63%.
The spread is not random. The number moves with what voters are told. When UNF, in a July survey, told respondents that state economists estimate the amendment would reduce local revenue by $11.86 billion a year at full phase-in, support fell from 61% to 45%. A measure whose popularity depends that heavily on what the voter hasn't heard yet is a fragile thing to send into a 60% fight.
Start with the bar itself. Florida's 60% requirement was the Legislature's own idea: proposed in 2005, placed on the 2006 ballot, and approved by voters with 57.8% — under the simple-majority rule then in effect, and below the standard it imposed on everyone who came after. (It was, by coincidence, also numbered Amendment 3.) The bar has done its work since: in 2024, amendments on abortion and recreational marijuana drew roughly 57% and 56% yes votes — clear majorities — and failed. Lawmakers have since filed proposals to raise the threshold to two-thirds; one passed the Florida House in 2023 before dying in the Senate. A Senate proposal this year to lower it back to a simple majority went nowhere. The bar stays where it is, defended most reliably by the same Republican establishment that campaigns on tax cuts.
Then there is the campaign that wasn't. Amendment 3 passed the Senate 30-9 and the House 75-26 in a three-day special session Gov. Ron DeSantis called in June. The Legislature rewrote his plan along the way, carving out school taxes. DeSantis then announced he would vote for the amendment but would not lead a campaign for it, because the Legislature's version wasn't his proposal. Florida Trend's assessment: for all its vote margins, the amendment 'practically looks like an orphan' — as of August, no organized campaign to pass it had appeared. Speaking at the University of Alabama on Sept. 18, DeSantis said it plainly: 'I don't know if it's going to pass with 60%. I wanted to be bolder.' The Republican nominee to succeed him, Byron Donalds, says he will vote yes — and that if it fails, he will work on other solutions. Three organized committees, meanwhile, have formed to oppose it. The no side organized. The yes side held a press conference in June.
Even the label didn't survive inspection. The Legislature's original ballot title was 'Save Our Homes from Excessive Property Taxes,' and the summary promised movement toward 'full elimination' of property taxes on homesteads — language the amendment's text does not deliver. Opponents, including former Sen. Jeff Brandes, sued. On Aug. 4, Leon County Circuit Judge David Frank ruled the title and summary 'clearly and conclusively defective' — misleading slogan-making rather than a neutral description — and ordered a rewrite. Attorney General James Uthmeier's office produced new language, released Aug. 14; the amendment now goes to voters under the plainer title 'Increased Homestead Exemption; Lower Cap on Increases in Non-homestead Property Assessments.' Brandes, a plaintiff, welcomed the rewrite: 'The text is honest about what the amendment does.' Opponents of the measure itself were unmoved — 'Amendment 3 is still a scam and a tax shift,' said Jackson Peel of Save Our Services–No on 3 — but the episode stands on its own: the people selling the amendment wrote a ballot description a judge had to throw out.
The fair counterweights deserve their space. The homestead exemption lives in the state constitution, so an amendment genuinely was the only vehicle for raising it — no statute could have done this part. DeSantis's camp can fairly say he wanted a bolder measure and the Legislature diluted it; the Florida Realtors back the amendment in earnest; and no one can prove what any politician privately intended. Intent is unknowable. Behavior is a matter of record.
So judge the behavior. A party that controls the Legislature defends a 60% bar its own predecessors built. It sends its signature tax cut to that bar rather than fighting for the votes to clear it — the governor won't campaign, no yes-campaign materializes, and the ballot label has to be rewritten by court order. If Amendment 3 lands at 55% on Nov. 3, a majority of Florida voters will have said yes to a tax cut and gotten nothing, the officials who championed it will keep every bit of credit for offering it, local governments will keep collecting at today's rates, and no one in Tallahassee will ever have to answer for the $5 billion first-year hole the state's economists priced. Everyone in that picture is comfortable except the voter. Maybe that was the point.
Practical notes for voters: the deadline to request a mail ballot is Thursday, Oct. 22. Mandatory early voting runs Oct. 24–31 in every county, with many counties already open. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3.