Looking back on Tuesday's election, some of the most surprising results statewide came on the ballot questions. After studying the returns, several analysts said a mixture of factors - from the money each a campaign spent, to the interest in the presidential election, to well-run campaigns - contributed to the defeat of Question 1 and successes of Questions 2 and 3.

Question 1, which would have abolished the state income tax, failed by a 40 percent point margin, according the Boston Globe. The ballot measure the decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana, Question 2, passed by 30 percentage points. The third ballot question, which prohibits dog-racing in the state had a margin of victory of 12 points. All of these results exceeded expectations set by the most recent polls.

Rob Gray, a Boston Republican strategist, said money played the biggest role in the results.

"Money was the major factor across all of these ballot questions, with their being on the ballot in a presidential election year running a close second," he said. "Presidential elections bring higher liberal and Democratic turnout in Massachusetts plus the addition of more casual voters to the mix, making the defeat of Question 1 and passage of Questions 2 and 3 - the ‘liberal' choices - far easier."

On Question 1, Gray said the Committee for Small Government, which supported the measure, was overmatched.

"Question 1 lost for one big reason: $5 million vs. $200,000," he said. "With spending parity it would have had a decent, but not great, chance to pass."

Other analysts noted that the full court press put on by state officials and labor organizations to defeat the measure, since it came close to passing in 2002 when it flew largely under the radar.

Thomas Whalen, a political scientist at Boston University, said leading up to the election he thought state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson's arrest on bribery charges just a week before the election would have swayed more voters to vote "yes."

"I was a little surprised given the Wilkerson scandal and the low opinion of Beacon Hill that it was so decisively defeated," he said.

Whalen noted that the campaign in support of the measure wasn't able to effectively capitalize on the scandal and that voters, ultimately, "had a pretty realistic view of it."

"Maybe voters aren't given enough credit for being rational or shrewd," he said, nothing the devastating effect repealing the income tax would have had on state services.

The margin of success of Question 2 - 30 percentage points - also surprised analysts because of the number of prominent officials that lined up against it, including most district attorneys, Gov. Deval Patrick, Attorney General Martha Coakley, Boston Mayor Tom Menino and U.S. Sen. John Kerry.

"Question 2 was ripe to be defeated, and only would have required about a half-million dollars to do it," Gray said. "The fact is that the DA's and public safety unions failed to raise or contribute the money required to mount an effective campaign. Their disadvantage is that they are decentralized and lack a wealthy resource or organization to bankroll the law and order point-of-view."

Steven Grossman, a Democratic strategist and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said he wasn't surprised by the measure's success.

"I think people in Massachusetts fundamentally have a lot of common sense," he said. "The idea that we should decriminalize possession of a small amount of marijuana and focus on bigger issues resonated with people."

Grossman also said the Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy, the group behind the measure, ran an effective campaign, including using two ads with testimonials from former Boston police officers that supported the measure.

"The campaign used police officers that had served for many years in the police force that believed that this ballot question was the right thing to do," Grossman said. "It just sounded like more common sense than what many people thought was a knee jerk reaction from the entire political establishment."

Mike Shea, another Democratic strategist, also said the campaign in support of the measure presented an effective and nuanced message.

"Question 2 won because its backers - most notably former Assistant AG Thomas Kiley - presented a thoughtfully crafted question that addressed voters concerns about DUI and kids using pot," he said. "Kiley and others articulated and delivered an argument against the stupidity of current policy that many in the state know from first person experience."

Whalen, however, said the measure's success surprised him. The campaign in support of it appealed to parents who understood that, based on their own experiences, their children were likely to experiment with marijuana, Whalen said. With Question 2's success, possession of a small amount of marijuana won't appear on one's criminal record.

"The way they sold it was very subtle but effective," Whalen said. "They basically said, ‘we kind of know kids are going to do this at some point, do you really want to ruin their futures?'"

Still, Dan Payne, a veteran Democratic strategist, said the success wasn't all that shocking.

"Don't read too much into this," Payne said. "Boomers and Generation Xers like to smoke or have fond memories of their youthful hash experiences. As Bob Dylan sang: Everybody must get stoned."

Perhaps the most surprising of the results came with Question 3, which polling suggested would be close but passed by 12 percent.

Whalen said the Committee to Protect Dogs, which supported the measure, "tugged at the emotional heart strings" of voters. "Seeing the conditions the dogs lived under trumped the jobs issue" that the group opposing the measure attempted to make. Whalen also noted that Americans have a visceral reaction to mistreatment of dogs and recalled the outrage following the story former Gov. Mitt Romney driving with his dog on the roof of his car on family vacations.

"I still say that's when he lost the campaign," Whalen joked.

Grossman agreed that Massachusetts voters respond to humanitarian causes. Grossman also said that the opponents of the measure weren't able to effectively communicate its economic effects.

"I don't think the proponents of the status quo were able to document or quantify the economic impact it would have," he said. "If it had been based on at this time of economic crisis, we can't afford for X number of people to lose their jobs it might have been different. I don't think that message and that case was made."

And Gray again returned to the fact that the measure's opponents were outspent.

"Question 3 would have lost if the opponents spent a million dollars," he said. "They obviously chose to spend only about one-third of that for a variety of business reasons, and Wonderland didn't participate at all financially."