Though a majority of California voters continue to support a state ballot measure that would enact a one-time tax on billionaires, a new poll shows a drop in support for the initiative less than two months before the November election.
Proposition 40, also known as the Billionaire Tax Act, would levy a one-time tax of up to 5 percent on Californians with over $1 billion in covered assets. A poll conducted in September by the University of California, Berkeley’s Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research and Politico shows that 45 percent of California’s registered voters support Proposition 40, while 42 percent are against the measure.
These numbers represent a drop in support and increase in opposition from February, when a previous poll conducted by the Citrin Center and Politico found that 50 percent of registered voters supported Proposition 40 and only 28 percent opposed it.
The number of voters undecided about the ballot measure has also decreased in February, from 23 percent to 12 percent.
In California, statewide ballot measures are approved if they receive a simple majority of the vote. If passed, Proposition 40 would be the first-ever tax on billionaire wealth in the world — a policy proposal that has gained steam across the nation as more Americans support increasing taxes on the ultra-wealthy. But Proposition 40 has proved controversial in California politics among Democratic officials, even ones who say they support raising taxes on billionaires.
Though 2028 presidential hopeful Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) believes there should be a nationwide tax on billionaires, he said he would not vote for Proposition 40 partially because of issues with how it allocates spending. Proposition 40 would allow money raised through its proposed tax to be used only to address federal funding cuts from the Trump administration’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act.”
Meanwhile, California’s state Democratic Party narrowly voted to endorse Proposition 40, bucking Newsom and a group of billionaires led by Google co-founder Sergey Brin that have heavily opposed it. But other state Democratic and progressive groups, such as the San Francisco Democratic Party, oppose the ballot measure.
Six Nobel Prize-winning economists recently came out in support of Proposition 40, saying the ballot measure could “kickstart a movement” to tax billionaires in other states and countries.
“Proposition 40 offers the first opportunity for the people to start reining in the power of billionaires,” a letter signed by the economists, including Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, reads. “It isn’t just critical for Californians. If the state that houses some of the country’s most powerful billionaires votes to tax their wealth, it will kickstart a movement to tax ultra-high-net-worth individuals in other states — and eventually at the federal level and in other countries.”