California’s proposed one-time billionaire wealth tax was trailing in early election returns Wednesday morning, while Prop 42, which would prevent any future similar measures from getting on the ballot, is ahead by over eight points.
As of Wednesday morning, 55% of voters were opposed to California's proposed billionaire tax compared to 44% in favor, as the Chronicle reports. The results were also mixed for two competing measures that could prevent the tax from taking effect, with Proposition 41 trailing and Proposition 42 narrowly ahead.
As SFist reported previously, Proposition 40 would impose a one-time 5% tax on the assets of people worth more than $1 billion who lived in California as of January 1, 2026. The measure was introduced by Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) as a way to replace some of the federal healthcare funding being cut under President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill. Those cuts could leave millions of Californians without Medi-Cal coverage.
The tax was expected to generate approximately $100 billion. About 90% of the money would go toward healthcare programs, with the rest allocated to public education and food assistance, including CalFresh and free school meals.
The proposal had the backing of the California Democratic Party, labor unions, Representative Ro Khanna, and Senator Bernie Sanders. But Governor Gavin Newsom and Mayor Daniel Lurie opposed the tax, arguing it could prompt wealthy residents and businesses to leave California. Other opponents included the California Teachers Association and Planned Parenthood of California.
The fight also attracted an enormous amount of campaign spending. According to the Los Angeles Times, approximately $425 million was raised for campaigns supporting or opposing Propositions 40, 41, and 42. Much of the money against the billionaire tax reportedly came from wealthy tech executives, including Google cofounder Sergey Brin, who helped bankroll the Building a Better California PAC. Other major contributors included investor John Doerr, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale, and Stripe CEO Patrick Collison.
The two competing measures would change state tax rules in ways that could block the wealth tax. Proposition 41 would require audits of new special taxes and prohibit certain taxes that bypass the state's spending limits. Proposition 42 would prohibit new state taxes on personal assets, including retirement accounts, investments, and business interests, as well as certain retroactive taxes. Both measures were backed by the Building a Better California PAC.
Prop 41 is trailing by just under 400,000 votes — the "No" vote is currently 52.5% — but Prop 42 seems to have broken through for many voters, and the "Yes" votes for it are ahead by almost nine points, 54.3% to 45.7%. Assuming it passes, Prop 42 will make it far harder, if not impossible, to pass any sort of major wealth tax in the future.
As SFist reported last week, Prop 40 was polling short of majority support at 46%, which meant the passing of the measure hinged on Gen Z, as 76% of likely voters ages 18 to 29 supported the measure. However the group only represented 21% of likely voters despite accounting for 30% of California’s adult population.
The results weren't all setbacks for progressive California voters. According to the Times, Propositions 2, 3, and 37 passed, preserving funding for public education, giving the state more flexibility to save money for leaner years, and helping middle-income residents buy homes all appeared headed for passage or passed.
Meanwhile, voters rejected Proposition 39, which would have required people to show government-issued identification when voting in person and provide a PIN or the last four digits of their Social Security number when voting by mail, as the Times reports. It also would have required election officials to verify that registered voters were US citizens.
As SFist reported previously, the Republican-led proposal was promoted amid President Trump's repeated claims of widespread illegal voting, including unsubstantiated allegations that undocumented immigrants are casting ballots in California. On Monday, the Supreme Court reportedly rejected an emergency appeal from Trump's attorneys seeking to set aside 20,000 California ballots over citizenship concerns.
Per the Times, several measures remained too close to call Wednesday morning, including an $11.25 billion affordable housing bond (Prop 1), an $8.4 billion bond for immunology and immunotherapy research (Prop 38), and proposals to change public campaign financing (Prop 4), the recall process (Prop 5), local tax approval requirements (Prop 43), and environmental review rules to speed up major projects (Prop 45).
Related: ‘Billionaire Tax’ Qualifies For November Ballot, and One Local Billionaire Says He Supports It
