California's state ballot measure proposing a 5 percent tax on the state's 200 billionaires' net worth is losing support, according to a new poll released Monday. The University of California, Berkeley Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research-POLITICO poll found that 45 percent of registered California voters support the ballot measure…
Page F2From§Eachthe late evening edition — 21 September 2026
Billionaires fund ads against billionaire tax; support drops from 52 percent to 45 in six days
As it ran on the front
Before we get going — I brought something with me. It's in the coat. Other pocket. No, the bottom one. There. Sorry, it's gone soft from riding around in there since last week.
This is a page I tore out on the sixteenth of September. I'll read it the way it's printed: "California billionaire tax draws majority support in new poll — but there's a big catch." Fifty-two percent of likely voters said they support Proposition 40. That's the one on the November ballot. One-time 5 percent tax on the total net worth of the state's 200 billionaires.…
…(cont) Then a story came across the wire this morning, off a poll released Monday by the Berkeley Citrin Center and POLITICO. Forty-five percent of registered California voters support Proposition 40. Fewer than half, the headline says.
Fifty-two on the sixteenth. Forty-five on Monday. That's seven points.
Now, I'm slow with this stuff, so the first thing I did was hunt for the part of the measure that changed in between. I've got both stories right here and I can't find it. On the sixteenth it's 5 percent. Monday it's 5 percent. On the sixteenth it's the state's 200 billionaires. Monday it's the same 200. Neither story says anybody rewrote a word of it.
What I did find, and I had to go back to August, is this. On the twenty-fifth of August, organizations backed by mega-billionaires — Sergey Brin, Peter Thiel — launched an advertising blitz to convince California voters to oppose the tax. The two most prominent groups fighting it are named Building a Better California and Californians Against Wasteful Spending and Higher Taxes. I copied that second one out longhand because I thought I'd gotten it wrong. I hadn't.
Let me tell you about my garage, and I apologize, this is the long way around.
In the spring I put the old mower at the end of the driveway with a card on it, eighty dollars. Saturday a fella pulled over, turned it over, said he'd think about it. All that next week my neighbor — who has wanted that mower since the day I bought it — stood out by his mailbox telling everybody who walked past that it burns oil, that it's a nuisance, that he'd hate to see somebody stuck with it. By the following Saturday nobody would go past forty.
So here's what I couldn't work out, standing in my own driveway. Did I take the engine apart on Wednesday? Did the deck rust through overnight? It's the same mower. Same card, same eighty written on it in my own hand. The only thing in the yard that was different on the second Saturday was a man who'd been talking for six days.
Forgive me for circling back to the 200 — I know I've been on it. On the sixteenth, 200 people in the state pay this tax. Monday, 200 people in the state pay this tax. Every registered voter the Berkeley people called Monday who isn't one of those 200 pays what they paid on the fifteenth. That's not my opinion, that's what the measure taxes: net worth, 5 percent, one time, 200 people.
And the pollsters didn't change the question. It's Proposition 40 in the September sixteenth story and Proposition 40 in Monday's.
Excuse me — one more thing and I'll get out of your way. That second group. Californians Against Wasteful Spending and Higher Taxes. I've read the name maybe nine times now and I keep getting hung up on the second half of it. Whose taxes are higher? Because if the answer is the 200, and the measure Monday is the same measure it was on the sixteenth, down to the percentage — then what's in Monday's poll that wasn't in the sixteenth's, besides seven points?
“A one-time 5 percent hit on the net worth of two hundred people, and two of the richest men in the country bankroll an ad blitz to talk the rest of California out of it — that's not a debate, that's a purchase. Fifty-two on the sixteenth, forty-five on Monday, and the measure never changed a comma. They'll tell you the state's got no money for your kid's classroom while two hundred guys find the money to move a poll seven points in under a week.”
“Look, voters read the fine print and got cold feet, that's democracy, that's — did I say cold feet? That doesn't sound like me. The point is some of these job creators are already taking their business elsewhere, and a group called Californians Against Wasteful Spending is entitled to participate in the conversation like anybody else, it's just that their anybody happens to be, well. Forty-five percent is still a lot of people, when you think about it, which I'd rather we didn't.”
The receipts
· California billionaire tax draws majority support in new poll — but there’s a big catch from the morgue, 16 Sep 2026
· Billionaire-Backed Groups Launch Ad Blitz Against California Wealth Tax from the morgue, 25 Aug 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.