Poll: support for billionaires tax falls

Now, 605 new reports out that say support is slipping for a proposed statewide tax on billionaires just days before next week's election day. A new poll by the Public Policy Institute of California says 46% of likely voters would vote yes, while 52% would vote no, and 2% are undecided. Just a month ago, the responses were reversed, with 52% supporting that measure. There's also a wide gap in who will vote yes on the billionaire's tax. Seventy-six percent of young adults, according to the PPIC, plan to vote yes on the measure, while only 36 percent of voters over the age of 55 plan to do the same thing. And to talk more about all of this, it's a hot topic. We're joined now by David McEwen, our political science professor at Sonoma State. Hey, David, good morning, and thank you for being with us on Mornings on 2. Pleasure to join you, Dave. Thanks for having me. Hey, David, when this first started, I was thinking this would be a slam dunk. People are going to say, oh, yeah, hit the billionaires with this tax. But it seems to be different now. What's your take on everything? All right, so Prop 40 is one of nine measures across the country that deal with wealth and income taxes. If you look at this particular measure, in ballot measures in California, only about a third or so passed, so about one in three passed. So the no vote is very powerful. As the campaigns develop, no side or opponent forces start to raise the specter of uncertainty. That specter of uncertainty would be, oh, did you know Prop 40 could do this? Did Prop 40 could do this? And so pushing back on that, the no forces then spend a massive amount of money. Prop 40 is now the most expensive ballot measure in California history which makes it the most expensive ballot measure ever in the United States as you look at that it starts to push back on voters raising the specter of uncertainty and even though there's a wider kind of component here the slam dunk that you talked about there in terms of voters wanting to push against billionaires it's still going to have an uphill battle the opponents of 40 put two measures on the ballot 41 and 42 those are countermeasures voters get confused upset and they just push in their chips on the no side they go all in on no which is exactly what the opponents of prop 41 to do hey before you go what would you say is the impact of governor Newsom saying i'm not supporting this yeah i mean governor Newsom is against this Steve Hilton's against this uh Javier Becerra is against this but the California Democratic Party is for it and so Newsom's play here uh certainly on behalf or with the tech bros, Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, spent over $100 million on the no side. And you do see that big divide that's basically of voters over 40 and under 40. And that's where this divide over taxing the billionaires we see nationwide. And the governor is trying to get ahead of that. While he's against 40, he wants to have a broader conversation about taxing the wealthy as part of his presumptive run for the presidency as he tries to secure a Democratic nod. So the broader aspect here of taxing the wealthy being tested for themes around 2028 for potential Democratic voters as we move closer and closer to the next presidential. All right, David, many thanks. David McEwen, our political science professor at Sonoma State, thank you for being with us on Mornings on 2. Thanks for having me, David. All right, David.