By admin 
Critics of a proposed wealth tax on California billionaires — many of them business executives who would be subject to the tax — have outspent Proposition 40 backers more than 5-to-1, according to campaign filings published Thursday.
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The coalition behind Prop. 40, led by SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, has always said it expected to face a deluge of spending. But its cash disadvantage comes as another new poll shows declining support for Prop. 40 amid a barrage of ads painting the measure as a dangerous experiment.
Prop. 40’s backers have spent roughly $36 million boosting the one-time, 5% wealth tax on billionaires, including $9 million in in-kind contributions.
The SEIU-UHW and its allies say the tax is urgently needed to backfill federal healthcare cuts signed by President Donald Trump in 2025.
Critics of the measure, meanwhile, have already spent more than $195 million attacking the proposal and boosting two countermeasures, Proposition 41 and Proposition 42. If either of those proposals passes alongside Prop. 40 — and one or both win more votes — it would effectively prevent the billionaire tax from taking effect.
Much of the anti-Prop. 40 spending is driven by Building a Better California. The group’s primary funder, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, has sunk $102 million into the committee so far.
The group has also drawn support from at least 18 other billionaires, according to a tally compiled by the Institute for Policy Studies, a group supporting the tax.
Ads from the No on 40 campaign emphasize a different group of critics: politicians such as Gov. Gavin Newsom; healthcare groups such as Planned Parenthood of California and the California Medical Association; and economists from Stanford University’s conservative Hoover Institution. They have argued that the tax will cause billionaire flight, endangering the state’s future tax collections.
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CMA President René Bravo said the coalition’s diversity was its “biggest advantage.”
“The more Californians learn, the more they see Prop. 40 for what it is — a harmful tax scheme that permanently damages the state’s budget and economy with zero accountability or safeguards to ensure funding actually improves care or lowers costs for patients,” Bravo said in a statement.
An online survey from UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies released Friday found that 45% of a stratified random sample of 4,512 California likely voters supported Prop. 40, down from 52% in IGS’ March poll.
“With less than 50 percent support this close to the election, ballot measures for new taxes tend not to pass, as undecided voters likely break toward ‘no,’” said G. Cristina Mora, IGS co-director, in a statement released with the poll. “Unless we see meaningful pushes in marketing and canvassing aimed at reaching younger voters, and others who often stay home during midterm elections, the climb looks quite steep.”
The poll found 37% of likely voters support Prop. 41 and 43% back Prop. 42, with more than one in five voters in both cases reporting they’re undecided.
SEIU-UHW Executive Vice President Deb Carthan said the union would work with labor allies and thousands of volunteers to mobilize voters to back the billionaire tax.
“A few controversial billionaires like Sergey Brin would rather spend millions to fund shady opposition campaigns than simply pay their fair share in taxes so millions of their fellow Californians don’t lose their healthcare,” Carthan said in a statement. “That’s shameful, but that’s not going to stop the healthcare workers of SEIU-UHW.”
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