By admin 
A poll released Friday by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies shows voters aren’t sold on a proposed billionaire tax or a voter ID initiative set to appear on their ballots this November.
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The poll found that 48% of likely voters would support Proposition 40, a proposed one-time, 5% tax on the assets of billionaires, while 41% said they would vote against it. Eleven percent remained undecided.
The poll of 4,207 registered voters found that a majority — 51% — plan to vote against Prop. 39, a constitutional amendment that would require voters to furnish government-issued ID before casting a ballot; 42% said they plan on voting “yes” on the measure.
That’s a problem for backers of both measures, particularly months out from the election, according to IGS Poll Director Mark DiCamillo.
“Usually undecided voters tend to break toward the ‘no’ side because it doesn’t change anything,” DiCamillo said. “It’s a status quo kind of vote.”
Both proposals show sharp partisan divides. The poll found that seven out of 10 Democrats back the wealth tax, while 80% of Republicans reject it. Half of independent voters said they support the measure, compared to 39% opposed.
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Prop. 39 shows the opposite dynamic, with Republicans overwhelmingly backing the voter ID requirement and all but 12% of Democrats saying they plan to vote against it. A majority — 54% — of independents said they also will vote against Prop. 39.
The poll complicates a key argument for the largely conservative backers of Prop. 39, who’ve pitched it as a commonsense, bipartisan policy with broad support across the political spectrum. Opponents have cast it as part of President Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud.
The billionaire tax, which would funnel revenue toward healthcare services facing steep federal cuts pushed by Trump, shows sharp age divides. Three-quarters of voters under 30 support the tax, but support drops by age bracket and bottoms out among voters 65 and older, with 40% supporting the tax. That could present difficulties for SEIU-United Healthworkers West, the union driving the tax, because younger voters generally are less likely to turn out than older ones.
The poll was commissioned by the Los Angeles Times and was conducted Aug. 3-9, in the midst of two key Prop. 40 endorsements. The California Democratic Party backed the tax on Aug. 2, and the Labor Federation of California endorsed it several days later.
Support for Prop. 40 is highest among lower income voters rather than higher earners, stronger among Black and Latino voters, at 60%, compared to white voters, at 40%, and higher among women, 53%, than men, 42%.
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