Prop 36’s Landslide Win Continues With Over 70% Of Californians Found To Have Voted For It

Getting 70% or more on something during an election is incredibly hard to do. To achieve that, you need to have a majority of conservative, liberal, and centrist voters all wanting the same thing. For a candidate, getting 70% or above usually means their opponent had committed an unforgiveable crime before election day or that they were an incredible incumbent. For issues, it’s even harder as that’s where money or societal change is usually involved.

In the 2024 election in California, the results so far show only a handful of House seats achieving this. like Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi getting over 80% of the vote against her Republican opponent in the 11th District. As for issues, specifically statewide issues, there are none. Well, except for one – Proposition 36, which aims to make multiple changes to California drug and theft laws and bolster them in the process.

The road to Prop. 36, and its current popularity, dates back 10 years ago to Proposition 47, which passed by voters in 2014, not only changed California law so that most theft and drug felonies are only charged as misdemeanors, but it also allowed convicted felons to reclassify those convictions to misdemeanors. It also helped solidify the $950 felony/misdemeanor threshold for thefts that was first brought up through AB 2372 in 2010.

With crime going up as a result of Prop. 47, many began working to craft a new proposition to help reform those laws. The result was Prop. 36, which qualified for the November 2024 ballot to be voted on exactly one decade to the day that Prop 47 was passed. Under Prop. 36, punishments for many drug and theft crimes will be increased once again, including making some current misdemeanor thefts back into felonies, lengthening felony sentences, and requiring that felony sentences be served in prison. In addition, it will also create a new treatment-focused court process for some drug possession crimes, and require that some felonies be served in prison.

Out of the gate, Prop. 36 proved to be very popular. Many retail and voter groups signed on to the initiative. Unusually, Prop. 36 also didn’t have the normal party and geography divides, with even typically liberal Los Angeles and San Francisco, both of which have seen rises in crime and “smash-and-grab” robberies in recent years, providing support.

However, this also came after many attempts to “Stop the amendments against Prop. 47” and some scare tactics of some Prop. 47 supporters saying that some crime bills would be automatically repealed should Prop. 36 pass. Indeed, an uptick of crime enhancement bills were passed the last several sessions, with Governor Gavin Newsom, a Prop. 36 opponent, signing many of them. But many pointed out that it was too little, too late to stop the support for Prop. 36. Recent high-profile crimes also boosted support numbers, making any gains made by the bill passages to draw support away from Prop 36 passing ultimately moot.

In August, a Los Angeles Times/UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll found that 56% of Californians supported Prop 36, with only 23% opposing it. Over two thirds of conservatives and moderates were for it, and even around half of all liberal voters were for it as well,  due in part to the crime swings in major cities. Support jumped significantly last month where the previous PPIC poll found that 71% of voters were in favor of Prop 36, with only 26% in opposition. Political affiliation support was also in the majority across the spectrum, ranging from 85% Republican support to 63% support amongst Democrats. Last month, a new PPIC poll found that 73% of voters were now in favor of Prop 36, with only 25% against and 2% undecided. In comparing PPIC and IGS, IGS puts a bigger emphasis on undecided voters, meaning that with split undecided voter percentages, the IGS and PPIC polls were very closely correlated.

Over 70% of voters vote for Prop 36

In the last month in the leadup to election day, opponents made one final strong push against it. Vice President Kamala Harris even joined the effort against it. However, this failed, as the newest IGS poll found that 60% of voters were in favor of Prop 36 with only 25% against it and 15% undecided. All demographics were found to be for the Proposition, with the exceptions of strongly liberal voters who are 60% against it and voters between the ages of 18-29, who are split 41%-41% on it.

And on Tuesday, it became overwhelmingly clear that those polls were highly accurate. With 57% of precincts reporting on Friday, 7,115,523 Californians had voted for Prop 36, with only 3,029,855 against it. This was enough for a 70.1%-29.9% split and Prop 36 being the first issue call of the night. And even with more results coming in soon, it is projected to have roughly the same percentage, as the Proposition transcended usual party, demographic, and geographical lines.

“California voters have spoken with a clear voice on the triple epidemics of retail theft, homelessness and fatal drug overdoses plaguing our state,” said San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan earlier this week. “In supporting Proposition 36, they said yes to treatment. They said yes to accountability. And they said yes to putting common sense before partisanship, so we can stop the suffering in our communities.

“By giving judges the latitude to require repeat drug offenders to complete a treatment program, Prop. 36 will save lives. By imposing consequences for repeated acts of retail theft, Prop. 36 will save small businesses and help reduce the $8 billion theft tax every working Californian is paying at the checkout counter. And by breaking the cycles of addiction that have fueled California’s costly crime and homelessness epidemics, Prop. 36 will save money and help bring more of our unhoused neighbors indoors.

“The passage of Proposition 36 is an important first step for California. It gives us the tools we need to begin an era of mass treatment so we can end the era of chronic homelessness, addiction and despair.”

Meanwhile, Prop 36 opponents have remained silent, not commenting on the failure of the proposition.

“Over 70% of voters voting for Prop 36 doesn’t surprise me,” explained Rita Walker, a pollster focusing on crime-oriented propositions and ballot initiatives, to the Globe on Friday. “All year we knew it was going to pass. But for this to pass in California, with over 70% of the vote, that’s really strong. Newsom now has to rethink his plans to close more prisons and to try and create softer crime laws. More Californians want “You do the crime, you do the time” back.

“I mean we had lifelong Democrats and Republicans butt heads on Trump or Harris, Schiff or Garvey and so many other divisive issues. But here there was at least some unity. Even in one of the most divisive elections ever, there was something that a huge majority of voters still wanted. Yeah, California had to get this bad to get there, but a huge amount of people were for it. Don’t discount that.”

Full results for Prop 36 are expected to be in by early December.