Long before it was even a state, California was the destination for the hard working, the enterprising, the free thinking, the dynamic dreamers who have left their marks in countless positive and useful ways. It was always moving in the right direction, ever upward.
But as 2026 winds down, Californians don’t like where their state is headed. They could reverse course and set California back on the road from which it has strayed. But it will require voters to think differently about the policies they have been supporting.
According to a poll taken last month by the Public Policy Institute of California, 54% of California adults and 52% of likely voters say the state is headed in the wrong direction.
Responses to other questions in the poll show why Californians would think their state has lost its way. Majorities tend to back the very policies that have transformed the land of endless opportunity into what has become a dead end for so many.
For instance, voters still want to keep in place a tax on high incomes. Fifty-eight percent of voters say it’s likely they will approve Proposition 3, which makes permanent a temporary tax hike on individuals earning more than $371,000 a year that was to expire in 2031.
A smaller majority, but a majority nonetheless (52%), of likely voters say they will vote yes on Proposition 40, a supposed one-time tax on the wealth of those who have more than $1 billion in assets.
What Californians don’t want are tax increases that directly affect them. Other polls have shown that voters are willing to cut government services if it means their taxes will be lower. For instance, PPIC’s May survey found that 55% of all adults are willing to give up some government services in exchange for lower taxes while 43% want it the other way around.
A month earlier, 56% of respondents told PPIC that they would not support a measure on their “local ballot to increase local parcel taxes to provide more funds for the local public schools.” Only 41% said they would.
Overall, Californians believe their combined state and local taxes are too high, with 69% saying they pay too much, with just 26% figuring they pay the right amount.
It seems what voters want is for the state and local governments to place the heaviest tax burdens on the wealthy (as support for Propositions 3 and 40 indicate), businesses and corporations. Thanks to decades of tireless messaging from the media, politicians and interest groups, they believe that those entities either pay no taxes or don’t contribute their “fair share,” and would be an endless font of revenue if lawmakers could tap deeper into their coffers.
At the same time, they are unable to connect the impacts that taxing “others” who can supposedly afford to pay more with the outcomes of doing so. Taxing wealth and enterprise drains dollars from the private sector, where they are put to better use. It chokes job creation and hiring, limits investment and innovation, and curbs productivity. The higher taxes rise on the wealthy and on businesses, the more harm they cause — and the more we’ll see businesses and residents flee from California to states that are moving in the opposite direction.
Most Californians don’t like where they see the state going, yet out of habit they consistently support the heavy taxation that holds back an economy that ought to be in a nearly perpetual state of growth and makes living in the state difficult. Voters should not be afraid to reassess their policy preferences, particularly in light of their concern about the direction of the state.
Kerry Jackson is the William Clement Fellow in California Reform at the Pacific Research Institute and co-author of The California Left Coast Survivor’s Guide.