The Rightward Tremor That Shook California

One of the most surprising results from this week’s election came in California, a state where there was zero doubt about the presidential result. Like other states, California has language in its constitution that mirrors the Thirteenth Amendment: “Slavery is prohibited. Involuntary servitude is prohibited except to punish crime.”

In recent years, some states have moved to repeal the portion that still allows involuntary labor as a criminal punishment. Voters in neighboring Nevada, for example, approved a ballot initiative known as Question 4 on Tuesday to do just that. Early returns show that the repeal vote is on track to win with 60 percent support to 39 percent opposition with 89 percent of precincts reporting.

California took the opposite approach with Proposition 6. With an estimated 53 percent of votes counted so far, 55 percent of votes are opposed to repealing the involuntary servitude language. The outcome is all the more striking because the measure went unopposed by any group or political party. On the state’s official voter guide, the pro/con section notes that “no argument against Proposition 6 was submitted.”

The initiative’s spontaneous potential defeat reflected a broader shift in the Golden State’s politics during this election cycle. In local elections and on statewide ballot questions, California voters rejected progressive policies on crime, housing, and more. The nation’s largest statewide electorate tried to send Vice President Kamala Harris to the White House, but it sent a very different message downballot.

It must be emphasized from the outset that California is among the slowest jurisdictions in the nation for counting votes. Part of the reason is the state’s heavy reliance on mail-in ballots, which can be counted if they are received up to seven days after Election Day, so long as they are postmarked on Election Day.

Verifying those ballots in a state with tens of millions of voters is a long and laborious process. As a result, it could be weeks before the final results are known in the state, leaving a final tally of a few U.S. House races that could decide control of the chamber up in the air. Nonetheless, some results are already apparent from the early returns.

Perhaps the greatest impact of the voter shift was felt in the Bay Area. Daniel Lurie, an heir to the Levi Strauss jeans fortune who spent more than $8 million, is on track to replace San Francisco Mayor London Breed in the city’s ranked-choice election. Most of Lurie’s campaign centered on the city’s crime and homelessness issues, which have often received national attention, while Breed was hobbled by an ongoing corruption scandal among the city’s nonprofit groups.

Across the bay in Oakland, voters appear on track to recall both Sheng Thao, the city’s mayor, and Pamela Price, the district attorney of Alameda County. Thao, who already faced headwinds from public safety fears going into the election, saw things worsen after the FBI raided her home in an ongoing investigation involving her donors over the summer. The loss of the Oakland A’s, the sale of the city’s stake in the Coliseum, and its overall economic decline only added to the incumbent’s woes.

Price’s recall came after only two years on the job. She initially took office as the county’s first Black district attorney and by supporting progressive reforms to the criminal justice system. But her tenure was marred by concerns about rising crime, allegations of anti-Asian bias, and filing errors that prevented hundreds of cases from being prosecuted. She is the second Bay Area district attorney to be recalled in the last two years: San Franciscans ousted progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin in 2022 over concerns about crime and safety.

Further south, in Los Angeles, voters also ousted George Gascon, a longtime progressive prosecutor who served as the county’s district attorney since 2020. During that tenure and a previous stint as San Francisco’s district attorney, Gascon had championed policies aimed at tackling mass incarceration, such as dropping some sentencing enhancements and ending cash bail for nonviolent offenses. His expected replacement, former federal prosecutor Nathan Hochman, campaigned on reversing those policies and what he described as Gascon’s “blanket filing policies” that didn’t take individual circumstances into account.

Voters in California had previously led the way on criminal justice reform and embracing the nationwide trend of progressive prosecution, even before the George Floyd protests in 2020. In 2014, voters approved Proposition 47, a statewide measure co-authored by Gascon that recategorized shoplifting, theft, forgery, fraud, illegal drug use, and some other offenses as misdemeanors up to a certain cash limit. The measure received 59 percent support at the time.

Ten years later, however, the electorate partially reversed itself this week by approving Proposition 36. That measure restored shoplifting as a felony under certain circumstances, mandated prison sentences for some other felonies, and allows prosecutors to charge illegal possession of fentanyl and methamphetamines as a felony instead of a misdemeanor—and require incarceration if the defendant doesn’t complete court-ordered treatment. With 54 percent of the vote counted, Proposition 36 is leading with a whopping 70 percent approval among voters.

Progressives saw defeat on initiatives beyond the criminal justice context as well. In one instance, 62 percent of voters rejected a measure that would give local communities greater flexibility to enact rent-control measures. A minimum-wage increase to $18 per hour is currently trailing with 52 percent of voters opposed. And a measure that would make it easier to issue local infrastructure bonds is also running aground with 56 percent disapproval.

There is a risk of overselling this shift, of course. California’s electorate did not lose all of its liberal views: Voters also backed a measure that would repeal Proposition 8, the state’s moribund same-sex marriage ban, as well as a climate change–mitigation initiative. And in California’s largest cities, its ousted incumbents were replaced not by Republicans but by more moderate or centrist Democrats. (Hochman, the new Los Angeles County district attorney, ran as an independent.)

Taken altogether, however, it represents a significant setback for progressive governance and policymaking in the nation’s most populous state. Conservative critics often decry the state’s public policy woes even as they lament its trend-setting role in national politics. This time, however, the Golden State appeared to be in sync with a national shift to the right. The next election cycle in two years will show whether this is a transitory response or a deeper shift in how California governs itself—and leads the nation.