A large majority of California voters are indicating support for a tougher-on-crime ballot measure — despite opposition from top Democrats in the state, including Governor Newsom — new polling indicates, as crime has shaped up to be a central election issue in the Golden State.

The poll, released by the Public Policy Institute of California, found that 73 percent of likely voters plan to vote for the measure, called Proposition 36, which would increase penalties for repeat retail theft offenders, smash-and-grab crimes, and drug offenses. Only 25 percent of likely voters said they would vote against it. 

Proposition 36 is on the ballot as crime has been a top concern nationally, and as localities across the country are revisiting softer-on-crime criminal justice reforms. In California, momentum has been growing for months to overhaul Proposition 47 — which was sold to voters in 2014 as a way to reduce mass incarceration by classifying several drug and theft offenses as misdemeanors rather than felonies.

A growing coalition of businesses, residents, and civic leaders who say they have reached their “tipping point” with rampant public drug use, retail theft, and homelessness are backing Proposition 36, which would reverse parts of the state’s decade-old Proposition 47.

The new measure on the ballot would allow law enforcement to take a stricter approach towards drug trafficking and shoplifting by adding fentanyl to a list of drugs, like heroin and methamphetamine, that carries a felony charge if a person is found in possession of it with a firearm. Under the proposition, a person with two or more prior theft convictions who steals property worth $950 or less would face felony charges, rather than the theft being treated as a misdemeanor.

California’s overall violent crime rate increased by 1.7 percent in 2023, crime data tracked by the Public Policy Institute of California show, and violent crime is still up 15.4 percent from pre-pandemic levels.

Out of ten statewide ballot propositions — including initiatives on gay marriage, climate change, and minimum wage — the crime-focused measure is the top focus of voters, the new polling suggests, with 28 percent of voters saying they are most interested in Proposition 36 out of the ballot measures.

The polling also indicates that most California adults — 62 percent — think the state is heading in the wrong direction, an increase from last year’s 54 percent. Those numbers vary widely by political party, as 90 percent of Republicans said the state was going in the wrong direction, compared to 76 percent of independents and 37 percent of Democrats. 

The backers of Proposition 36 say that Californians are fed up with the “explosion in theft and trafficking of deadly hard drugs like fentanyl, often because the people committing these crimes do not face serious consequences.” They say that although Proposition 47 made some criminal justice reforms, it “led to unintended consequences like increased repeat and often organized retail theft, store closings, locked-up items, and difficulty convincing people to seek drug and mental health treatment.”

Mr. Newsom has opposed Proposition 36, as the Sun has reported, but he has said he does not have the “bandwidth” to actively campaign against it. The measure is opposed by a slew of Democratic groups in California who say that it’s “too extreme” and that it will “reignite failed drug wars of the 80s and 90s.” 
“Prop 36 is a Republican-led effort to bring back to 1980s style drug war tactics that destroy families and communities and pack our state prisons without any benefit to public safety,” a coalition against the measure has argued.