Prop 40 results: California’s billionaire tax trails 45% to 55%, and its rival is winning

California’s billionaire tax is losing. With 63.8% of the expected vote counted, Prop 40 has 45.4% yes and 54.6% no, a gap of about 805,000 votes, the NBC News Decision Desk count shows. The race has not been called, and the state is still counting. But to turn it around, the measure would need about 58% of the votes still to come, on our calculation.

Even that might not be enough. Prop 42, the rival measure written to stop it, is winning with 53.4%, and under California’s rules the measure with more yes votes would cancel Prop 40 even if both passed.

Prop 40 results so far

Prop 40 asked voters for a one-time tax of 5% on the net worth of every Californian worth $1bn or more on 1 January 2026, with the money going mostly to health care. As we set out before the vote, the state’s Legislative Analyst expected “tens of billions of dollars” over several years, against a possible loss of less than $1bn a year in income tax if billionaires left, its ballot analysis says.

The count, at 63.8% of the expected vote:

Measure	What it does	Yes	No
Prop 40	One-time 5% tax on billionaires’ net worth	45.4%	54.6%
Prop 41	Audits for new special taxes; counts them against the spending limit	46.7%	53.3%
Prop 42	Bans new state taxes on owning personal property, such as stocks	53.4%	46.6%

The union behind the measure all but conceded on election night. Its leader, Dave Regan of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, said it would try again in 2028 if the legislature does not find another way to fund health care cut by federal law, CalMatters reported. “That’s not a hypothetical. That’s our plan,” he said.

Why Prop 42 decides it either way

Props 41 and 42 were placed on the ballot by the tax’s opponents and written to clash with it. Where two measures on the same ballot conflict, the one with the most yes votes prevails, the state constitution says. Prop 42 has 4,586,976 yes votes so far, 658,770 more than Prop 40’s 3,928,206. So even a late surge for the billionaire tax would most likely leave it void.

Prop 42 reaches further than this year’s fight. It would ban new state taxes on simply owning personal property, including stocks, investment accounts and retirement savings, and limit retroactive state taxes. That would close the door on the kind of wealth tax that only four rich countries still levy, unless voters later undo it.

Prop 41, the other rival, is losing, by 53.3% to 46.7%.

Money on both sides

Opponents and business groups spent $316.7m to stop Prop 40 and back its two rivals, CalMatters counted, and the Google co-founder Sergey Brin alone gave $102m to the main committee. Governor Gavin Newsom opposed the tax and endorsed Prop 42, while the state Democratic Party and the main labour federation backed it.

Taxing income, not wealth

The same voters were more willing to tax high incomes. Prop 3, which makes permanent a higher income tax on top earners that was due to expire in 2031, has 59.4% yes with 64% of the expected vote counted, the NBC count shows. Since 2012 the rates have run from 10.3% for income over about $360,000 to 12.3% over about $721,000, with most of the money going to schools. The Legislative Analyst puts its yield at $5bn to $15bn a year, NBC’s summary says.

The two results together draw a line. Californians approved taxing what the richest earn each year, but not what they own. That is the same line most rich countries have drawn: income taxes everywhere, wealth taxes almost nowhere.

What happens next

Counties keep counting postal and provisional ballots, and the share of the vote counted will rise for days. Until the count is certified, the official result is still open. Had it passed, the first payments would have been due in 2027. On the present count, they will not come at all.