By Ben Paviour
The Sacramento Bee
(TNS)
A billionaire-backed group fighting Proposition 40 spent more than $50 million over the past week on efforts to thwart the wealth tax—a surge that suggests the tax’s critics aren’t taking favorable polling as a sure sign of Election Day success.
Put more simply, the group, Building a Better California, spent far more in a week than the $32.7 million the primary Prop. 40 campaign committee raised in 10 months.
“We are sprinting, not strolling, through the finish line,” said Evan Westrup, a spokesperson for the No on 40 campaign.
Public polling suggests the tax’s critics have the wind at their back. A Public Policy Institute of California survey released Tuesday showed 46% of likely voters support the proposed wealth tax, down from 52% in September. Prop. 42, a measure designed to prevent future personal property taxes that would also block the billionaire tax if it wins more votes, polled better, winning 51% support.
SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, the union sponsoring the one-time, 5% tax, says it will raise $100 billion to address federal healthcare cuts caused by H.R. 1, a tax cut and Medicaid overhaul bill signed by President Donald Trump last year.
Critics of the tax include not just billionaires and business groups but Democratic politicians like Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg as well as some left-leaning groups like Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California. Opponents argue the tax will chase billionaires out of the state, endangering the state’s economy and future tax collections.
In a statement, SEIU-UHW chief of staff Suzanne Jimenez said the late anti-billionaire tax spending was “as obscene as it is revealing.”
“Sen. Bernie Sanders put it plainly: These billionaires would rather see poor children die of cancer than pay a little more in taxes,” Jimenez said, referring to the Vermont independent who is the tax’s highest-profile supporter. “That is a profoundly troubling indictment of their priorities—and raises serious questions about the influence of extraordinary wealth on our democracy.”
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Democratic consultant Steve Maviglio, who is not involved in the fight, said the spending showed the tax’s critics “don’t just want to win, they want to win big.”
“They want to send a message: don’t mess with us,” Maviglio said. “They might have seen something in their polling—hard to tell—but when you have it, you spend it.”
A fundraising blitz
Raising money has not been an issue for critics of the one-time, 5% wealth tax.
Building a Better California has been on a fall fundraising spree, drawing more than $58 million in the first 17 days of October and $164 million since the beginning of September.
At least 15 of the 53 donors who gave money this month had no history of state-level political contributions, and many more hadn’t cut checks in at least a decade. The donors span longtime Democratic backers like billionaire investor John Pritzker to first-time donors like investor Jack Altman, brother of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who has given $102 million in the group, requested reinforcements from a broader group of donors to help spike the tax, according to a source familiar with anti-Prop. 40 efforts who was not authorized to speak publicly.
The source said the group would endure beyond the wealth tax fight, although it remained to be seen how it would be structured and what issues it would prioritize. A Building a Better California representative said the group would focus on affordability, the economy and quality-of-life issues for Californians.
Democratic consultant Eric Jaye, who has worked with some tech leaders, said the fight over the redistribution of wealth was certain to outlast the battle over Prop. 40, which had “activated the richest people on the planet.”
Jaye argued the late spending was intended to “run up the score” to discourage future taxation efforts from SEIU-UHW President Dave Regan, a mission he said was unlikely to succeed given Regan’s love of ballot wars and populist anti-billionaire sentiment among voters.
“The billionaires are going to win this battle, but this war is just starting,” Jaye said.
Photo caption: Healthcare workers rally on Aug. 28, 2026, to support Proposition 40, which would levy a one-time tax on California billionaires. (SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West/Facebook)
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©2026 The Sacramento Bee. Visit at sacbee.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency LLC.
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