As a California voter, Vice President Kamala Harris has decisions to make about state policy measures that will appear on her November ballot — some of which reflect national challenges she could face if elected president.
California voters’ ballots will include questions about crime, climate change, health-care funding and other issues, thanks to a state system that gives them a direct role in making policy. This year’s 10 ballot initiatives include a hot-button Republican-supported proposal to allow harsher prison sentences for certain drug and theft offenses, which has split Democrats and exposed party divisions over how to combat public concerns about crime.
Harris’s campaign has declined to say how she will vote on the initiatives. Like presidents and vice presidents typically do, Harris has established residency in her home state and votes there.
As the vice president works to introduce herself to voters during a compressed campaign, a glimpse into how she might vote on issues in her home state could add to voters’ sense of what she would prioritize in the White House. Her opponent, former president Donald Trump, has faced similar pressures over how he will vote in his home state of Florida, where an amendment is on the ballot that would reverse the state’s six-week abortion ban.
The California and Florida ballot measures “certainly speak to larger issues … that, as president, Trump or Harris would absolutely have direct influence over,” said Garrick Percival, a political science professor at San José State University. “So these things matter.”
Wading into down-ballot battles can come with political risks for candidates though, particularly if it’s an issue that divides their party. Candidates don’t necessarily have a responsibility to disclose how they’re voting on every measure, experts said, and often only do so on state-level issues when it would benefit their campaign. Otherwise, it’s seen as a risk.
When Trump — who has historically contradicted himself on abortion — indicated he might support the Florida amendment, he faced swift backlash from antiabortion groups. A day later, he said he would oppose the ballot measure.
“You saw the disaster that followed when Trump spoke out against the Florida [amendment],” said Trish Crouse, a political science professor at the University of New Haven. “He found himself having to backtrack and reexplain himself.”
For Harris — who has deep roots in California as a former U.S. senator, state attorney general and San Francisco district attorney — the politics surrounding the sentencing initiative, known as Proposition 36, poses a challenge, analysts said.
The measure would allow felony charges and longer prison sentences for some drug and retail theft cases, rolling back parts of an initiative passed in 2014, when Harris was California’s attorney general. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom leads party opposition to the Republican-backed measure, while some Democratic mayors and legislators facing reelection campaigns, including San Francisco’s London Breed, have thrown support behind it.
Proponents argue that reinstating harsher punishments will curb shoplifting, drug use and homelessness, though data shows that the existing lesser penalties did not lead to crime increases in most areas. Opponents say it will increase incarceration rates without solving any societal problems.
Public concern about crime, partly driven by the difficult pandemic recovery of some California cities, has led to wide support for Prop 36.
“Harris has not taken a stance … and it’s pretty clear why: The measure is splitting the Democratic caucus,” Percival said. “Her campaign likely sees that weighing in would only animate internal Democratic Party tensions around crime — something they are clearly trying to avoid.”
The debate is emblematic of the challenges Harris faces on the presidential campaign trail in satisfying a wide range of voters on crime and other divisive issues, analysts said. As in California, public perception of worsening crime has driven the political discussion — despite national data showing that crime is generally dropping. Democrats feel pressure to appear responsive, more so than in 2020, when George Floyd’s killing and widespread racial justice protests prompted public support for policing overhauls, experts said.
Trump, who has long delivered exaggerated and inaccurate descriptions of crime in U.S. cities despite it falling rapidly, has pledged to aggressively crack down on crime if elected again. Harris has to deliver “a more nuanced case,” said Howard Lavine, a University of Minnesota political science professor. “Democrats tend to want to balance social justice and the punishment of crime,” but the undecided voters Harris needs to woo may be more likely to align with “Republicans’ tough-on-crime stance,” he added.
Harris has emphasized her background as a prosecutor on the campaign trail, often telling voters: “I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain.”
California’s other ballot propositions also speak to broader issues that Harris and Trump have addressed on the campaign trail, such as housing, government funding and the minimum wage.
Voters will examine whether the state should borrow $10 billion for climate change response programs, including steps to confront wildfires and sea level rise — a funding question faced across the nation as record-breaking disasters, and their high costs, come one after another.
Hurricane Helene has put that issue in the spotlight as Southern states face devastation and a need for massive cleanup. Harris, who has supported government funding to address problems such as flooding and extreme heat, traveled to Georgia on Wednesday, where she told residents that federal officials were committed to helping “for the long haul.”
Also on California’s ballot is a prison-reform measure supported by the state’s task force for reparations. The measure would prohibit forced labor in state prisons, where inmates can currently be assigned involuntary work tasks and sometimes make less than a dollar an hour doing manual labor.
The outcome could further test how voters are feeling about criminal justice and reparations, a topic that Harris hasn’t spoken about as a presidential nominee but that some Black Americans hope she could help advance at the federal level.
Another question, Proposition 35, deals with how to spend special tax revenue for Medi-Cal, the state’s health insurance program for low-income and disabled residents, which this year became open to undocumented immigrants. Whether Harris would back government health care for undocumented immigrants at the federal level is not clear, but Trump has gone after her during the campaign for a 2019 suggestion that she would.
Harris isn’t the only Democrat who hasn’t revealed how she’ll vote on the ballot initiatives, including Prop 36. Sen. Laphonza Butler and Rep. Adam Schiff of California have also declined to weigh in, along with the attorney general there and the secretary of state, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
“Like everyone else, they have every right to keep their votes private,” Crouse said of politicians. “If it’s going to help their campaign, they should speak out, but there is a risk.”
