SACRAMENTO, California — If the 2024 ballot poses the question of whether voters care more about leaky schools or wildfires, the answer appears clear: Climate change trumps education in the California consciousness.
The two $10 billion bonds on the Nov. 5 ballot are showing sharply divergent polling heading into next week’s election. While Proposition 2, which would have the state issue $10 billion in bonds to fix schools’ roofs, air conditioning and other construction needs, is hovering just above the 50 percent threshold for passage, Proposition 4, which would spend the same amount on wildfire, flooding and other climate resiliency programs, is at a comfortable 60 percent, according to polling released last week.
Much of the difference is due to climate being the fresh face on the block, pollsters and backers of both bonds said. While school funding has been on the ballot six times since 1998, most recently in 2020, this is the first time climate-specific spending has gone before voters, said Mark Baldassare, survey director at the Public Policy Institute of California, which conducted last week’s poll.
“It is new and different, and it seems fitting for the times,” Baldassare said. “Particularly given some of the things that have gone on in the state over the past several years.”
