Leaving California: Half of State's Voters Have Been Considering This

Half of the state’s registered voters admit to having given serious (24%) or some (28%) consideration recently to leaving California.

Only modest differences are seen across most major regional or demographic subgroups of the state. However, there are significant partisan and ideological differences when examining the opinions of voters giving serious consideration to moving out of state, as three times as Republicans and conservatives as Democrats and liberals report this.

The high cost of housing (71%) is the most common reason given by voters for wanting to leave California. However, high taxes (58%) and the state’s political culture (46%) are also prominently mentioned, particularly by Republicans and conservatives.

Another question in the poll updated a 50-year time series asking Californians how they would describe the state as a place to live.The results of the latest poll are somewhat more upbeat than recent past measures. Half the of state’s registered voters(50%) now describe California as “one of the best places” to live, up from 43% who felt this way in 2013, the last time this question was posed. However, here too, partisanship and political ideology play a prominent role, with Democrats and liberals nearly three times as likely as Republicans and conservatives to describe California as one of the best places to live.

https://escholarship.org/uc/item/96j2704t