Why California’s electric vehicle proposition built on taxing millionaires failed at the polls

VOTING DOWN PROPOSITION 30 might seem a little off-brand for the California electorate.

These are the voters, after all, who showed no qualms just a decade ago about hiking income taxes on top earners and also hit up millionaires in 2004 to pay for mental health services. These are the California majorities who, as recently as June, told pollsters that they were either considering or had already purchased an electric car. Most named air pollution, wildfire and climate change as areas of major personal concern.