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California does not have the status of swing statethese states where the gap between the two candidates was less than 3 points in 2020. She has been leaning solidly to the left for more than twenty years. In 2020, Joe Biden recorded some 5 million more votes than Trump (or 63.5%). And in 2016, Hillary Clinton collected 8.8 million of the 65.8 million votes that allowed her to win the popular vote (but not the election, which was taken by Trump although he was ahead by 2.87 million votes). voice).

Californians (39 million people) criticize a system of indirect universal suffrage which brings them to the same weight as North Dakota (770,000 inhabitants) or even South Dakota (900,000). Los Angeles County alone (10 million inhabitants) is more populated than Michigan or Wisconsin, two swing states.

But the Golden State is not without electoral importance. With 52 elected to the House of Representatives, the Californian delegation is the largest in the Union in Congress. And in terms of the evolution of society, California often sets the tone, with a multiplicity of local referendums, paving the way for similar measures in the rest of the country (as in 1996 with the adoption of Proposition 215 , which allowed the medical use of marijuana, which is now legal for recreational use in 23 states).

During the November 5 ballot, several consultations are of national scope: six seats for the House of Representatives are considered undecided. In San Francisco, the mayor, London Breed, could pay the price for citizens' fed up with the presence of the homeless. She is threatened by Daniel Lurie, the billionaire and heir to the Levi Strauss fortune.

In a campaign that saw Republicans pound their opponents on “insecurity”the most followed consultation concerns proposition 36 (prop 36), a referendum strengthening penalties against petty crime and drug trafficking. The result will give the measure of the refocusing of the State – and of the Democratic Party – on questions of security and criminal justice.

Proposition 36 toughens penalties for theft and drug-related crimes. She returns to Proposition 47 adopted in 2014 in the enthusiasm of years of technological progress. At the time, it was a matter of relieving prison congestion, according to an injunction from the State Supreme Court. Nearly 60% (59.6%) of voters approved raising the threshold for offenses. Thefts under $950 had been reduced from being classified as crimes to misdemeanors.

Proposition 36 plans to reclassify thefts under $950 as crimes if the accused has already been convicted twice. It stipulates that users of drugs such as fentanyl, heroin or methamphetamine could be sentenced to “compulsory treatment sentence” detoxification. Courts will have to inform defendants that they risk being prosecuted for murder if their products cause the death of a consumer.

Proposition 36 was launched by a group bringing together major retail companies (Walmart, Target, Home Depot), elected officials from both sides as well as the district attorneys' association. She responds to the attacks of the Republicans, who have made a scarecrow of ” model “ California Criminal Justice Department. Even before Kamala Harris, the former attorney general of California, entered the campaign, the base « MAGA » kept broadcasting clips of « smash and grab » : the irruption into stores of masked thieves who take entire bags of products.

“Prop 36” should be widely adopted (polls are up to 70% in favor). An embarrassing prospect for Gavin Newsom, the governor, who was one of the main opponents, on the grounds that the fight against drugs deserves a global approach in the State Assembly and not a mood movement of exasperated citizens. Under his leadership, parliamentarians even tried to reduce support for the referendum by presenting a package of crime bills, but without success.

Kamala Harris, a voter in California, did not reveal how she planned to vote on Proposition 36. She, who readily highlights her firmness in applying the law when she was a prosecutor, refused to comment on a text that amounts to the cancellation of Proposition 47, adopted in 2014 under his mandate. At the time, she had observed the same silence. An attitude which shows that 'Harris' cautious approach goes back well before his presidential bid'commented on Los Angeles Times.