As of late last year, Proposition 1 — Gov. Gavin Newsom’s ballot measure to expand behavioral-health treatment and housing — seemed like it was on a glide path to victory. Polling showed it holding a comfortable lead, and a massive fundraising imbalance tilted the race in the favor of the measure’s backers.
But more than a week after Election Day, the fate of Newsom’s signature legislation still hangs in the balance. As more returns came in Wednesday evening, the yes side led by about 20,000 votes with hundreds of thousands more ballots still left to count. On Thursday, that margin widened to just shy of 24,000 votes.
Even if the measure ultimately prevails, the surprising underperformance of Prop. 1 at the polls has highlighted the deep ambivalence that many voters feel about the direction that Newsom’s mental-health reforms have taken. Some political experts said the lackluster showing could also point to the dimming popularity of a governor who managed to handily defeat a recall attempt just over two years ago by more than 20 percentage points.
Newsom introduced Prop. 1 last year in a bid to revamp the state’s two-decades-old Mental Health Services Act by raising billions of dollars in bond money to fund new treatment beds and supportive housing projects. The wide-ranging measure would also expand the act so that support would be extended not only to those suffering from mental illness but also to the unhoused and people struggling with drug addiction.
Opposition to Prop. 1 coalesced around a number of issues. The fiscally conservative Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association opposed the extra spending the measure would bring.
Progressive groups such as The League of Women Voters of California objected to provisions that would allocate more of the money raised through the funding act towards housing, warning that it would mean less funding for mental-health services such as outpatient care and peer counseling.
Mental-health advocates also pushed back against provisions that would allow counties to use the new bond money for “locked facilities,” raising concerns that those who suffer from mental illness or drug addiction will be subjected to more involuntary treatment.
“This is really the fourth big thing that the governor has put together to lock people up,” said Paul Simmons, director of Californians Against Prop. 1, referencing the introduction last year of the CARE Court program, the expansion of the state’s conservatorship laws and the two bills that led to Prop. 1.
The Yes on 1 campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but supporters have previously said that the extra housing and treatment beds that the measure would bring are crucial ingredients to fully carry out Newsom's plans to address the state's homelessness and mental health crises, both top concerns for voters.
CARE Court introduced a legal process to compel those with severe mental illness into treatment, but critics have pointed out that many counties don't actually have the treatment facilities needed to follow through on the program.
The tight race is especially surprising given that the committees supporting Proposition 1 raised nearly $22 million to back the measure, while opponents side raised only $1,000, according to state elections finance records.
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By Tuesday morning, the measure’s supporters had established a sizable enough lead that the opposition released a statement conceding that the measure was “almost certain to pass,” only for the race to tighten again Wednesday.
“We were amazed at how well we did,” said Simmons, who said the election’s twists and turns have given rise to the full “gamut of emotions.”
Aiding the opposition side, the measure faced an unforgiving political landscape: Low-turnout elections in California tend to overrepresent Republican voters.
“They’re going to vote for Donald Trump, they’re going to vote for Steve Garvey, and they’re going to vote against anything that Gavin Newsom would put on the ballot or support,” said David McCuan, a political-science professor at Sonoma State University and an expert on the politics of ballot measures.
But even if low turnout played a role, McCuan says, Newsom will ultimately bear the political cost of the electoral setback.
“He put political capital in the game, so he suffers a little bit,” said McCuan. He said the results — which show that Newsom’s political brand alone is not enough to cement an easy election victory — could suggest that the governor is no longer “as popular as he was in 2021 when he faced the recall effort.”
Prop. 1 has even divided the mental-health community. Many small nonprofits and providers oppose it, while it gained support from NAMI California, a massive advocacy group representing individuals with mental illnesses and their families.
Some are struggling to weigh the benefits they see in expanded housing options against their worries about the potential for more involuntary treatment.
“There’s good and bad, so I really have mixed feelings about Prop. 1,” said David Elliott Lewis, a longtime mental-health advocate who leads the board of directors for the Mental Health Association of San Francisco.
Ultimately, Lewis said, he did vote for the measure because he thought it would do more good than harm. Nevertheless, he said, “If I could have written a signing statement as a voter, I would have because I voted for it with concern.”
