FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 20, 2025

Coyote Codornices Marin (they/them)
Independent California Institute
director@ic.institute

On Eve of Trump Inauguration, Californians Eye Secession

Carlsbad, CA: 61% of Californians said they would be better off California if peacefully seceded from the U.S. at some point in the next ten years, in a poll conducted in the weeks before Inauguration Day. This is the highest favorability towards secession ever recorded in a California poll. The poll was conducted by YouGov for the Independent California Institute, a non-profit think-tank.

Californians also favor taking immediate steps towards independence:

• 66% of poll respondents said California should form a permanent commission dedicated to helping the state gain more autonomy from the federal government.
• 77% said California should use its 16 Border Control Stations to control its state borders “more like a country,” by checking for guns, drugs, and other contraband.
• 58% said nearly all federal land in California should be transferred to state and local governments in California, and 56% said the same for water infrastructure.

According to the poll, Californians are prepared to use “hardball tactics,” in the U.S. house, such as refusing to pass a budget or other must-pass bill, to gain greater autonomy for California. 63% polled said such tactics are justified because “Californians are systematically under-represented in other parts of the federal government.”

Part of why such tactics might be effective is that Californians have little long-term fiscal incentive to keep most federal programs operational. In most years, the federal system is a net drain on California. For example, in fiscal year 2022, the federal government took $83 billion dollars more from California taxpayers than it spent in California—while also borrowing over a trillion dollars.

If Congress found itself unable to fund certain federal programs, Californians would generally be able to re-implement more generous versions of the same programs at the state level, by taxing themselves.

The federal government is funded until mid-March at least, but the incoming U.S. president will have to deal immediately with a California-sized headache of his own making: immigration. Donald Trump has promised mass deportations in the U.S. starting on the first day of his term.

However, nearly 2 million Californians are undocumented, most of them long-term residents with no criminal record. 60% of those polled said that California should adopt a policy of “total non-cooperation” with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) if they deport California residents who have lived in the state for more than 5 years and have not been convicted of a crime.

For more topline results, analysis, and the full poll methodology, see https://ic.institute/poll.