What Californians actually think

Three numbers come out of the same survey. Two of them help us and one of them does not. All three are on this page, because a case assembled from the flattering half of a poll is not a case.

1. The survey

In June 2025, YouGov surveyed 500 California adults for the Independent California Institute. It is the clearest direct measurement we have, and it put the question three different ways rather than once.

• 56% say Californians would be better off if California peacefully became an independent country.
• 71% say the state would be better off holding a special autonomous status within the United States.
• On a ballot measure declaring California’s intention to withdraw peacefully and lawfully, 44% said yes and 54% said no.

Institute for California Independence / YouGov, June 2025, 500 California adults. Topline results.

2. The gap we do not hide

A majority already believes independence would leave Californians better off. A majority would still vote against it. Those two findings are not in conflict, and the distance between them is the most useful number on this page.

People believe a thing would work and decline to vote for it all the time. The belief costs nothing. The vote carries risk, and the risk is concrete: the border, the pension check, the passport, the water. Ten points is what those unanswered questions are worth at the ballot box.

That is the argument for a legislative inquiry rather than a snap referendum. A campaign that needed 44% to become 51% by next November would be a campaign built on hope. A commission that answers the questions behind the ten points is a campaign built on evidence, and it is the only version of this that holds up against a serious opponent.

3. Openness, measured separately

A YouGov survey in February 2025 asked something different, and the difference is worth spelling out.

27% said California should leave the United States. 49% said it should not. A further 24% were undecided.

Add the first and the third and 51% have not closed the question. That is not 51% support and we do not present it as support. It is 51% still willing to hear the argument, which is a different claim and a smaller one. It is also the claim that matters most to anyone deciding whether this deserves a hearing in Sacramento.

4. Majorities for the substance

Ask Californians about independence and you get one answer. Ask about the specific powers independence would bring and you get a much larger one.

• 80% want California to control its borders with other states “like a country.”
• 74% support a state citizenship for residents who are not US citizens.
• 50% trust Sacramento more than Washington, against 23% who say the reverse.

An earlier Independent California Institute poll in January 2025 found 61% supporting some form of independence.

The pattern holds across every question. Where the subject is self-government in practice, the majorities are large and steady. Where the subject is the word on a ballot, they narrow. That is a communications problem rather than an opinion problem, and communications problems can be solved.

Institute for California Independence / YouGov, June 2025 and February 2025; Institute for California Independence, January 2025.

5. Where the mood came from

Two moments moved public opinion further than any argument has.

In 2020, during the Covid emergency, Governor Gavin Newsom broke from federal direction, built California’s own response, and used the state’s purchasing power in the global market, buying supplies directly from China when Washington could not deliver them. He described California as a nation state, and the description was widely reported. Californians backed him. Millions of people watched their state behave like a country for a year and saw that it worked.

In January 2026, Congressman Eric Swalwell called California “the greatest country” during a gubernatorial debate. It cost him nothing. He moved into frontrunner status among California voters in the weeks that followed. Language that would have ended a campaign a decade ago is now an asset in one.

6. How we read polling

Five rules.

1. Publish the number that hurts. If a survey we cite contains a result that cuts against us, it appears here.
2. Name the sponsor. The Independent California Institute commissioned the June 2025 and January 2025 surveys, and it advocates for independence. YouGov fielded them. You should weigh that, and you cannot weigh it if we do not say it.
3. Never convert openness into support. The 51% figure above measures willingness to consider. It is labeled that way every time it appears on this site.
4. Cite the topline, not the write-up. Every figure here links to published toplines where they exist, so you can check the wording of the question instead of trusting our summary of it.
5. Small samples get small claims. A sample of 500 adults carries a margin of error of roughly five points. A three-point move between two surveys is not a trend, and we will not describe it as one.

Older figures are superseded rather than stacked. A 2017 Reuters/Ipsos and Stanford survey found roughly 47.5% of Californians open to seriously discussing independence. It stays on the record because it establishes how long this has been mainstream. It does not get added to the 2025 numbers, because the two measure different things a decade apart.