California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been in his Democratic surrogate phase lately, jet-setting around the country to get Vice President Kamala Harris elected president.
But he made time last week for a different ballot fight: a measure in Washington state where voters will decide whether to keep or throw out their landmark carbon pricing program that state officials hope can one day be linked with California’s.
Democrats are smelling a broader opportunity to take ambitious climate policies directly to the voters and win, offering a runway to go further — though a loss could spell just as far-reaching consequences in the opposite way.
“This initiative has national ramifications because people will be watching the result,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who leaves office in January, said in an interview a few days after the Oct. 19 rally with Newsom in Seattle. “When you test something, the result is important.”