Trump Win Sparks Talk Of 'Calexit'
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — In the wake of Donald Trump's victory at the polls Tuesday night, disaffected voters began calling for California to secede from the union.
After Trump's win became official, #Calexit quickly began trending on Twitter. And a San Diego group called Yes California said it is organizing a pro-secession rally on the steps of the State Capitol in Sacramento Wednesday.
In a night of surprisingly resounding wins for Donald Trump in battleground states such as Florida and North Carolina, Clinton carried California -- winning the state's 55 Electoral College votes -- with 61.5 percent of the state's popular vote.
The call for California's secession is especially loud in Silicon Valley. Prominent tech industry investor Shervin Pishevar was among those voicing his support as the election results came in Tuesday night.
Pishevar and Yes California suggest California could be economically self-sufficient, given the size of its economy.
"As the sixth largest economy in the world, California is more economically powerful than France and has a population larger than Poland," the group said in a statement. "California compares and competes with countries, not just the 49 other states."
Calls for California to secede from the union are not altogether new. Novelist Ernest Callenbach proposed transforming California into an eco-friendly country separate from the United States in the 1970s.
A separate plan to divide California into six states was proposed by venture capitalist Tim Draper in 2014. It failed to gather the signatures required to quality for the 2016 ballot.
Yes California said it is aiming for a 2019 vote on its independence referendum.