Gavin Newsom claims to have no interest in running for president, but you’d never guess that by his actions. Look no further than his recent trips across the globe to Israel and China, his regular appearances on cable news (and even stopping by a Republican presidential debate spin room), or his obsession with everything happening in rival red states.
He may not be handing out yard signs and kissing babies, but without a doubt, he is running for president.
He took California, the once Golden State, and turned it into a wasteland for radical, regressive policies. The last thing he deserves is to take his failures nationwide with a promotion to the White House. America can’t afford to turn into California.
There’s hardly a greater scorecard for a governor’s performance than the number of people choosing to make that leader’s state their home. And on this grading scale, Newsom is an abject failure. The California Exodus is not a “myth,” as Newsom likes to claim. Last year, 817,000 Californians fled our state, only a few short years after we lost a congressional seat in 2020 for the first time in state history. At this rate, we are expected to lose an additional five seats by the next reapportionment.
So why are so many Californians heading for the exit?
From the highest-in-the-nation gas prices to expensive groceries and housing, cost of living ranks high on reasons why people move away. Owning a home has become increasingly unobtainable, with recent data showing only 15 percent of California households could afford to become homeowners — the lowest home affordability rate since 2007. To combat the housing shortage, Newsom campaigned for governor on building 3.5 million new homes by 2025; spoiler alert: it’s not happening. He’s since moved the goal post, saying California will plan for 2.5 million new homes by 2030 – long after he’s left office, and it’s someone else’s problem. This was hardly his first broken promise.
When Gavin Newsom was first elected mayor of San Francisco, he decreed that he would “aggressively” make homelessness his administration’s No. 1 priority and announced a 10-year plan to end chronic homelessness. One need only look around San Francisco today to see that his plan was a massive failure. Flash forward 20 years, and as governor, he’s taken his incompetence on this issue statewide, spending over $20 billion only to see the homeless crisis continue to deteriorate. On his watch, California today accounts for 30 percent of the country’s homeless population and half of the nation’s unsheltered people. It’s no wonder homelessness continues to be a top concern for Californians.
Many left California following Newsom’s draconian handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. He shuttered thousands of businesses permanently by determining who was deemed essential from earning a living and who wasn’t, as well as who could open their doors to patrons and who couldn’t. At the same time, while sending his own children to in-person private school, he kept California public schools closed longer than any other state in the nation, which put California’s children behind and resulted in deteriorating test scores statewide. To this day, they aren’t getting any better.
And who could forget his never-ending mask mandates that only Gavin Newsom himself got to repeatedly ignore? He was sending a clear message: he doesn’t have to play by the same rules as the rest of us.
Recently, with all eyes on him and in a superficial effort to look half competent, he’s selectively decided to do his job, cleaning up the streets of San Francisco and rushing to re-open a major Los Angeles freeway. But with years of baggage preceding his latest national audition, Californians can only wonder in frustration, why couldn’t he have used the same urgency to solve many of California’s other mounting problems that he’s only made worse?
As Newsom seeks out the national limelight, it seems his incompetence back home is wearing on those suffering under his reign. A recent poll showed that his approval among California voters has hit an all-time low of 44 percent.
I love California. It’s my home, and the landscape is incomparable to anywhere else in the nation. However, it’s undeniable that Gavin Newsom and his regressive policies have failed us. California used to be a place where anyone could go to get ahead, and now it’s a place that too many can’t wait to leave behind.
It's clear that the California Way isn’t working. As Newsom himself has described it, California under his failed leadership looks like a third world country. Let California serve as a warning to the nation that you don’t want what Newsom’s selling. Gavin Newsom is the worst governor in California history, and we must make sure that governor is the last elected office he ever holds.
Jessica Millan Patterson is the Chairwoman of the California Republican Party
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