President Donald Trump portrays Gavin Newsom’s California as a dystopian hellscape of garbage, homelessness and wildfires, where people are voting with their feet by leaving.
But the Democrats running to succeed Newsom have also painted a portrait of a state in decline. Though they don’t often mention Newsom by name, their campaigns have centered on the state’s struggles with affordability and accountability — implicitly pointing to Newsom’s failure to make good on some of the audacious promises he made when he first ran.
It’s the first draft of the playbook Democratic rivals will use against Newsom if — as widely expected — he makes a run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028. Newsom’s 7 ½ years as governor have been defined by his ambition and the lofty goals he set to solve the state’s problems with housing, homelessness and health care. But his hopes have often collided with the complexity of solving California’s most entrenched problems, even as he has governed in a state with a Democratic supermajority.