Gavin Newsom has a memoir coming out this month, “Young Man in a Hurry” — another heavy hint that he intends to run for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. To judge by some of the more fawning media profiles (Vogue describes him as “lithe, ardent, energetic, a glimmer of optimism in his eye; Kennedy-esque”), he’s practically already won.
Democrats should be careful whom they crush on. Newsom’s record as governor of California is a Republican strategist’s perfect foil. Among the more salient points:
Affordability. That’s supposed to be the Democrats’ magic word against Republicans amid persistently high prices, especially for first-time homebuyers. Yet U.S. News & World Report ranked California dead last in 2025 in its affordability rankings. The California Legislature’s own Analyst’s Office noted that “Prices for mid-tier homes are about $755,000 — more than twice as expensive as the typical mid-tier U.S. home.” And in 16 California counties, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and Alameda, a six-figure salary can still be deemed “low-income” for a family of three, according to the state’s housing department.
Poverty and income inequality. The U.S. Census Bureau reported last year that California is tied with Louisiana for the country’s highest “supplemental” poverty rate, which takes account of cost-of-living calculations over a three-year period, with roughly 1 in 6 Californians living in poverty. In Pennsylvania, by contrast, the number is about 1 in 10. California also has one of the country’s highest rates of income inequality: In 2022, the average income of the top 5% was nearly $600,000 higher than the average income of the bottom 20%.
Homelessness. Nearly 1 in 200 Californians were homeless on any given night in 2024. “California alone accounted for 44% of all individuals who experienced chronic homelessness in the country,” according to a 2024 report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Flight. Probably the best measure of a state’s success or failure is how people vote with their feet. Between April 2020 and July 2025, California had a total net loss of almost 1.3 million people who moved to other states — driven out, according to Coastal Moving Services, by housing prices that “often exceed national averages by double, while the state carries the nation’s highest income tax rate at 12.3%. Slow job growth and 441 businesses relocating headquarters since 2018 compound the challenge.”
Last year, the National Taxpayers Union Foundation found that another Californian leaves the state every minute and 44 seconds, the fastest rate in the nation.
Education. To its credit, the University of California system remains one of the jewels of American higher education. K-12? Not so much. U.S. News ranks California 38th in the country, behind Mississippi and Louisiana. Cal Matters found that while the state had increased “per pupil spending by 102% since 2013, reading comprehension has remained flat while math skills have dropped.”
Energy costs. Americans hate high energy prices. In 2024, the average retail price for electricity in California was 27 cents per kilowatt-hour, more than twice the national average. Regular gas? A gallon in California this week averaged $4.37, higher than in every state other than Hawaii. That has something to do with California having the highest gas tax in the country — about 71 cents a gallon. It also has to do with the regulatory burden Newsom has imposed on its energy suppliers, potentially leading to the loss of 20% of its refining capacity in a single year.
Crime. Newsom bristles at what he calls the “complete mythology” that he is soft on crime. And it’s true that homicide rates in the state fell to historic lows last year — as they did nationwide.
But Newsom was also an enthusiastic backer of Proposition 47, passed in 2014, which reclassified shoplifting offenses under $950 from felonies to misdemeanors, and also reduced charges for lower-level drug possession. Result: “Driven by larcenies, property crime jumped after Prop 47 compared to the nation and comparison states,” according to the Public Policy Institute of California. Newsom also opposed a 2024 ballot measure, Proposition 36, that reversed much of Prop 47. It passed anyway — with 68% of the vote.
Wokeness. Newsom understands that Democrats’ obsession with progressive social justice causes, and the censorious spirit that goes with it, hurt the party in 2024, which is why he has gone out of his way to engage with right-wing influencers on his podcast, “This Is Gavin Newsom.” Last year, he made waves when he seemed to break with progressives on the question of trans athletes, calling the participation of male-assigned competitors in women’s and girls’ sports “deeply unfair.”
Then again, Newsom signed SB132, the law that allowed an inmate who was assigned male at birth and serving 25 years to life for violent offenses, Tremaine Carroll, to transfer to a women’s prison, in which Carroll is alleged to have raped two female inmates. Newsom signed another bill that forbids educators from being required to tell parents that their children have changed their names and pronouns. That won’t be easy to defend in a general election where the race will hang on tens of thousands of votes in states such as Georgia, Michigan and North Carolina.
As the early swooning over Newsom suggests, some voters’ hearts are fluttering over the prospect of his candidacy. Democrats who take the 2028 stakes seriously should stick to just using their brains.
Bret Stephens is a columnist at The New York Times.
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