😬Newsom is to blame
1. He’s not particularly popular
The challenge for Newsom will be to win support beyond the Democratic base, and while it’s a flash in the pan, recent trends in California aren’t encouraging.
Newsom’s approval rating among California voters, which had soared during the pandemic and maintained a stable majority since then, has plummeted over the past year. Just 47% of state voters approve of the governor’s efforts, down from 59% a year ago, according to a June poll by the Public Policy Institute of California.
The poll did not explore why Newsom is running a budget deficit, as he has spent most of this year addressing the threat of historic budget deficits and deep cuts to vital public programs.
But poll director Mark Baldassarre said the governor’s approval rating has dropped significantly among independents, to less than a third, with his approval rating among those voters dropping to 35% from 50% a year ago. Meanwhile, Newsom has leaned into his role as a national voice for the Democratic Party, drawing increasing criticism from Republicans.
A survey of respondents in California’s most battleground districts found that only 42% of voters approved of Mr. Newsom’s job performance, lower than the overall California electorate and potentially a bad sign for Mr. Newsom’s approval rating in the battleground state.
“Gavin Newsom has become a politically polarized candidate in a politically polarized time,” Baldassarre said. “This is one of those things that happens when you have a governor in the national spotlight.”
2. He has a tough record to uphold.
Nearly all of the experts CalMatters spoke to agreed that California’s rising crime rates, homelessness and huge budget shortfalls will be powerful ammunition for conservatives, and even Democrats, to attack Newsom during the presidential election.
“There’s a lot of problems going on in the state and they’re all his fault. He’s involved in all of them,” said Rowe, the Michigan Republican strategist.
California voters are increasingly frustrated that rates of violent and property crime, while remaining low compared to the 1980s and 1990s, have been rising in recent years, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
These sentiments helped fuel support for a November ballot measure that would partially repeal Proposition 47, a decade-old voter-approved state law, by increasing penalties for retail theft and drug offenses. Newsom and Democratic legislative leaders balked at the measure but ultimately withdrew it after negotiations broke down and attempts to put a challenger on the ballot failed.
Similarly, Newsom will have to oversee a whiplash-inducing deterioration from a record budget surplus to a multibillion-dollar deficit, and he will also have to deal with the state’s homelessness problem that has in many ways defined his governorship. California’s homeless population has grown in recent years and now accounts for nearly half of the nation’s homeless population.
“All he’s done throughout his career is visit each office, so he’s got a glass jaw.”
Jason Cabell Roe, Mitt Romney’s 2007 deputy campaign manager
To change the narrative, Newsom must “work around” those weaknesses while pointing to other accomplishments, Jackson said.
“He can say, ‘The economy is in a tough spot, inflation is very high, and these are things I have absolutely no control over,'” Jackson said.
To ease public concerns about homelessness, Newsom defended Proposition 1, a mental health bond measure that narrowly passed in the March primary that was supposed to help address homelessness. He also asked the Supreme Court in an amicus brief to give cities more power to clear camps. The court’s conservative majority granted the bill last month, angering the liberal justices.
When it comes to crime and homelessness, Salazar said Newsom can point to “big cities in Republican states” that have “the exact same issues.”
3. His appeal to battleground state voters is unclear.
California Democrats pride themselves on being at the cutting edge of politics, but their proud progressive values also make them targets for ridicule. When Rep. Nancy Pelosi was speaker of the House, Republicans used her San Francisco hometown as a bludgeon in advertising against her party members. Former Gov. Jerry Brown earned the nickname “Governor Moonbeam” after three unsuccessful bids for president.
As Newsom’s popularity grows, California’s luster appears to be fading further: A February Los Angeles Times poll found that half of American adults think California is in decline, and nearly half of Republicans say it’s not American enough.
“For better or worse, that’s not going to work so well in other parts of the country,” said Dan Schnur, who served as national communications director for John McCain in the 2000 presidential election and now teaches political science at the University of California, Berkeley, Pepperdine University and the University of Southern California.
“If he was a smart, personable, aggressive, media-friendly governor of Wisconsin, he would be impossible to stop.”
Jonathan Kinloch, a Michigan Democratic Party official in Detroit and a Biden delegate, said many non-California voters see the state as the “socialist heartland” of America and that Newsom needs to address their concerns about the state’s tax and environmental policies.
“When it comes to the left, California is so far left that they’re willing to tax themselves to the point of extinction,” Kinloch said.
To win battleground states, Mr. Newsom needs to deliver a stronger message to non-white working-class voters who place a premium on economic issues and have drifted away from Democrats in recent elections, Mr. Madrid, the Republican consultant, said.
“The path to the middle class in California is one of the hardest to reach,” Madrid argued. “California’s performance is poor. Can we do better? We can, but it’s going to take time to get there.”
Schnur said that if Newsom ran in the presidential primary, where he could speak to his liberal strengths such as abortion rights and climate change, it would give voters more time to get to know him and feel comfortable with him.
“In the general election, the odds are going to be much worse,” Schnurr said, “but in the primary, it’s easy for him to change the topic.”
But Newsom comes from a Democratic state and lacks experience in competitive elections, which could put him at a disadvantage compared to other politicians who have been mentioned as potential future presidential contenders, including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear.
“All he did throughout his career was walk into offices,” said Mr. Rowe, the Michigan Republican Party consultant, “so he has a glass jaw.”
