This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire
By Susan Crabtree
It’s an odd predicament for a leading Democratic presidential contender. Gavin Newsom’s biggest strength – political spin and performance come almost second nature to him – could also be his biggest liability as he strains to remake the tarnished image of the state he has governed for the last seven years.
Newsom, with his smooth-talking, rapid-fire responses and his attempt to out-Trump Trump on social media aggression, is everything Kamala Harris wasn’t in 2024. But neither Californian can easily shake the biggest millstone dragging down their White House ambitions. Their failed progressive policies have sullied the Golden State’s image, driving up prices, homelessness, and mismanagement. The failures have not only driven citizens away but are also likely to turn off voters in swing battleground districts as well.
California’s failures weren’t Harris’ biggest weakness in 2024 – her word salads were. But the Golden State’s downward spiral was a close second.
As wildfire victims held vigils and prayer circles on the anniversary of the devastating Palisades and Eaton fires, Newsom on Thursday attempted to flip the script on California’s role as a GOP punchline.
In his final State-of-the-State address after years of releasing video-taped remarks, Newsom cast Trump’s control of Washington as a “carnival of chaos” amid the Democratic furor over an ICE agent shooting and killing a woman in Minnesota. He then positioned California as a “beacon” of fairness and resistance to Trump’s heavy-handed Washington rule.
Addressing the California legislature, which had just observed a moment of silence for the slain Minnesota woman, Renee Nicole Good, Newsom repeatedly pointed to Trump as a power-hungry threat to democracy who abused his power to call in the National Guard to quell unrest over ICE arrests and raids.
“The president believes that might makes right, that the courts are simply speed bumps, not stops. That democracy is a nuisance to be circumvented. Secret police, businesses being raided, windows smashed, citizens detained, citizens shot, masked men snatching, people in broad daylight, people disappearing,” Newsom charged.
“None of this is normal,” he added.
After throwing out the red meat for the Democratic base, Newsom then set out to normalize California’s dizzying array of failures under his watch.
“The state is providing a different narrative — an operational model, a policy blueprint for others to follow,” he told state lawmakers.
Newsom’s defiant defense of his state as a shining example for others to emulate may come as a shock for those who haven’t been watching his reinvention as a social media agitator and leader of the national redistricting battle.
But Newsom’s attempt to go on offense on his biggest weakness – his policy failures – was his most audacious and sweeping thus far. After mimicking Trump’s belligerent social media style, Newsom stole another Trump play, labeling the state’s critics as suffering from “California Derangement syndrome,” a revision of the “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” which MAGA world deploys to brush off condemnation.
“The declinists,” the pundits and conservative critics simply don’t know the updated facts, Newsom asserted, arguing that they are working to “tear down, to try to attack all of our progress.”
Early data for 2025, he said, indicate a 9% decline in homelessness, the first drop after an explosion of unsheltered people in California. He failed to mention that from 2019 to 2024, under his watch, homelessness rose to 188,000, a net increase of 37,000, or 24%, even though the state spent roughly $24 billion trying to curb it.
“So, our investments paid off,” he claimed without an explanation.
Newsom acknowledged that the decline was “not good enough,” and more work needs to be done as long as big homeless encampments still exist in major cities around the state. He failed to mention the high number of homelessness deaths across the state that could be contributing to the 9% decline, as well as the danger of allowing any encampments to remain.
Just hours after the speech, a fire at a homeless camp in a Los Angeles suburb broke out, the second in the last two weeks.
Newsom also claimed credit for “double-digit decreases in crime” across California, without acknowledging that those figures are still higher than pre-pandemic levels in some areas and that property crime continues to plague major cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles.
While touting minor California successes, he often followed up by acknowledging that there is still “work to do” when it comes to bringing down housing costs, overall “affordability,” lowering crime rates, and improving fire insurance coverage.
Though he noted that he had debated whether or not to mention high-speed rail, another frequent target for fiscal conservative attacks, he hailed the $13.8 billion spent so far and progress on projects in the state’s agricultural Central Valley as one of the “great economic investments” in the region. Those lines, he said, “will make commute times shorter and make life more affordable.” He failed to mention that the project was launched in 2008, and more than 17 years later, no trains are running.
Newsom even touted California’s status as having the highest taxes of any state in the country, stressing that Democrats in the state had designed the most “progressive” system in the country, which he argued is far fairer for middle-class and low-wage earners.
“So, the question to all of you — who are the high tax states? Just consider Texas. Just consider Florida, the two most regressive tax states in America,” Newsom said. “They’re hammering their low-income earners. They’re hammering them more than their wealthiest. Who are the high-tax states? California stands for fairness.”
California Republican Party Chairwoman Corrin Rankin, responding to the address, cast Newsom as not only out of touch but deranged.
“Governor Newsom told Californians that homelessness is down, crime is at record lows, schools are improving, and Los Angeles is recovering after the Palisades fires,” she said. “Governor Newsom painted a picture of a California that exists in his imagination.”
Rep. Kevin Kiley, a Republican representing parts of Sacramento in Congress, assailed the address as pure gaslighting.
“For once, Newsom is right,” he said. “California has led the nation during his tenure – in homelessness, unemployment, poverty, illiteracy, gas prices, electricity costs, debt, and outmigration. That is the true state of our state.”
Kiley also provided a preview of the conservative line of attack that could haunt the governor leading into the 2028 presidential race.
“California, also, of course, leads the nation in fraud … Minnesota’s fraud scandals have just ended Tim Walz’s political career,” Kiley said. “California’s should likewise end Gavin Newsom’s.”
The post Newsom Strains To Flip Script on California’s Failures appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.