For the past half century, California has been the driving force in American technology, culture and political development. After all, it was Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan who led the last great resurgence on the Right from the state, and Governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown who largely created the green-oriented, high-tech progressive underpinnings of the Clinton and Obama regimes, even if he never reached the presidency himself.
Today, history may be repeating itself, but in a way that – to paraphrase Mark Twain – no longer rhymes. Under Nixon, Reagan and Brown, the California connection was a golden one; California was the epitome of American success, the dream cubed. Today, Gavin Newsom – increasingly seen as the front-runner for the presidency in 2028 – would find it difficult to make anything like such a claim, given the awful condition in which he is leaving the state.
Yet Newsom’s relentless self-promotion seems to be succeeding, at least among Democrats. He won’t have to worry much about any serious scrutiny from big media, either inside the state or nationally. Even in the race to succeed him as California’s governor, it seems all but assured that his successor will continue his approach or move further to the Left.
Now that the unfortunate Kamala Harris has bowed out of consideration for California’s governorship once Newsom’s term ends, post position belongs to former Representative Katie Porter, an acolyte of Elizabeth Warren and firmly on the Left of the party. But the true front-runner, if he chooses, would be Senator Alex Padilla, who has generally acted as a pliant tool of the California establishment. If he runs, suggests Democratic consultant Paul Mitchell, “it will be game over”.
The only reasonable hope for a course correction lies in the possible candidacy of LA real estate mogul Rick Caruso. Yet although he has the business skills desperately needed to engineer a state recovery, he was a disappointing candidate in his 2022 LA mayor race against Karen Bass, coming off more like a rich guy on an ego trip than a relatable candidate. The only Democrat looking to fill the middle lane, notes long-time Democratic consultant David Gershwin, might be former LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, but he would likely be crushed by the union- and green-dominated Democratic machine.
How about the Republicans? As we would say in my native New York, fuggedaboutit. The state that gave birth to modern conservatism has become a no-go zone for the GOP. Even as the Democrats seek to limit the number of seats Republicans might win in the House, already a paltry nine out of 52, barely one-in-four California voters are registered Republican, while Democrats own close to half.
Demographics explain much of this. “How do you win elections when you keep losing your voters?,” asks a pained Shawn Steel, the GOP national committeeman for California. California’s conservatism was rooted in the migration of voters from the Mid-West and South, who found in the Golden State an outlet for their material aspirations. But over the past two decades, over 2.6 million net domestic migrants have left – equal to the population of San Francisco, Anaheim and San Diego combined – and many, according to IRS estimates, are concentrated among the middle class family-age population.
Left behind is a rapidly ageing population, as well as a large coterie of affluent professionals, state-dependent individuals and, most importantly, the public sector, whose unions are helping to fund Newsom’s redistricting drive. It’s almost impossible to imagine any of the Republican hopefuls for governor – former David Cameron advisor Steve Hilton or Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco – winning, and it’s possible that neither will even make it to the run-off election. A Republican has not won a state-wide race in California in almost two decades.
Leading Democratic pollster Mitchell says that the Republicans recapturing the Governor’s mansion would be “a one in every 200 years event”, possible if too many Democrats run and the GOP stays united. But generally Republicans remain stuck with 42-45 per cent of the vote, not nearly enough to make a major challenge.
But the Democrats’ stranglehold over California is both unjustified and damaging. Newsom can crow about the state’s giant economy – largely due to the presence of a handful of the world’s seven companies with trillion dollar valuations, and the highest number of billionaires in the US. But the average Californian has not benefited much from his regime, as the Golden State suffers among the nation’s highest proportion of the population living in poverty, tepid job growth and the US’s highest rates of unemployment, particularly elevated for teenagers and Generation Z.
For those older than 30, buying a home – the traditional route to the middle class – has become a nightmare. Regulations aimed at stopping suburban development have helped push the median cost of a home to nearly 2.5 times higher than in the rest of country. Not surprisingly California has the second lowest homeownership rate in the nation, at 56 per cent (New York’s is lowest at 54 per cent). High prices have been a boon to upper-middle professionals, increasingly the Democratic Party’s base, but ownership rates for those under-35 are half the national average. This is precisely the group that is deserting the West Coast for “cost of living” reasons.
Even worse, the Newsom economy has been a disaster for workers. California is one of the worst states for creating jobs that pay above average. In the year to January 2025, the only net new jobs created in California were in areas substantially subsidised by government (like healthcare) and in government itself as well as some in the low wage service sector.
Meanwhile, companies in key high wage sectors – technology, aerospace and defence – are heading increasingly to other states, notably to the Carolinas and Texas. Many will be tempted to follow the likes of Elon Musk, who is busily working to turn the Lone Star State into the epicentre of America’s 21st century space economy.
Although they have little choice in the matter in an essentially one party state, most Californians, according to a UC Berkeley poll last year, think it is headed in the wrong direction. Only around 44 per cent of voters approve of Newsom; by two to one, voters believe he is more concerned with his political ambitions than delivering decent governance, a charge made recently by San Jose’s Democratic mayor, Matt Mahan.
Even Californians no longer see their state as a model for the country. In a 2024 survey conducted for the Los Angeles Times, only 15 per cent of respondents felt that California is a model other states should copy; 39 per cent said the state was not a model and should not be emulated. Barely one in three state residents – and only one in four younger voters – now thinks the American dream is achievable.
This is a far cry from the California that produced Nixon, Reagan and Jerry Brown. Its failures, which should make Newsom vulnerable, will be hidden as much as possible by a compliant media, and largely ignored in the gubernatorial campaign. But Americans, however distressed over Maga excesses, may still have second thoughts about adopting a Golden State political agenda that promises, on the national level, something potentially equally or even more catastrophic.
This piece first appeared at: Telegraph.
Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and and directs the Center for Demographics and Policy there. He is Senior Research Fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas in Austin. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.
Photo: Gage Skidmore, via Flickr under CC 2.0 License.
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