Gavin Newsom’s Texas ‘victory lap’ breaks faith – Latest News
California Gov. Gavin Newsom obtained a hero’s welcome from fellow Democrats in Texas this weekend after his victory within the Proposition 50 referendum.
The California poll initiative handed overwhelmingly, even if it ripped energy away from the public and positioned it back within the palms of politicians — i.e. Democrats — to redraw congressional districts and get rid of the Republican opposition.
Newsom forged the vote in phrases of national politics, telling Californians it was a solution to push back in opposition to President Donald Trump, who stays unpopular within the state.
He additionally claimed his gerrymandering was a response to Texas Republicans, who redrew their own districts to adjust to latest Supreme Court rulings that restricted the use of race in district boundaries — and eradicated 5 Democrat-held seats within the course of.
Newsom, seen till now — even within his own get together — as a slick, entitled politician, can now declare to have achieved more than every other Democrat to degree the taking part in area forward of the essential 2026 midterm elections.
That, in flip, locations him in a distinctive place to make his case for the get together’s presidential nomination in 2028.
Newsom excels in trolling Republicans — which is why he hung across the GOP major debates in 2023, and why he went to Texas this weekend to taunt the opposition.
But whereas he was gone, Californians continued to endure the brunt of his insurance policies.
Fire victims in Pacific Palisades and Altadena, for instance, nonetheless endure countless delays — each from insurance coverage firms, that are reluctant to pay claims, and from native officers, who’re dragging their ft in approving permits to rebuild.
Local residents, determined for help, are calling for California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara to resign, and demanding that Newsom ask him to step down.
The governor has but to reply.
He is more involved with what he calls the “de facto” finish of the Trump presidency, which he guarantees will comply with after the midterm elections.
How he hopes to persuade Trump to approve $40 billion in requested federal fire help after such antics is anybody’s guess.
The state itself may help in any quantity of methods — equivalent to shopping for construction supplies at low cost bulk costs, which may decrease prices for native households.
It may additionally develop long-term methods to mitigate the hazard of wildfires — one thing Newsom has rejected in latest weeks, saying it might price an excessive amount of for a state that has struggled with finances deficits for the previous two years.
Newsom has different priorities: He spent $282.6 million of public money on the particular election for Prop 50.
Meanwhile, fuel is accumulating on public land — just like the land on which the Palisades Fire started, after being kindled from an earlier fire that state and native authorities did not put out.
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Newsom is taking a calculated gamble: That Democratic Party major voters will care more about how vigorously a candidate fought the Trump administration than how effectively she or he carried out in workplace.
For the sake of his political future, he’d higher be proper.
After practically two phrases in workplace as governor, following eight years as lieutenant governor and two phrases as mayor of San Francisco, it’s troublesome to call a single actual achievement in Newsom’s long profession.
He has merely failed upward.
The one factor Newsom has achieved effectively is to select fights with Trump and with different Republicans, equivalent to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, normally over social points.
Most of the nation disagrees with Newsom’s far-left positions on points like transgenderism, equivalent to a state law punishing college districts that inform dad and mom of youngsters’s gender modifications.
But Newsom is aware of his get together is determined for a candidate who can combat — even one who leaves his own state behind.
Joel Pollak is The California Post’s Opinion Editor. The California Post, a sister publication to The New York Post, can be launching early in 2026.
