Tag: opinion columnists

Traveling outside the U.S., it used to be enough to disassociate yourself from the danger to the world posed by Donald Trump by saying you’re from California.

Now, as he sows chaos that will upset generations of international order, the American embarrassment is too profound for that. You can proudly claim your home state, but you still come from the country that twice elected a Caesarian tyrant, and there’s no hiding from that. Who does the world imagine we will elect next? If the answer is the acolyte JD Vance, that’s very cold comfort for the nation and the globe.

Embarrassment isn’t the worst thing. Living unembarrassed ranks below shelter, food, family, friends, love. And traveling is a privilege, one that I’ve been lucky enough to pursue in the half-century since I graduated college and headed to Europe with a backpack for five months, on the very cheap, before coming home to create a career and a real life.

Now, summers, I get to stay in real hotels, instead of under bridges or on beaches or in youth hostels.

What to say to the people encountered in restaurants and bars? Sorry? In the 1970s, during the Vietnam war, American kids in Europe used to put Canadian flags on their knapsacks when hitchhiking to increase the likelihood of being picked up.

Canada’s a nice option.

Prime Minister Mark Carney was speaking truth to power when he said last week: “The world has changed, Washington has changed. There is almost nothing normal now in the United States. That is the truth.”

In Davos, he told the other, perfectly normal leaders of the world that the manic insanity of the president of the United States means that they have to accept the fact that we have reached the end of the rules-based global order that our nation once championed. He got a standing ovation, which the assembled business and political bigwigs almost never give to anyone at the annual meeting. Well, bully for him, and them. The ovation drove Trump nuts. And meanwhile, we are stuck with him, for three more years of awful folly.

It’s too overwhelming, the totality of the ways in which the current president has destroyed our place in the world in a long-short single year. Threatening to take Greenland, to make our northern neighbor the 51st state, to take military action against our southern neighbor, to take the Panama Canal.

Last month, as required by law, State Auditor Grant Parks published an annual report on state programs and agencies that his office deems to be at “high risk” of costly inefficiency, waste or fraud.

The report reiterated concerns about seven situations, two of which have been on the list since 2007, including the bureaucracy’s chronic inability to successfully employ information technology — embarrassing for a state that is the global center for digital tools.

Parks has added a new program in his latest overview, the Department of Social Service’s food aid for poor families, once called food stamps but now known as CalFresh.

The federal government primarily finances supplemental food benefits, but the state’s share is determined, in part, by its management, as indicated by its rate of error when determining people’s eligibility.

President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill tightens the error rate thresholds. Thus, Parks notes, California’s 11% error rate, if not improved, could require the state to “spend about $2 billion annually to maintain CalFresh benefits.”

The most disturbing item on Parks’ list is the continuing inability of the Employment Development Department to effectively manage unemployment insurance benefits, which first came to light during the COVID-19 pandemic. Billions of dollars in fraudulent benefit claims were approved, almost all of which came in a federally financed expansion of the program.

By happenstance, the high risk report was released just as a scandal was erupting in Minnesota over widespread fraud in a program meant to keep children fed during the pandemic.

Dozens of people, mostly in Minnesota’s substantial Somali population, have been charged with looting the program by setting up companies that billed the state for supplying food that was never delivered.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, whom Kamala Harris chose as her running mate in her campaign for president in 2024, felt the political fallout from the scandal — generated mostly in right-leaning media outlets — and this week dropped his bid for re-election.

Meanwhile, those same outlets — blogs, podcasts and YouTube videos — have been making an accusatory connection between the Minnesota scandal and the Parks report, suggesting the report proves the same kind of fraud was even more rampant in California and laying the blame on Gov. Gavin Newsom, who’s a likely 2028 candidate for president.

This week, Steve Hilton, a Republican candidate for California governor, and Herb Morgan, a Republican running for state controller, cited the Parks report, their own research and tips from whistleblowers in a broad assertion, dubbed “CALIFRAUDIA,” that “California’s exposure to fraud, waste, and abuse across major state programs is likely to reach $250 billion,” adding that it “underscores the urgent need for formal investigation and audit, as a matter of basic fiscal responsibility.”

However, the allegations of widespread fraud and mismanagement during Newsom’s governorship is not confined to those on the starboard side of the political balance beam.

After years of increasingly brutal oppression, Venezuela is finally free of dictator Nicolás Maduro after he was captured last Saturday by the U.S. military in Caracas. Exiled Venezuelans across the world took to the streets to celebrate. “My joy is too big,” said a Venezuelan in Chile.

Many across the world share that joy. Freedom advocates longed for Maduro’s ousting for years. Footage of him in shackles is a welcome sight for those of us who care about individual rights. But there’s a problem: the military operation that led to Maduro’s capture may not be legal or in America’s interest.

Maduro is a murderous dictator who must face consequences for his brutal oppression of Venezuelans. His socialist dictatorship, hostile to human life, crushed Venezuelans’ freedoms for years. He has forced almost eight million Venezuelans to flee since 2014, causing one of the largest displacement crises in recent memory. 

The Venezuelan regime assassinated dissenters, unlawfully detained opposition leaders (such as Maria Corina Machado), and still holds political prisoners hostage. The regime’s hostility towards freedom cannot be overstated.

But the justice in Maduro’s collapse doesn’t make the U.S. government’s actions legitimate.

Some have argued the military operation leading to Maduro’s arrest violated Venezuela’s right to self-determination. But that’s not a concern anyone should have, and that’s not what makes the operation questionable.

The principle of “self-determination” does not include the establishment of a dictatorship. Governments exist with the sole purpose of protecting individual rights. A government cannot be legitimately established with the purpose of oppressing its people, like Maduro’s was. Such a government is lawless and has no right to exist. In principle, it is not illegitimate for a free nation to topple an authoritarian regime, assuming that decision is made in the self-interest of the free country and in accordance with its own laws. 

There should be no concern over the “rights” of a dictatorship, which deserves to be destroyed. The problem is that the U.S. may have acted against its own Constitution and perhaps its self-interest.

Law professor Ilya Somin argues that the U.S. incursion in Venezuela is illegal because it lacks congressional authorization. Somin explains that “the initiation of any large-scale military action requires congressional authorization” and that the air strikes in Caracas and subsequent capture of Maduro far exceed the president’s authority. 

In an interview, political commentator and president of the Board of the Ayn Rand Institute Yaron Brook agreed that the Trump administration’s move may be unconstitutional. Brook added that, even leaving legality aside, it is yet to be seen whether Maduro’s capture is in the interest of the U.S. at all.

The administration’s justification for the operation is muddy. Per Secretary Marco Rubio, this was about the war on drugs and bringing Maduro to justice in America: “Maduro is the head of the Cartel de Los Soles, a narco-terror organization that has taken control of the country. And he is under indictment for pushing drugs into the United States.” President Trump, on the other hand, has indicated that the goal is to recoup stolen oil: “We built Venezuela’s oil industry with American talent, drive and skill, and the socialist regime stole it from us during those previous administrations.”

This unclarity in motives is part of what contributes to skepticism about American interests here. “The legitimate interest of the US government should be the protection of the individual rights of its citizens,” argued Brook. “Is [the operation in Venezuela] in any way protecting the individual rights of Americans? That is hard to tell, because we don’t know why they did it.”

Brook stated that the benefits to America’s interests must outweigh the costs, including monetary and human, for this operation to be morally legitimate. If the goal is to simply put Maduro on trial, or to try and stop the flow of drugs, that’s not legitimate. “[Maduro’s detention and trial] will have zero impact on the flow of drugs from Venezuela. . . and [the operation] would be completely immoral.” (Brook is a fierce critic of the war on drugs.)

The potential American interest at play has to do with turning Venezuela into a rights-respecting country. It’s not America’s role to bring Democracy to foreign countries, says Brook. But under the Maduro regime many enemies of the United States, including Russians, Iranians, and even members of Hezbollah, find haven in the country. Getting them out would weaken their influence in America’s favor. 

President Donald Trump’s new National Security Strategy, released Dec. 4, largely charts a needed correction for the United States on military and foreign policy. Such papers are not meant to be followed literally. And the numerous federal departments resist any changes. Yet each NSS provides the prevailing tone a president wants to be followed by our country’s gigantic bureaucracies at the State Department, at the War (formerly Defense) Department and at the CIA, FBI and other intelligence agencies.

Released in Oct. 2022, President Joe Biden’s last NSS stressed, “We have reinvigorated America’s unmatched network of alliances and partnerships… NATO is stronger and more united than it has ever been.” 

By contrast, in the preface to his new NSS, Trump bluntly states his goal: “In everything we do, we are putting America first.” The document text insists: “The days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over.” Our allies are “wealthy, sophisticated nations that must assume primary responsibility for their regions and contribute far more to our collective defense.” 

This shows the NSS’s main theme: The world has shifted from what political scientists call the “unipolar” moment of the 1990s, when the U.S. dominated the world, to a “multipolar” world with three top powers: the U.S., China and Russia. The previous policy of attempting global dominance “undermined the very means necessary to achieve that goal: the character of our nation upon which its power, wealth, and decency were built.” 

I would add that’s best seen in the $8 trillion wasted on the post-9/11 wars, according to Brown University. That money could have been invested in factories, research and infrastructure to compete with China.

Trump’s NSS also moves strategic emphasis away from Europe toward China and the “Indo-Pacific.” Citing the Purchasing Power Parity calculation, it says that area now comprises almost half the world economy. “To thrive at home, we must successfully compete there—and we are,” it insists, touting Trump’s trade agreements from his Oct. 2025 trip to the region.

The NSS doesn’t mention how, after Trump threatened 100% tariffs on China, Beijing withheld crucial rare-earth minerals from the U.S. market, forcing him to retreat. Nor does it note how, according to PPP, China’s annual economy now is $41 trillion to America’s $30.6 trillion – a third bigger than ours. 

Turning to Russia and Europe, Trump’s NSS sensibly insists it’s an American “core interest” to end the Ukraine War and “stabilize European economies,” whose share of global GDP has shrunk from 25% in 1990 to 14% today. Europe faces “the stark prospect of civilizational erasure.” These words upset the European elites, but were tough love for our old allies.

The war must end to “reestablish strategic stability with Russia.” This is a crucial shift in tone on nuclear arms. Unfortunately, it doesn’t mention the New START Treaty with Russia, which expires on Feb. 5, and which limits each side to 1,550 nuclear delivery vehicles. The Russians have called for an extension for a year to negotiate a new agreement. 

Instead, earlier this year Trump suggested the U.S. could follow other nations in testing new nuclear weapons. The last thing we need is a dangerous and expensive new arms race.

On the Middle East, the NSS boasts how Trump’s June 2025 Operation Midnight Hammer attack “significantly degraded Iran’s nuclear program”; the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release “Trump negotiated” have brought “progress toward a more permanent peace”; and “American, Arab, Israeli, and Turkish support may stabilize” Syria. Although hopeful, the document sensibly is cautious on whether there will be lasting peace in the region.

Unfortunately, Trump’s America First posture includes a more aggressive stance toward Latin America, seen in his belligerence toward Venezuela. The Monroe Doctrine of 1823, among other things, warded off “future colonization by any European powers” in the Western Hemisphere. Well and good.

If anyone needed proof of how swiftly political change can arrive, this fall is probably Example A.

Just observe the last month. First, California Gov. Gavin Newsom was riding high after passage of Proposition 50 and its changes in California congressional district lines made him the most successful national Democrat in countering a key initiative by President Trump.

Barely a week later, Newsom’s former chief of staff was indicted on charges of political corruption and tax fraud and many began to write him off as a presidential candidate because of it.

Not even a week after that, Newsom was back in the catbird seat after a federal appeals court in Texas threw out that state’s gerrymandered congressional district plan – which earlier provided the motive for the Newsom-sponsored Prop. 50. The U.S. Supreme Court days later temporarily reinstated the gerrymandered Texas lines.

It now appears the Texas decision nixing the changes there may be reversed by the high court, even though it was written by a Trump-appointed judge. Meanwhile the California proposition figures to survive its own court challenges, filed by the state Republican Party and the U.S. Justice Department.

That’s because Texas officials from Gov. Greg Abbott down were  open about their effort to concentrate Houston-area blacks into one district while giving five others to white Republicans. By contrast, there was little or no mention of race by either side in the Prop. 50 campaign, which was very explicitly motivated by pure politics.

Newsom created Prop. 50 specifically to counter the Texas gerrymander, which unlike California’s changes in district lines, was not adopted by a vote of the people. No race issue ever arose here until Republicans claimed after Prop. 50’s resounding win that was what motivated it.

Nothing says the U.S. Supreme Court has to give a final OK to either the Texas court decision or Prop. 50, but if it eventually tosses both gerrymanders, Newsom would still achieve his political goal of offsetting the Texas changes put in motion by a phone call from Trump to Abbott. If both efforts are eventually nixed, Newsom’s goal of regaining the prior balance after the Texas action would still have been reached.

Said one election law professor the day of the Texas decision, “There are not many grounds for a legal challenge against Prop. 50 to succeed.”

There remains a possibility that both Prop. 50 and the Texas court decision tossing that state’s gerrymander will stand up in the Supreme Court. If that happens, Newsom would have achieved far more than his goal of balancing the Texas gerrymander with an exchange of five new California Democratic seats for five new Texas GOP ones. In that case, Newsom would have given Democrats a net gain of five seats in the House of Representatives.

If something like that couldn’t put Newsom in an early lead in the 2028 Democratic presidential sweepstakes, it’s hard to see what could. A net gain of five seats would likely give Democrats control of the House, where almost all new Trump initiatives might then die.

No wonder Newsom gloating after the Texas court decision came down. In a post on X, he said, “Donald Trump and Greg Abbott played with fire, got burned, and democracy won.” For a moment.

If U.S. tariffs on imports raise prices on American consumers, should we care if the government calls them taxes or fees?

Throughout his time as Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent has regularly fought against claims that the tariffs adored by his boss, President Donald Trump, are really just taxes on consumers.

“Tariffs are a surcharge, not a tax,” Bessent told a reporter this week. “They could be paid by the exporter, they could be paid by the country.”

Bessent likely thinks that’s a great point, but he shouldn’t drop the mic just yet. Regardless of the word games, Americans are suffering from the end result.

We are paying higher prices as a result of Trump’s tariffs. According to analysis from the Tax Foundation, Trump’s tariffs have raised consumer prices by 4.9 percentage points.

We’re paying more so the word games matter little, but Bessent does have an interest in calling tariffs fees. Fees are much more politically palatable (though I have no idea why) and the matter is before the U.S. Supreme Court.

But make no mistake: tariffs are taxes.

When it is a broad-based sales tax, the tax is levied when the goods are purchased by the consumer. When it is a tax on imports (e.g. a tariff) the tax is levied when the importer takes possession of the goods.

Just like sales taxes, the ultimate burden of tariffs can theoretically be paid by the consumers or the foreign manufacturer. Previous experience has demonstrated, however, that they’re mostly paid by American consumers, which is why prices on imports keep going up.

Bessent should know all this and is simply towing the party line.

“When you go and get your driver license, you pay a fee,” Bessent added. “Is that a tax?”

Debating the meaning of taxes and fees might be an ok rhetorical strategy, but invoking the DMV is not. Not only does this give listeners PTSD remembering the last painful visit to one of the least popular American government institutions, it also reminds us that the government has its hand in our wallets at every turn.

Apparently, it’s not enough that our tax dollars fund DMV operations; we need to pay additional charges as well. What is that ID charge for, exactly? To fund something I already funded?

It makes no sense, and neither do tariffs.

We’re told regularly that tariffs are essential to stop other countries from ripping off Americans. So the solution is for America to rip off Americans instead?

Not only are tariffs at least partially passed through to consumers, but, as the Tax Foundation points out, tariffs hurt in indirect ways as well.

When the cost of imports rise, American firms and consumers might switch to cheaper, domestically-available substitutes. But the makers of these alternatives have an incentive to increase prices to stay competitive with the tariffed imports. That’s assuming that there is a cheaper substitute.

One recent study of the effect of tariffs on the cost of wine imports published by a team of economists in the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the cost of bottles of wine exceeded the cost of the tariff even when the tariff itself wasn’t entirely passed on to consumers.

Former Gov. Jerry Brown once referred to overhauling the California Environmental Quality Act as “the Lord’s work” because, he said, it made building much-needed things — housing, transportation improvements, water storage, etc. — too difficult and too expensive.

In 2018, as he neared the end of his second stint as governor, Brown vetoed a bill that would have prevented developers from circumventing CEQA’s laborious provisions by persuading local voters to directly approve projects.

It was one of hundreds of legislative measures CEQA’s defenders — environmental groups primarily — and its critics have proposed in the nearly half-century since then-Gov. Ronald Reagan signed CEQA in 1970.

“Instead of the piecemeal approach taken in this bill, I prefer a more comprehensive CEQA review, which takes into account both the urgent need for more housing and thoughtful environmental analysis,” Brown said in vetoing the bill.

However during his 16 years in the governorship, Brown did virtually nothing to make the fundamental changes he said were needed. CEQA reform was in a political stalemate and, without that “comprehensive review,” governors and legislators have been dealing with the law’s impacts on a case-by-case basis.

Projects that had heavyweight backing — professional sports venues in particular — and the Legislature’s own Capitol construction project could get relief from CEQA’s requirements.

In more recent years, during Gavin Newsom’s governorship, the state’s housing shortage became a frontline political issue. CEQA became a contentious aspect of it as Newsom and legislators enacted numerous bills to remove or reduce procedural barriers to construction.

Pro-housing groups saw CEQA as a tool development opponents were using to delay or kill projects and that construction unions were misusing to compel developers to employ their members.

Newsom, whose 2018 campaign promises to jump-start housing construction had not borne much fruit, took up the cause of reforming CEQA. A few months ago, in a bill attached to the state budget, he and legislators enacted a major overhaul of the law’s application to housing, particularly high-density, multi-family projects.

“Saying ‘no’ to housing in my community will no longer be state sanctioned,” said Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat who is one of state’s the most pro-housing legislators. “This isn’t going to solve all of our housing problems in the state, but it is going to remove the single biggest impediment to building environmentally friendly housing.”

The law’s passage raises another question: Would it be a one-off, or the beginning of a more sweeping change in CEQA that would make other, non-housing projects easier to build?

The California Chamber of Commerce hopes it will be the latter and recently unveiled a ballot measure for the 2026 election that would make it happen. In the main the measure would, if approved by voters, tighten up and streamline the processes for environmental reviews for “essential projects.”

Former President William Jefferson Clinton’s 1996 State of the Union Address announced that “the era of big government is over.” Federal expenditures for fiscal year 1996 were $1.5 trillion.

A President Donald Trump-backed continuing resolution to keep the government open after Oct. 1 projects annual federal spending for fiscal year 2025 at a staggering $7 trillion, a nearly 400% spike since Clinton’s “small government” policy 30 years earlier.

Rumors of the death of Leviathan government by Trump seem vastly exaggerated. True enough, Democrats crave even more lavish federal government spending. But that does not make Trump parsimonious. The latest budget bill on Trump’s watch jumped the national debt ceiling by another $5 trillion, which would have been superfluous if real government downsizing were intended.

Trump is expanding, not diminishing, the government footprint: soaring already bloated defense spending past $1 trillion annually, investing government funds in private enterprise indistinguishable from socialism, multiplying immigrant detention centers and the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and assembling dossiers on every American using artificial intelligence.

To be sure, the agendas of Trump and Democrats in Congress are not interchangeable. Their spending priorities differ. But neither wishes to place the federal government on a diet to end annual $1 trillion-or-more deficits as far as the eye can see. Trump champions a sovereign wealth fund that would institutionalize European-like socialism. Only ingenues believe the fund might avoid capture by the incumbent president to advance a partisan political agenda.

Forty years ago this month, I began a 9,000-mile tour of California, gathering data, conversations and observations about megatrends propelling the state into the next century. The result was a 14-part series in the Sacramento Bee, later published as a book titled “The New California: Facing the 21st Century.”

Its overall theme was that massive changes in the state’s economy — shifting from manufacturing to services and technology, coupled with equally massive cultural and ethnic changes, along with rapid population growth — were reshaping the state’s future.

I quoted two researchers, Leon Bouvier and Philip Martin, who projected California’s future as “the possible emerging of a two-tier economy with Asians and non-Hispanic whites competing for high-status positions while Hispanics and blacks struggle to get the low-paying service jobs.”

Any objective description of 2025 California would conclude that Bouvier and Martin, a UC-Davis faculty member at the time, hit the nail squarely.

A new article in Forbes magazine by Michael Bernick, a lawyer who was director of the state Employment Development Department a quarter-century ago, compares two-tier California to “Upstairs, Downstairs,” a 1970s British television series.

The 68-episode series explored relationships between a wealthy family and its servants as a microcosm of the socioeconomic trends affecting Great Britain during the early 20th Century.

Bernick notes that current California economic numbers are lackluster, but behind that data is the more fundamental reality of “California’s evolving Upstairs, Downstairs economy: its prospering Upstairs college-educated professional and knowledge economy workers, and the army of Downstairs service economy workers who serve them.

“This two-tier economy is not new,” Bernick continues. “It has been building in the state over the past two decades — and in some ways since the late 1970s. What is new is how this economy is so widely taken for granted in 2025. It is accepted as the natural order by the very people on the Upstairs who regard themselves as champions and protectors of the working class and poor.”

Those in California’s mostly white and Asian overclass, Bernick writes, “have been increasingly vocal this year in denouncing the national administration. They denounce inequality and poverty, and speak often of social justice. But they are silent as to the low wage workers who attend to their daily needs, and the inequality that they benefit from. In fact, policies they and the state’s political leadership have advocated for the past decades have expanded the Downstairs workforce.”

Bernick contrasts current California with its more egalitarian and economically mobile mid-century version but adds, “There is no way of going back to this earlier economic structure of a greater self-sufficient middle class, but also no reason to do so.”

Charlie Kirk, a prominent conservative figure, was assassinated on Wednesday while speaking at a college campus in Utah.

At the time of this writing, we have no clear information on the motives of the assassin. Given the rise in ideological and political violence in America, it’s not unreasonable to think Kirk was murdered for his views. Whatever the motive, it should prompt us to have a rational conversation about politically motivated uses of force in our country. 

Politically motivated uses of force are a categorical assault on individual rights and on the American method of persuasion over force. Americans should always condemn it—no matter who perpetrates it. 

The assassination attempts on President Trump are two of the prominent recent instances of political violence in this country. There’s also the shooting of lawmakers and their spouses in Minnesota in June of this year, the attack on Paul Pelosi, the assassination of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, and the murders of two Israeli embassy staffers in D.C. earlier this year, among others. 

But the evil of the use of force for ideological or political reasons is not limited to murders or attempted murders. The massive destruction of property during the BLM protests in 2020, the Charlottesville rally in 2017, the Jan. 6 riots and the several destructive pro-Hamas protests are instances of political violence, too. 

This violence is not the exclusive province of either Democrats or Republicans. It’s the province of tribalists and the uncivilized. 

The use of force is the abdication of reason. When a person engages in the use of force, they are breaking from civilization and the core values this country was founded on.

America, and civilized society more broadly, is a massive ideological achievement which happened precisely because we’ve let ideas flow, and good ideas take hold. In an America true to its core principles, we don’t shoot our political or ideological opponents like cowards. We don’t destroy property in order to make a point. We use our speech to disagree with our opponents. We challenge them in the marketplace of ideas. We try to persuade, not coerce. We use words, not bullets. That’s the American way. Anything different from that, now and in the past, is an appalling deviation from our core values. Such deviations have occurred repeatedly throughout American history, and we should learn from those mistakes knowing that they lead to destruction. 

Exercising and protecting our rights never requires attacking the rights of others. No cause can ever justify the use of force. It doesn’t matter what cause the perpetrators support. It doesn’t matter if one agrees or disagrees with their cause in principle. When force starts, support for the aggressor must end, and condemnation must begin. 

We all have the responsibility of condemning and ostracizing those who engage in violence, no matter their views. Part of the massive damage that tribalism (the blind, unthinking allegiance to a group) has done to America and the West is that too many people try to rationalize or play down the use of force when it’s someone from their “tribe” perpetrating it—or when it’s perpetrated against the opposite “tribe.” These include those who disgustingly celebrated the murder of Brian Thompson and all but beatified his alleged assassin, and those who made light of and mocked the attack on Pelosi’s family and the Minnesota lawmakers.

When former Vice President Kamala Harris announced that she would not enter California’s gubernatorial race, the assumption was that she did so in order to take another shot at the White House in 2028.

However, it increasingly appears that Democrats – at least those in California – have begun passing on the former VP in favor of Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Moreover, as Newsom continues leading the fight against Trump and GOP-led redistricting, there are signs that Democrats across the country may soon rally around the California Governor.

According to a new Politico-Citrin Center-Possibility Lab survey, which sampled California Democrats, Newsom leads Harris by 6-points (25% to 19%) in preferences for Democrats’ 2028 presidential nominee.

In that same vein, Emerson polling from early August found very similar results. In that poll – also conducted among California voters – Newsom (23%) led the Democratic field, with Buttigieg (17%) and Harris (11%) behind him.

Further, political betting site Polymarket shows Newsom (28%) with the best odds to be Democrats’ 2028 nominee, 14-points ahead of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and 23-points ahead of Harris.

To be sure, while 2028 is a considerable time away, these polls are not outliers.

Rather, they reinforce a point I made in these pages nearly two months ago: the political prospects for Newsom and Harris are sharply diverging.

Indeed, immediately after the 2024 election, Harris dominated 2028 polling.

At the time, polls, including this one from Puck News/Echelon Insights in November 2024 showed Harris holding a 33-point lead over the 2nd place Newsom (41% to 8%).

Similarly, an Emerson survey – also taken last November – reported that Harris led Newsom by a virtually identical 30-points (37% to 7%).

Behind Newsom’s improving political fortunes appears to be the increasingly front and center role he’s taken in fighting back against Trump and Republicans.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the ongoing saga over redistricting, an issue Newsom is using to raise his profile among Democratic voters, and which he is increasingly staking his 2028 hopes on.

To that end, as the redistricting issue garners more attention and with California lawmakers set to pass the measure to put it on the ballot, the risks for Newsom raise in tandem.

Should California voters pass the ballot referendum this fall, polls suggest that it will be a boom for Newsom’s chances in the Democratic primary.

One recent survey from UC Berkeley-Citrin Center shows that nearly two-thirds (63%) of national Democrats support California redistricting as a response to Texas’ efforts.

Further, former President Barack Obama has joined Newsom’s supporters, saying that California’s response to Texas is a “reasonable approach.”

Interestingly – and likely why Newsom is pushing so hard for redistricting – national Democrats are considerably more supportive of drawing new districts than those in California.

As I cited last week, more than 6-in-10 (61%) of California Democrats prefer the current system of an independent redistricting commission, versus just 39% who want politicians to redraw the maps.

In other words, with national Democrats overwhelmingly supportive of partisan redistricting, Newsom is hoping that he will garner their support if he successfully pushes the ballot measure through – and he very well may.

With all of this being said, there is a significant downside should California voters reject the Governor’s push, a very real possibility.

The aforementioned California poll revealed that 64% of all California voters opposed partisan redistricting, while 36% supported giving lawmakers the power to redraw maps.

Joining the nearly two-thirds of Californians in opposition to Newsom’s efforts is former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. And while Schwarzenegger’s campaign is non-partisan – he even endorsed Harris in 2024 – California Republicans have joined in.

According to Politico reporting, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he’s planning to raise more than $100 million to fund an opposition campaign, along with $30 million already promised by Charles Munger Jr. – the son of Warren Buffett’s late partner.

Whether or not the opposition is enough to overcome many Californian’s desire to push back against Trump and the GOP remains to be seen.

But it is clear that Newsom’s success is not a foregone conclusion.

With that in mind, should California voters reject the ballot measure, the defeat would be a tremendous blow for Newsom’s 2028 hopes.

Not only would the governor have failed to land an actual hit on Trump – something no Democrats or Republicans have truly been able to do thus far – but national Democrats may feel Newsom is ineffective.