For Gavin Newsom, Selling California May Be Harder Than Selling Himself

Gavin Newsom’s presidential hopes may hinge not only on how he sells his own image, but, as he implicitly made clear on Thursday, whether he can remake his home state’s as well. The latter may be the harder challenge.

Conventional wisdom holds that California is an albatross for Newsom’s widely-anticipated White House bid — a state that is too progressive, too pricey, too polarizing to appeal to swing voters in battleground states.

But Newsom sought to flip the script in his final State of the State address, unapologetically trumpeting California as a road map for the rest of the nation, naysayers be damned.

It was the most robust preview yet of the governor’s likely 2028 strategy: Convince voters to back him not in spite of his California connections, but because of them.

“We are a beacon,” he told state lawmakers and officials in his Capitol address. “The state is providing a different narrative — an operational model, a policy blueprint for others to follow.”

Newsom’s muscular pro-California rhetoric is an extension of the defiant posture he assumed last year as a social media provocateur and vanguard of the national redistricting fight. The “post first, apologize later (or never)” strategy propelled the governor to the heart of the political zeitgeist — and most early 2028 Democratic primary polls.

The speech demonstrated Newsom’s intention to rewrite the California crack-up narrative that dominates conservative cable news channels, social media and podcasts, all of which the governor voraciously consumes. He diagnosed the state’s skeptics as suffering from “California Derangement Syndrome,” an unsubtle echo of “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” the preferred way for President Donald Trump’s supporters to dismiss condemnation.

He accused “the declinists,” largely pundits and out-of-state critics, of a protracted campaign “to tear down, to try to attack all of our progress.”

“But we know the truth,” he continued. “California’s success is not by chance. It’s by design.” He returned to the theme throughout the speech, saying cable networks weren’t covering the staggering number of patents originating from the University of California system or chiding pundits that it was time to “update their talking points” about crime rates in the state.

The question for Newsom even before it comes to far-flung early primary states is whether his own residents agree. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, which regularly tracks sentiment, a majority of Californians have believed the state is on the wrong track for more than three years. In overwhelmingly blue California, the gloomy outlook cannot just be attributed to partisan Fox News viewers.

The good news for the governor is that positivity is trending up: While just 39 percent of Californians surveyed believed the state was heading in the right direction in June 2025, that number jumped to 48 percent last month. Likely voters were even more bullish on the state’s trajectory, with a slim majority (51 percent) giving positive marks. The uptick dovetails with a rise in Newsom’s personal favorability ratings.

Still, Newsom is up against a narrative of dysfunction that has been etched into public discourse for decades; 35 years ago, Time Magazine pronounced the California dream “endangered.” News stories that reinforce those perceptions — such as In-N-Out or Bed Bath and Beyond leaving the state — are far more likely to go viral than successes like UC scholars winning five Nobel prizes last year, which Newsom touted in his speech.

The asymmetry is undeniable, said former Gov. Gray Davis. “There’s no question about it.”

“I hate to see any job go,” Davis said. “But nobody talks about all the people coming out here to study at UC Santa Barbara and then finding work within an hour of UC Santa Barbara.”

Newsom is facing a precarious balancing act: touting the state’s gains forcefully enough to overhaul its longstanding reputation, while acknowledging its remaining challenges sufficiently enough he doesn’t come off as out of touch.

He was visibly pleased to announce that early data indicated a 9 percent decline in unsheltered homelessness statewide last year, the first drop in more than a decade and a much cleaner talking point than bragging the state’s homeless rate was rising at a slower pace than other states, as he did last year.

In the next breath, though, he said that was “not good enough.” And so long as homeless encampments are a visible presence in major cities across the state, they remain a visceral image ready-made for opponents’ campaign ads.

Throughout the speech, Newsom toggled between California triumphalism and acknowledgments that there was still “work to do” — on improving education, building housing, lowering crime rates, and sorting out fire insurance coverage.

Still, while some politicians may opt to talk around issues that could be liabilities, Newsom’s speech charged directly toward them. He said he debated whether or not to mention high-speed rail — a favorite punching bag of the right that has also been assailed by allies like New York Times columnist Ezra Klein as a symbol of liberal bureaucratic malaise — but then touted the project as a vital investment in the Central Valley, which has long felt overshadowed by the state’s coastal hubs.

“I'm proud of Fresno, I'm proud of Madera. I'm proud of Bakersfield. Those are communities we shouldn't be talking down to. Those are communities we shouldn't be talking past,” Newsom said, implying that critics of the high-speed rail project were doing just that.

He similarly spoke directly to California’s reputation as a high-tax state, asserting the state had “proudly” built a progressive taxing system that eases the burden on the 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.”

If, as expected, Newsom runs for president in 2028, he will attempt to pull off what no Democrat from California has managed to do.

“The statistics will tell you it's an uphill battle,” Davis said. “On the other hand, he is a very good human being, a remarkable speaker, and he has a lot of guts. Now, does that mean he makes it? No. But he certainly has earned the right to run.”