August 23, 2025 • 56 mins
The big political news in California: its state legislature agreeing to a Nov. 4 special election to decide whether to temporarily return congressional redistricting to lawmakers – by doing so, California is adding more Democratic House seats and offsetting Republican gains in Texas via that state’s mid-decade redistricting efforts.
Hoover senior fellow Lee Ohanian and distinguished policy fellow Bill Whalen, both contributors to Hoover’s California on Your Mind web channel, join Hoover senior product manager Jonathan Movroydis to discuss election wildcards (Gov. Gavin Newsom’s mixed record as the face of initiative campaigns; former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as a voice against), what the ballot ploy means for Newsom’s presidential prospects (is he a winner 2028-wise regardless of the outcome?), plus its impact on next year’s gubernatorial race (if voters reject the plan, will Democratic hopefuls ease off democracy-in-danger rhetoric in favor of more tangible concerns like housing and public safety?).
Recorded on August 21, 2025.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
>> Bill Whalen (00:00):
Hi, this is Bill Whalen from the Hoover Institution's Matters of
Policy and Politics podcast.
The Hoover Institution is proud toannounce two national competitions
honoring the life andwork of Thomas Sowell,
one of the most influentialpublic thinkers of our time.
For high school and
college students, we invite you to takepart in the Thomas Sowell Essay Contest.
This is your chance to engage deeplywith Sowell's ideas by applying them to
(00:21):
pressing issues in society or
by reflecting on how his writings haveshaped your own view of the world.
For creators of all kinds, we're hostingthe Multimedia Creator Competition.
In a video no longer than three minutes,share your bold and
thoughtful response to a simple butpowerful question.
And that question is, what lesson or
teaching from Thomas Sowell do Americansmost need to learn or remember today?
(00:42):
Winners in each category willreceive $5,000 plus a paid trip to
the Hoover Institution atStanford University for
a special celebration in Dr.Sowell's honor.
Entries are due by September 15th.
For details and submission links,
visit hoover.org thomaspecLet me repeat that for you.
Hoover.org Thomas Soul Legacy Good luck.
(01:06):
Hope to see you at the Hoover institution.
[MUSIC]
>> Jonathan Movroydis (01:12):
It's Thursday, August 21, 2025, and you're listening to
matters of policy and politics atthe Hoover Institution Podcast devoted
to governance and the balance of powerhere in America and around the free world.
I'm John Mavroydis ofthe Hoover Institution.
I'm sitting in the chair of Bill Whalen,
the Virginia Hobbs Carpenter DistinguishedPolicy Fellow in Journalism, so
that he can answer questions and providecommentary about California policy and
politics in which he iswell versed Bill Whalen,
(01:34):
in addition to being a Washington Postcolumnist, writes weekly for
Hoover's California onyoun Mind Web channel.
Whalen is joined today by Lee Ohanian,Hoover Institution Senior Fellow and
Professor of Economics andDirector of the Edinger Family Program in
Macroeconomic Research at the Universityof California, Los Angeles.
Ohanian also writes weekly about thepolicy environment of the Golden State for
California on your Mind, hello gentlemen.
How are you both doing today?
>> Bill Whalen (01:54):
Good, thanks.
>> Lee Ohanian (01:55):
Good, good to see you fellas.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (01:57):
Good to see you both.
Our show Today will cover three topics.
One, the November specialelection in California.
Two, what it means for Newsom and
its impact on the 2026 gubernatorialrace in the Golden State.
First, let's talk about the specialelection in California.
Lee, in your recent column for Californiaon your Mind, you describe Newsom and
the state legislature's plan to redrawdistrict lines in response to Texas
(02:21):
efforts to do so.
You explained that Both states have beenaccused of gerrymandering Republican
majorities in Tex to give their party anadvantage in US Congress ahead of the 2026
midterms.
And California Democratsare trying to do the same.
But for California, this requirevoters to pass Proposition 50, quote,
the election Rigging Responseact this November.
Lee, can you tell us what prompted Newsomand the state legislature's redistricting
(02:44):
plan, how the plan would reformCalifornia's system of redistricting and
whether you think it will bepopular enough with voters to pass?
>> Lee Ohanian (02:51):
Yeah, well, these are as I believe there's an old Chinese proverb
that goes,may you live in interesting times.
And we live in very interestingtimes here in California.
You know, the backdrop of this is,is really the upcoming 2026 midterms.
Historically, parties that winin a presidential election,
particularly what we just had with Trump,with Republicans taking presidency,
(03:16):
the Senate and the House, historicallythe midterms are not a good time for
the party, for the party in power.
So in Trump's first term, he and
the Republicans lost the House,40 seats swung to Democrats.
In Obama's first term,60 seats swung to Republicans.
(03:37):
That was around the time of the sortof mid right conservative Republicans.
So right now in the House,I believe there's about a seven seat,
seven seat majority for Republicans.
So the House is very much at risk forRepublicans.
Washington, Washington, D.C.
the DOJ and Trump went to Texas andsaid, hey, you know what,
(03:59):
you've had this enormous populationgrowth, perhaps you need to redistrict.
And the motivation forredistrict comes from population swings.
It typically is done every decadefollowing the decadal censuses.
Texas says we've had somuch population growth, 2 million people,
roughly 2 million peoplesince the 2020 census.
(04:20):
They've concentrated in Dallas,San Antonio and Houston.
We've got some districts thatreally merit being reconsidered for
redistricting because Texasargues they were put together in
a politically manipulative way.
So Texas is saying, hey, you know what,we're not gerrymandering.
(04:40):
We're actually correctingprevious mistakes.
Now, I'm not endorsing what Texas isdoing, but that's what's being advertised.
Mid decadal redistrictingis extremely right.
I don't know when the lasttime that was done.
Governor Newsom comes along andsays, well, you know what,
democracy is, is at risk here.
Texas is trying to just padthe Republican majority in the House.
(05:04):
Well, if Texas moves forwardwith their plan to redistrict,
then California is going to moveforward with is redistricting.
Now in Texas, the legislature does that.
In California.
You know, about 15 years ago, weestablished within the state constitution
a nonpartisan citizens Redistrictingcommittee to draw redistricting lines.
(05:27):
So the governor faces the challenge of, wehave to deal with the state constitution.
So in just the last few days,in a very rushed effort,
what the Democrats in California havedone have put together a legislative
referred constitutional amendment forthe November election.
And if you're still with me,those of you who are listening at home,
(05:51):
this bill, this Pat did, is this up forthis is up for a vote today.
Tomorrow is the deadline toget on the November ballot.
Is that right?
>> Bill Whalen (06:00):
Yeah, so note that we're doing this podcast early on Thursday in
California.
The legislature willconsider it on Thursday.
Newsom's expected to sign it on Friday.
>> Lee Ohanian (06:08):
Right, right, okay.
So with Democratic supermajorities in the state and
the assembly,it is almost certainly going to pass.
So we'll go to voters where it justrequires a simple majority now.
And again, if you're still with me,this is a complicated,
this is a complicatedamendment to the Constitution.
(06:29):
It would change redistricting forthe 26, 28 and 30 election cycles and
then go back to the citizens RedistrictingNonpartisan commission after 2030.
So there's a lot ofcomplications in place.
Politico did a poll of California voters,I believe 64%.
(06:51):
Bill, you probably know thismuch better than I do, but
I thought it was 64% that said no to,to the proposed redistricting.
But the Democrats in Californiaare advertising this as
the need to save democracy.
So there's been if if anyonefollows Ashley Zavala.
(07:12):
She's the NBC affiliateKCRA in Sacramento.
She's investigative reporter, nonpartisan.
Great.She's absol.
Wonderful.I'd love to follow her.
I'd encourage you toto Google her name and
watch two to three minute interviewsthat she did with Gail Pellerin,
who is the chair of the electionscommittee in the assembly, and
(07:33):
also Sabrina Cervantes,who is the election chair in the Senate.
Both are Democrats.
Those interviews say more in two minutes.
Those interviews say more than I cansay about the lack of transparency and
the political manipulationinvolved in this.
And in fact,neither one was willing to give one name
(07:56):
to the reporter of whowas involved in this.
And in fact, in the Zavala interview,
Pellerin, the chair of the electionsCommittee, was asked were any members of
the legislation involvedin drawing these maps?
And Pellerin answered,not to my knowledge.
And then another question came in thatsaid, well, one of these ACA 8 says
(08:17):
the legislature is supposed to beinvolved in drawing these districts.
So you know, Madam Chair, who drew thesemaps every day it's who drew these maps.
And the Democratic leadership isunwilling to say who did that,
and it's obvious why theywant political cover.
(08:38):
I believe Bill did the DemocraticCongressional campaign committee
from DC were they involved in this,I saw some reports about.
>> Bill Whalen (08:47):
That might have been.
It's primarily a fellow namedPaul Mitchell, not the guy who does hair
products, but Paul Mitchell isa consultant who was a genius at,
at doing California districts ofwhat Lee has talked about here.
So further confusing our listeners.
I hope not.
So what California is looking at isa November 4th special election,
a statewide election and it wouldpiggyback on local election as well.
(09:10):
The cost is going to be an issue here.
The 2021 recall election against GovernorNewsom that costs the state about $200
million.
Why?Because the state picks up the tab for
counties in these situations and countiescan spend millions of dollars in terms
of printing ballots and having to sendpeople to collect ballots and so forth.
But it's these wheels of motion thatreally kind of make this special.
(09:33):
So to do a November 4th special election,you have to.
And why November 4th?
Because California doesn't havea primary until next June.
You don't have to file fora congressional run until March.
But if you want to file withoutspending money, in other words,
you want to collect signatures,you could do it as early as December.
So you need to know wherethe districts are, number one.
(09:53):
Secondly, if you doan election on November 4th,
California says every registeredvoter in the state a ballot.
Now, they send that out 29days before the election.
But they also send outballots to military and
overseas people 45 days as earlyas 45 days before the election.
So if you back up,
I have it around September 20th thatthey're going to have to have ballot.
(10:15):
So you have to have these districtsall lined up on September 20th.
And that's the urgency in doing thisis kinda down and dirty way and
it is down to dirty in this regard.
There is a law in Sacramento that saysthat normally vetting of legislation there
has to be a 30 day period, period.
But Democrats have gone around that.
Instead they've used a practice calledganda, which stands for gut in the med.
(10:36):
What that means is ifAssemblyman Mavroidis has a bill and
Assemblyman Lahinian wants to dosomething different, he takes out what is
in Mavroidis bill and he dumps in hisbill and they vote on Lee's bill and
not your bill, even though lawmakersdon't know that necessarily voting on.
So that's what they've done here.
Now, last night, the California StateSupreme Court heard a Republican challenge
(10:58):
to this and said, thanks but no thanks.
This is part of what'sinteresting about California and
why it's kind of such bizarreland versus Washington, D.C.
whereas you have a very a Republicanconservative Supreme Court in Washington,
which is kind of the backstop againsta lot of matters there in California,
you have seven members onthe state Supreme Court,
six of whom appointed by Democrats,three by Newsom.
(11:18):
So that's not necessarilya sympathetic audience.
So here we are headed now towarda November special election in California.
And gentlemen, we're kind of in thisperiod of hyper politics in California.
We've had regularly scheduledelections each year in this decade,
with the exception of 2023.
It's sort of like in the beginningof this century where
you had six statewide elections inthe first seven years in the early 2000s.
(11:42):
So I do wonder as we look towardsthe special election, Lee,
when we look at turnout,when we look at messaging and so forth,
I think one factor might be fatigue thatvoters just maybe might be a little tired
of politics by the time this comes around.
>> Lee Ohanian (11:56):
Absolutely, I mean, just when you thought we could take just when
you thought we could takea break from politics,
of all the craziness of last year,along comes gerrymandering and
there's I mean, there's no sense inhiding what California is doing.
It's blatant gerrymandering,
now it's being offered as a way ofcounteracting what Texas is doing.
(12:20):
And of course, what in the piece,Jonathan, that you you talked about, that
I wrote for California on your mind lastweek, I noted that this opens the door to
what could potentially be a verydestructive war among of redistricting.
So Texas is almost certainly goingto go forward with redistricting,
which means California is going to trybased on the November special election.
(12:45):
Then what happens if Indiana triesto redistrict, for example, or
any other state?
I think it's just potentiallyvery damaging and Destructive.
And just to give you a sense of howthe California map would change,
California, California Republicansalready have
relatively littlerepresentation in the House.
(13:07):
Right now they have nine out of 52 seats,
which is about 17% of of the House seats.
And what I did in that piece is I,
I compared state voting patterns inthe last presidential election and
then compared those state votingpatterns to representation by
(13:28):
Republicans in a number of states thathave least eight House House seats.
And California right nowis the second state.
New Jersey is the first.
It has the second widest margin betweenthose who voted for Trump in California.
About 38% of Californians voted for Trump.
Only 17% representation ofRepublicans in the House.
(13:53):
If California does do this,the potential could be
only four House seats forRepublicans out of 52.
Meaning what is that?
That's a little bitunder 8% representation.
And based on what I know about the,we keep talking about the maps.
Based on what I know about the maps,here's how the,
(14:16):
the composition would change.
Right now there are roughly10 competitive nine.
Well, there's roughly nine competitivedistricts in California, meaning that
there's no more than a 10 percentagepoint difference between Republicans or
(14:36):
Democrats.
That's what we see right now,nine competitive districts.
The redistricting would dropthat from nine to four.
The number of Republican fairly solidRepublican districts will drop from
5 to 4.
The big difference would comein districts where Democrats
have between a 10 and30 percentage point lead.
(14:59):
That would change from the current 11seats or 11 districts to 24 districts.
So it's hard to look at this andbe happy, I think,
even if you are worried about Trump.
In that interview I spoke about withGail Pellerin and Ashley Zavala, Pellerin,
while ducking the questionof who drew the maps,
(15:21):
started, started a diatribe aboutTrump and talking about how we
live in an authoritarian state andwe no longer have democracy.
Even if you think that I don't thinkthis is, I don't think this is healthy.
And Bill, I was going to ask you,Governor Newsom is the face of this,
at least right now.
Governor Schwarzenegger,
(15:42):
who was instrumental in the nonpartisanredistricting, the Citizens Commission,
he has come out, perhaps not surprisingly,very much against this.
I wouldn't,
I wouldn't put Schwarzenegger in the kindof the same camp as the Trump Republicans.
He's from a different area.
But Bill, I was to going to ask,what do you think when
it comes down to Arnold versus Gavin,that could be very interesting.
(16:05):
How do you see that evolving?
>> Bill Whalen (16:07):
I love it.
The Governator versus the Gaminator.
It's an interestingmatchup in this regard.
So thanks for teeing this up becauseI did want to talk about messaging.
You mentioned that poll that showedthe public supporting the independent
redistricting commission.
I think Politico andthe Citroen center did that poll.
Newsom's poster is pretty privatelytelling people that this special
(16:28):
election will pass, it'll sail through.
I suspect that's a product of how they'reasking the question of voters, though.
But you're probably just framingit in very Trumpian terms.
Do you approve this to stopDonald Trump dead in his tracks?
To stop Donald Trump's attackon California, yada yada yada.
That probably is a good message.
But this is question is going to be howexactly the governor's campaign will bring
(16:50):
this forward.
He has a lot of talents as a politician.
He is telegenic.
He gives good speeches.
He is kind of very goodin this gotcha game,
which we should talk about a bit as well.
But he's not a good salesman, necessarily.
Ironic for a guy who made moneyin the wine sales business.
Well, if you look at hisrecord going to the ballot.
So a few years back he tried to pass a $15billion education bond called Prop 13.
(17:11):
Granted, people were a littleconfused because they see Prop 13,
they think property taxes in California,but that measure got skunked.
Newsom is very much the public face ofthat measure and it got pounded, and
education bonds rarely fail in California.
2024 Lee and Jonathan,
he tried to get a 10 billion dollarhomeless measure passed in California.
Proposition 1 campaign for it madehim very much a public face of that.
(17:33):
And Lee, you remember that thing?
It took weeks of vote counting to getthat thing over the top in a very
Democratic state.
So putting him as the publicface of this measure is risky.
I think there's reallyonly one smart tactic, and
that is just to run Donald Trump'sface constantly in ads.
Make this about Trump,hope that Trump takes the bait and
gets involved in the election.
(17:54):
But Yuli, you've stumbsomething very important here.
It's the opposition campaign.
So former Speaker Kevin McCarthy has saidhe'll raise $100 million to kill this
Charlie Munger,he's the Palo Alto physicist.
His father is the late legendaryCharles Munger of Berkshire Hathaway fame.
I think he said he'll chip inanother 20 or $30 million.
That's $130 million.
(18:14):
That's, that's spending moneyin California politics.
And they will run ads, and
you're rightly the smartest ad theycan run is Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Why?
Arnold is, yeah, he's an anti TrumpRepublican, but he's verily anti Trump.
He's about reform and about goodgovernment at the end of the day.
And he is fired up to go afterthis because this is a big part of
(18:35):
his legacy as governor of California,getting this, this thing passed.
So, yeah, you could have a showdownbetween Arnold and Gavin.
And I'm not sure that's a good thing forGavin, but, you know,
we'll get to more Gavin here in a moment.
It's just, you know, one thing Ijust want to emphasize here, though.
For all we're, you know, complainingabout the process here in California,
this is a classic example what'swrong in American politics.
It's always a matter of whose ox is gourd.
(18:57):
If you're a Democrat, you're delightedthe idea of lawfare against Donald Trump.
If you're Republican, you're delighted bythe idea of using the Justice Department
to go after Adam Schiff now in California.
So who's ox gets gored?
And in this case, if you're a CaliforniaRepublican, you are outraged and
frustrated because you may lose seats.
But, you know, Texas Democratsprobably feel very much the same way.
(19:17):
So welcome to hardball politics,gentlemen.
>> Lee Ohanian (19:20):
Yeah, welcome to hardball politics.
And you know,in the piece I read last week,
I noted that the termgerrymandering goes back to 1812.
>> Bill Whalen (19:29):
Yeah, Gerrymandering, technically, Elbridge Gerry.
>> Lee Ohanian (19:34):
Gerrymandering, I stand corrected.
And it was the, I believe the governorof Massachusetts who redrew
some district lines in Boston.
>> Bill Whalen (19:44):
Yes.
>> Lee Ohanian (19:45):
To protect themselves from the Federalists who were the opposition
party at that time.
So Jerry or Gary,coming from Gary, Elbridge.
And then the new district that wasredrawn looked like a salamander.
So we have, we have gerrymandering orgerrymandering.
And it's been going on forever.
(20:06):
I mean, you look at other states,Illinois, I think in the last election,
Illinois, I think 43% voted forRepublicans.
They only have 17%representation in the House.
Massachusetts has no representation forRepublicans in the House.
36% voted for Republicans in theirHouse in their House elections.
(20:32):
And then New York was 43% voting forRepublicans in the House.
They only have 27% representation.
So this is a country that has a longstanding principle of one person One vote.
And [COUGH] that's been abrogatedsubstantially over time,
and in some states more than others.
Michigan.
(20:53):
Michigan is very even.
I don't know the details andhistory of how that has worked out, but
we would, we would end up havingCalifornia at 48 out of 52,
potentially just being really,really off the charts.
So very interesting times.
>> Bill Whalen (21:11):
This gets very interesting, by the way.
By the end of the decade,the Brennan center,
which is a left leaning think tank inWashington, actually looked at what
they think the census might come out asin 2030 in terms of shifting populations.
And then they red congressionalmaps around the country.
And this is bad news for Democrats asfar as national prospects are concerned.
What they figure isunder doing their math,
(21:33):
they figured Texas would get four moreseats, Florida would get three more seats,
and California would losefour seats going down to 48.
So that's in the electoral College.
That's a net shift of 11 right now,adding seven for Republicans and
taking away four from Democrats.
And then they projected what it would meanfor a Democrat winning in 2032 under this.
And they took Kamala Harris'sperformance in 2024 and
(21:55):
figured she would have to win the lonecongressional seat in Nebraska.
She would have to pick up Pennsylvania,Michigan and Wisconsin, and
that would only get her to 200.
She'd also have to add on Arizona andNevada, and
all of that would just get herbarely over the top at 272.
So you're, you're the Democrats right now.
You're looking in the 2000-30s atleast of having to run the table in
(22:16):
the swing states right now.
So, so when you're moving around fourseats, you know, this helps Democrats,
at least in the midterm,and keeping the House.
Now, the problem here is that as far asthis presidential thing goes, what Newsom
has proposed is you don't abolishthe independent redistricting commission.
You just put it in a hibernation,you put it in a timeout,
you put it in sleep mode for2026, 2028 and 2030.
(22:36):
Then you go back to regularlyscheduled business,
independent redistricting in 2032.
And that kind of adds to the cynicismof just doing a timeout on this.
So again,we live in interesting times, Lee.
>> Lee Ohanian (22:47):
Yeah.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (22:49):
Next up, what does this mean for Gavin Newsom?
Much has been speculated aboutNewsom's run for higher office.
He's been to South Carolina,he's obviously term limited.
And there's no room for
him in the Senate with two Democratsin there right now recently elected.
In appealing to his base,Gavin's put on a tough guy hero act
against what he perceives asauthoritarianism on the right,
(23:10):
while using his podcast to invite thelikes of Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon,
which we've talked about on this podcast,to pivot signal to voters nationwide that
he can also strike a moderate andconceal your tone.
With that said, does this redistrictingoverhaul present a massive gamble for
Newsom?
Should he lose,
will he appear as a diminishedgovernor on the national stage, Bill?
>> Bill Whalen (23:30):
I am very contraried in this regard.
First, let me back up a second.
We did a little mini conferencehere after the election here at
the Hoover Institution.
We invited both Republican and Democraticpollsters who were out on the field in
2024 to talk about the two parties andtheir perceptions.
And a theme emerged, at least in termsof their take on the Democratic Party.
(23:51):
They said the party's problem writ largeis perceived as too weak and too woke.
So this explains in part, I think,what Governor Newsom is up to here.
He isn't addressingthe woke side of things.
So he did dance aroundthat on the podcast.
As you mentioned, Jonathan,he's going after weakness.
Right.And the idea just,
well, we're going to try to take downthese Alpha Republicans by being alpha
(24:11):
ourselves.
I'm not sure if it passesthe authenticity test.
We'll find out on November 4th whether ornot.
But that's his thing right now.
But I think this is actuallya pretty smart move for
Governor Newsom in this regard.
One of my favorite columns ever writtenwas one written years and years ago.
It was right after the royal weddingof William and Kate Middleton.
(24:33):
And the title of the,of the op ed was called Pippa Can't Win.
And it was referencing Pippa Middleton,the, you know, very attractive sister
of Kate Middleton who was the maidof honor at the wedding and kind of
stole some of the thunder from the weddingfor her fabulous derriere in her dress.
It became kind of international sensation.
And what the column was notingwas that after the wedding,
(24:53):
Pippa became a celebrity andshe started monetizing off it and
suddenly she was contracted work with theToday show with NBC and some other things.
And the point of the column was that shecan't win in regard whatever she does in
the business side of things, it will bebecause of her association with her sister
and whoever she ends up marrying in life.
While he may be a wonderful fella,he may find the cure for cancer,
(25:14):
he's not going to bethe future king of England.
So Pippa can't win in that regard.
But I would argue Gavincan't lose in this regard.
He obviously doesn't lose.
If Proposition 50 passes andhe gets his way,
he's now a hero in Democratic circles.
He may have helped deliver the House forthem in 2026.
But what if Proposition 50 fails?
Yes, embarrassing because it's his baby.
(25:35):
Yes, egg on his face.
But he'll still get credit withthe National Party, with activists,
people out there who vote on primaries in2028 for unlike other governors fighting
the good fight andtrying to pick up seats for the House.
As for back in Sacramento,yeah, it's, it's embarrassing.
But first of all, he's already kind ofsemi checked out of the, of the job.
The national review was kindof summed it up brilliantly.
(25:57):
The other day they said unannouncedpresidential candidate and
part time governor Kevin Newsom, he willstill have one year left in office and
he still controls a lot of influence inSacramento with the budget process and
the legislative process.
So he would be a lame duck, buthe could still wield some influence.
So I just don't see howhe loses this scenario.
And again, this gets back tothe very cynical nature of all this.
(26:19):
He's doing this to get attention.
He's doing this position himself.
For 2028, poly marketing rightnow has him at about 28%.
That's double what AOC gets.
Now.A lot of that's just based off the current
name recognition.
But in terms of setting himself up fora run after he leaves office in 2027,
I think this is a reallysmart move on his part.
>> Lee Ohanian (26:38):
Bill, I agree with you.
It's a smart move.
And you know, what I'm looking at isrecent polls about his favorability and
approval ratings.
UC Irvine runs the poll, approval poll.
And their latest one,I believe was in July,
59% of those surveyed disapprovedof Newsom's job performance.
So just take a moment to think about59% in the blues state in the country,
(27:03):
perhaps disapproving of theirDemocratic governor's performance.
However, when asked about hisbattles with Trump there,
people had a more favorableimpression of him.
So Newsom is in hisseventh year as governor.
We spoke many times andabout Newsom's ability and
(27:24):
performance to move the state forward.
And many others have also beencritical of some of his policies.
You know, we've gone throughmany of them in the past.
AB5 was one which made it illegalto be an independent contractor.
And that, of course, was followed up byLyft and Uber fighting that spending,
you know, over $100 million to fight that.
(27:45):
So the governor is, I think,playing the long game.
2028, his timing is perfect forrunning for president.
And so I think this is what he excels at.
He's telegenic.
Some of what he says,in my opinion, some of what he
says comes across well to voters becausehe says it with a lot of commitment.
I often wor that the depth andsubstance of what he talks about.
(28:08):
But clearly,people like what he's doing on the left.
I think when you,when you think about his future prospects,
you know, national politics isa very interesting place right now.
Roughly 44% are independents, about 24% of
Republicans, about 24, 25% of Democrats.
(28:29):
And when you look at last fall's election,virtually no Democrats voted for Trump.
Virtually, no Republicans voted forHarris.
You've got this 44% in the middlethat narrowly went for
Trump in the last election.
So I don't think What Newsom isdoing now is going to play all that
(28:50):
well to those 44% ofindependents who find, you know,
at this point,don't find identity with either party.
If you go back 50 or 60 years, there arevery few independents in the country now,
it's by far the majority.
I don't think his tweetsthat make fun of Trump and
that are coming out of this press office,they're all in capitalized letters.
(29:14):
They talk like Trump.
They end with thank you foryour attention, with two or
three exclamation points.
I don't find thoseparticularly compelling.
I think most, most parodies of Trumpfall flat just because he is Trump.
He's been doing this his whole life.
Yeah, I do think he'splaying to a strength.
I don't know how well it will servehim nationally in the Democrat.
(29:36):
You know, the Democratic Partyis in such trouble now.
Not to say that.
I feel.
Not to say thatthe Republican Party is not.
But AOC is going to take over fromSanders for, For the progressives.
Newsom is very different than Butijich,he's very different than Andy Beshar,
very popular Democratic governorin Kentucky, which is a red state.
(29:59):
He's very different fromJosh Shapiro in Pennsylvania.
So this is his shtick, this is what hedoes well, but I don't think it will.
I don't think it'll be enough forhim down the road.
>> Bill Whalen (30:10):
A concern for news of looking at 2028, Lee and Jonathan
would be one of timing, kind of a grape,if we wanna use Newsom's wine analogy.
Kind of blushing early in thathe's in peak season right now.
He's just.
He's crushing the other 20,28 people in terms of attention.
You see the poly market numbers.
Politico did a statewide pollthe other day where they asked Calif.
(30:31):
There was support forpresident that's within California.
He topped former Vice President KamalaHarris, I think something like 24 to 19 or
something like that.
I'm just guessing numbers here right now,but
they named four Democrats in that poll.
Newsom, Harris, AOC and Pete Buttigieg.
If I'm Gavin Newsom running forpresident, I like my odds in that field.
That's not a terribly strong field.
But the reality, though, is presidentialpolitics don't work that way.
(30:54):
You don't look three yearsout at the field and
kind of nail whothe nominee is going to be.
Things change, and parties oftentimeslook for the new shiny thing,
the new as they sayhere in Silicon Valley.
If you've done a poll of Democrats in 2005after their after the loss of George W.
Bush, Barack Obama does not registeras a presidential candidate.
And yet 2008, they go with Barack Obama.
(31:15):
He do a poll of Republicans after 2013,after the the loss to Obama,
Mitt Romney, Donald Trump is notgonna lead the field either.
So things change.
And I have a sneaky feeling the futureof the Democratic Party might not
be Gavin Newsom.
It might not be one of the other currentgovernors who get a lot of attention,
like Beshear, who you mentioned, or
Shapiro in Pennsylvania, Gretchen Whitmerin Pennsylv, Pennsylvania.
(31:35):
I would look maybe at West Moore,the governor of Maryland,
who is staying out of a lot ofthese woke battles right now.
Very interesting.
So Democrats are up in arms because DonaldTrump sends National Guard troops into
Washington to quell crime.
And Democrats are going nutsabout authoritarianism and
what Governor Moore is doing.
At the same time, he's pointing out,
(31:56):
look at what I've done inBaltimore in terms of crime.
In other words, he's pointing to a record.
I think that's smart long term politics.
So Democrats may go for him.
They may look at the newgovernor of Virginia.
If Abigail Spanberger winsthat election this fall, they
may look at the new governor of New Jerseyas kind of the next thing, if you will.
Otherwise, I kinda wonder if there'sgonna be a little gen turnover.
Newsom has been involved in politics.
(32:18):
By 2028, it will be 25 years since he wasfirst elected mayor of San Francisco.
That is a long time in politics.
That is an awfully long record.
And if I'm a Democrat makingthe realpolitik decision of what I want
a nominee,having seen what Kamala Harris in
2024 with someone kinda mildlyattached to California.
Remember they use this one ad against heron gender reassignment surgery to show
(32:40):
she was kind of California out of touch.
Imagine what they coulddo with Gavin Newsom.
So that might give me concerns tohave to go in Newsom's direction.
So yeah, just, you know,he may get a moment in November.
He may be hailed as a, as a hero forthe party, but you know,
the question will be whatdoes he do after that?
>> Lee Ohanian (32:55):
Yeah. Best case scenario for, for
the governor is that Proposition 53redistricting that voters appro.
Yeah.
So that'll be huge for him politically.
But Bill's really interestingwhen you note that Obama kind of
came out of nowhere to win.
Bill Clinton came out ofnowhere to win in 1992.
(33:16):
Highly prominent politicians such asAl Gore and John Kerry did not win.
Kamala Harris did not win despite beingvice president and God, how much was it?
How much.
How much was spent?
>> Bill Whalen (33:28):
A little over a billion dollars, wasn't it?
107 days.
>> Lee Ohanian (33:33):
So yeah, so I agree it's way too early.
This will be in.
So this will.
If it happens, it happens in November.
That's two years before the race.
So those interesting names,the Maryland governor.
Yeah, he's quite popular.
Yeah.When you look at the possibility of
candidates and whether they can beat Vanceor whoever emerges from the Republicans,
(33:55):
it's interesting, Bill,it was either yesterday, the day before,
the chair of Bed Bath beyond.
And who among us?
Bed, Bath and Beyond.
So I'm having->> Bill Whalen: How many
times you think Gavin Newsom hasbeen to bed past and Beyond?
Yeah, no, I mean my wife, bless her heart,
I won't say she dragged me in there, but.
But it's been a while, so.
(34:17):
So the Bed Bath andBeyond share said we will not open or
operate retail stores in California.
California has created one of the mostover-regulated, expensive and
risky environments forbusiness in America.
It's a system that makesit harder to employ people,
harder to keep doors open andharder to deliver value to customers.
(34:42):
So Bed Bath beyond, of course went throughbankruptcy and now they're emerging
from bankruptcy and they're opening smallretail stores in a number of states.
I believe Newsom's responsewas something like,
we wish you well and being relevant again.
And that contrasts sharply withthe mayor of San Jose, Matt Mahan.
Right.Who is.
(35:03):
Bill, he's a Democrat?
>> Bill Whalen (35:04):
Mayhan is a Democrat.
>> Lee Ohanian (35:06):
And Mayhem was quoted saying, in response to the bed bathing out
statement, Mahan said, this is serious,we're shooting ourselves in the foot.
We need to acknowledge thatSan Jose is open for business.
We are doing everything we can to makeit easier for our employers to succeed.
So.
>> Bill Whalen (35:25):
Right. >> Lee Ohanian
Democrat versus the governor is saying,we hope you become relevant again.
And yeah, statements like that just,
they just aren't going toplay well with the middle.
I don't think they will play allthat well with almost anyone.
The governor gets.
He gets very bristly whenanyone criticizes the state or
(35:46):
criticizes his policies.
And I think politicallyhe would be better off to
get out in front of thisbecause there are so
many visuals to show just there'ssome wonderful visuals of California.
Those aren't going to emerge in 28.
They will be visuals of San Franciscoin the Tenderloin, Venice,
(36:08):
California and homelessness.
It's not gonna be a pretty site.
And I think the government be much betterat getting in front of those issues than.
Because those are going to be.
Those going to be very,very easy to pin on him.
Yeah, here's what,
here's what they need to thinkabout in terms of messaging.
If they want to look at 2028, the fallbackposition from the governor's office is
(36:30):
always California hasworld's largest economy.
Look how many Fortune 500companies in California.
Look at all the kind of gender stuff.
Well, that sure,California is a colossus in that regard.
It dwarfs other states in terms ofeconomy, in terms of population.
But what it can't point to,Lee and Jonathan is progress.
And this is a problem for a presidentialcandidate, especially a governor.
You need to point to X, Y and Z.
(36:52):
That happened under your watch whileyou were governor of your state.
And I'm kind of curious as to whatNewsom would do Lee in terms of.
If you point out, you know,if you put it to him saying, okay,
give me example of three great innovativebusiness Things you did three.
Three companies that attractedto California, you know,
under your eight years, and, you know,maybe it could come up with three, but
just, that's not the narrativeof California right now.
(37:12):
So he's got to find examples of progress,not just, not just talk about quantity,
but quality.
>> Lee Ohanian (37:17):
Yeah. You know, I mean, since.
So now in, in the 1980 election,it was Reagan.
I won't get the wording exactly right, butit was something like, are you better off?
>> Bill Whalen (37:29):
Are you better off today than you were four years ago?
>> Lee Ohanian (37:31):
Four years ago.
So, you know, that's been a mantrain politics for 45 years.
What the governor often does whencriticized is he turns to spending,
because we do spend an awfullot in California and
the state budget has risen somewherearound 50% since he became governor.
(37:54):
So that's a very substantial increase.
So what he'll say in response to criticismis, well, I've double spending on fire
protection, and we've increased spendinghere, we've increased spending there.
So that's often what he will say.
And those statements are true.
But what's not happening is turningthat spending into progress.
(38:15):
And what's not happening isjust the enormous backlog
of infrastructure the state needs to make.
The governor's gone all in on,on fighting climate change and
banning gasoline cars,which Trump overturned.
We're going to need tens of billionsof investments in our electrical grid.
(38:40):
We need billions of investments inwater conveyance, water storage,
wastewater, drainage.
We haven't even maintained ourexisting infrastructure adequately,
much less making the need to newinvestments that the state's
going to require going forward.
So the governor points to spending as a,as a measure of success,
(39:02):
but finding tangible resultsof that is difficult.
He talked about a Marshall Plan forhousing.
Housing permits are really notan awful lot different than they were
when he took office.
He talked about the inhumanityof homelessness.
He made a very powerful,moving speech about that.
(39:22):
I believe in his 2020 State of the State,homelessness has risen.
What do you sense response tothat is that in percentage terms,
it's not rising as muchas in other states.
And, and again, that's.
I just don't think that's going to playwell with, with that 44 in the middle.
>> Bill Whalen (39:41):
It will, and this would be another challenge for
him running national office.
He is sort of developing a reputation,a narrative.
You see it more and more stories now.
He's a guy who likes totalk really big ideas.
You mentioned homelessness,housing, climate change, but
he doesn't follow through on the ideas.
It's the execution,the eyes fall short, they go away.
This governor not toolong ago wanted to come.
Constitutional amendment on gun control.
(40:02):
What happened to that?
I think he wanted a constitutionalamendment on abortion.
What happened to that?
So he loves big ideas.
He likes to get the attention from them,but he doesn't follow through on them.
So, you know, to be continued.
>> Lee Ohanian (40:13):
Yeah, yeah.
Many big ideas.
I sometimes think about what would havehappened if he had just taken one of those
big ideas, whether it was housing orhomelessness or improving California's K
through 12 system, which is,in my opinion, not serving our kids well.
If he had just picked one and said,I've got eight years to get this done,
(40:34):
let's see what we can do.
I often wonder what wouldhave happened with that.
Kudos to the governor for
signing legislation that changes CEAsignificantly for urban housing.
We don't have time to go into today,
but my opinion is it's not really goingto make all that much of a difference.
But I do applaud his, his signing of thosebills and his, and his threats to say
(40:56):
that he was not going to sign the budgetunless CEQA was substantially amended.
So that shows what the governor can do.
I wish he had done more of that during,
and perhaps he will do more of thatin his last couple years in office.
But it's a governorship ofa lot of the spending and
in my opinion,not as much to show for that.
>> Bill Whalen (41:15):
One final thought just before we switch and
Talk about the 2026 race isthe quid pro quo of all this.
So in politics, you do a favor forsomebody you want to favor in return.
You've seen this in terms of gettingtop 50 through the legislature.
One of the districts that gets resignedunder, gets redesigned is District 1.
This is a very Republican district.
Doug Lamafa is the Republican incumbent.
(41:39):
This goes from a very Republicandistrict to a very Democratic district.
And why is that?
Well, that's because Mike McGuire, who isthe Senate president pro tem, he wants
to run in that district and so theyredesigned it to incorporate his area.
So that's a quid pro quo.
But what I'm concerned about is the peopleputting the money behind this campaign for
the governor.
He's going to get somevery wealthy individuals.
I think one fellow down in Los Angeleshas already chipped in a couple
(42:01):
million dollars.
But you look at the governor'spress conference the other day,
it's the usual suspects.
It's seiu, it's, it's, you know,it's the teachers, units, all the people,
the public employees getbehind the governor.
They're gonna give him money,they're gonna want something in return.
So that's going to be one ofthe narratives in 2026 if
this thing does go through.
What is the quo for the.
What is the quo for the quid?
>> Lee Ohanian (42:22):
Yeah, what is the quote for the quid?
And, and yeah, Bill, I just,I don't think that was good visual.
I mean, we, we look at this stuff closely.
Most voters don't have the,don't have the time to, to do,
to do that as much as we do.
But the SEIU andteachers unions aren't there for, for
the principle of fighting democracy,in my opinion.
(42:45):
They're there because the status quoleadership is very favorable for
the SEIU and for teachers unions, and theydo not want to get the apple cart upset.
You know, Bill, there was an interestingarticle run by the Chronicle,
San Francisco Chronicle,which is not a conservative newspaper.
The title of the article was
How Fair Newsom's ProposedCalifornia Congressional Districts.
(43:07):
We take a closer look.
They're quite critical of this plan.
So I don't know what the LA Timeshas come out with, but
Newsom is getting the message thatthis is going to sail through.
It has a chance if it's come, if it'scompletely pinned on Trump and as you say,
just showed the face of Trump in everypossible act had and run on that, and
(43:30):
only that, because I think ifthey run on anything else,
it'll be a losing proposition for them.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (43:36):
Gentlemen, this brings us to our third and
final segment of the podcast today,and that is propositions.
Proposition 50's possible impacton the 2026 gubernatorial race.
The race has shifted ground.
Kamala Harris decided notto run earlier this month.
And Lieutenant Governor Alani Kunalakishas failed from the race,
(43:58):
choosing to run for state treas instead.
That leads former Congressman Katie Porterof Irvine as the nominal front runner.
Gentlemen, the question is this.
What happens to Democraticmessaging if Proposition 50 fails?
Will Democrats continue tofocus on national politics or
hone in on issues of housing and crime?
Bill, does this open an advantage formoderates like LA businessman Rick Caruso,
(44:21):
who you recently interviewed onGoodfellows, which was a great interview,
by the way, who seems to bea champion of quality of life issues?
>> Bill Whalen (44:28):
Yeah, thank you for mentioning Caruso because he may run for
mayor of Los Angeles next year.
He may run for governor, we don't know.
But if he runs for governor,he is a Democrat, but
he's a Democrat by way of having been anIndependent and before that a Republican.
And there are a handful ofDemocrats already running.
So I don't think strategy dictates thathe tries to out Democrat the Democrats.
He's gonna have to build a differentcoalition of Democrats, but
(44:51):
also independents andmaybe a few Republicans.
A problem solving caucus, if you will.
So my theory is this.
If Prop 50 goes down, it might bea combination of Arnold Schwarzenegger,
maybe a little toxic Gavin Newsom, justmaybe people think this is a bit too much
like in the independent commissionturnout and so forth, but
it might cause Democratic candidates tokind of reconsider just the, you know,
(45:16):
abject Trump bashing,
that there are other things going onin California besides Donald Trump.
And you know, they should have gotten awhiff of this in the 2024 Proposition 36,
the Anti Crime measure.
It won in every county across California.
That rarely happens fora ballot initiative.
It was opposed by Governor Newsom.
He and the legislature tried to tryto make an end run around it by
(45:37):
passing bills.
The legislature is supposedly the same,but not the same.
That's a message if I'm Democrats andI need to wake up and
pay more attention to salient concerns.
So that's a limit of Trump bashing.
But as we look at the 2026 field,two things stand out.
One, this is a very different electioncompared to the last two governors races
in this regard.
Katie Porter, if you look at earlypolling, she's the front runner.
(46:00):
It's 18% though it ishardly lapping the field.
It's hardly dominant.
If you take the two Republicansrunning against her, Steve Hilton,
the former Fox News commentator,
and Chad Bianco, he's the Riverside countysheriff, they combined get about 19%.
I think Hilton gets 14% of that.
So right now would bea Porter Hilton runoff, if you will.
(46:20):
Caruso maybe changes the math on that.
But we'll see how Porter does with this ifshe holds up as the, as the front runner.
So just very curious in that regard.
But it's, you know, the public's notpaying attention to the 2026 race right
now and that's in part becausethe special election steps on it.
But I'll be curious to see how theseDemocrats do talk about the state
(46:42):
of California moving forward.
They'll be nice to Governor Newsom.
They're not going to throwthem under the bus or
criticize just as Newsomdidn't criticize Jerry Brown.
But there are a lot of things theyneed to, you know, address in terms of
soft underbelly California because as Leementioned, Newsom's numbers aren't great.
And I can tell if you have you looked atpolls, California for the past 15 years,
(47:02):
the state is constantly on the wrong trackwhen it comes to that question of voters
of right track, wrong track.
People think there's something off here.
So let's see if Democrats at leastacknowledge that something is off.
>> Lee Ohanian (47:13):
Yeah, the interesting for the 26th gubernatorial race,
Katie Porter is in the lead andyou know, she ran for
US Senate against Schiff andSteve Garvey and some others.
She didn't really get anytraction in that race at all.
It ended up being a runoff between Garveyand Schiff, Schiff winning very easily.
You know,what strikes me interesting Bill,
(47:36):
about California politics is that itis such a super majority state that
within the state's Democratic Party theycan do the leaders of the Democratic Party
can just do an awful lot of thingsalmost with predetermination.
I mean, years ago Kamala Harris,Gavin Newsom were the rising stars.
(47:57):
Kamala slated into the Senate.
Newsom went into lieutenant governor andthen governor.
So Porter lost, in my opinion,because, you know,
Schiff had an awful lot of money.
He had Pelosi's endorsement, as I recall.
So there's just, you know, it'sinteresting because there's a, you know,
(48:18):
a handful of people inthe state Democratic Party.
Willie Brown is one of them.
And I found it surprising.
You're, you're, you're much moredeeply into state politics than I am.
But I found it surprising that Brown,essentially,
he said before Harris chose not to run,he said that.
(48:40):
I parse from his statement,I like Rick Caruso.
I don't think this is the right job forKamala.
I found that so striking because Caruso,
he is a Democrat, but he's notconsidered inside the full Democrat.
He was in the LA election formayor, which Karen Bass won.
And many people now, I suspect,you know, wish they had voted for
(49:03):
Caruso because he was inthe Palisades when it was burning.
She was in the country of Ghana.
Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Barack Obama,all campaign for Karen Bass.
And I think one reason because isthat she's been a lifelong very,
very true Democrat in Crusoe.
Has not been.
But I found that.
(49:23):
I found that I found those wordsfrom Willie Brown, who is.
>> Bill Whalen (49:28):
Willie likes being around money.
So clarify that.
There's a very funny story that I'll tellyou when the podcast is over about that
because I don't want to slander him, butthe very funny story nonetheless, but,
you know, we will see exactly.
One thing that does stand outhere is Kamala Harris and
just really kind of what weakgenes she has in California.
So she carries the state,obviously in the presidential election.
(49:51):
She was the, you know,front runner for the governor's race.
Terms of name recognition, pretty much.
But then she doesn't run for governor, and
then that poll comes out showing hertrailing Newsom inside of California.
This is a really astoundingthing when you look at it.
Vice president sitting.
Vice presidents usually have a pretty easyshot at getting the party's nomination.
If you handle that job right, you've donea good job of, you know, building up.
(50:12):
I use and chits people, you know, like theoffice and so you can get the nomination.
But former vice presidents, to kind oftumble that far that fast shows you
that she really does not have a holdon the California Democratic Party and
the national party for that measure too.
So again, this kind of adds to the openQuestion of Democrats moving forward.
You know, it's.
There was no Jerry Brownsuccessor in 2018.
(50:35):
Jerry Brown was kind of a unique act.
Now, there could be a Gavin Newsomfollower in terms of style, but
we'll see if any otherDemocrat mimics that.
Or again, if they look at the polls anddecide that, you know,
voters are hungry fora little something a little different.
But you know what, Lee?
It is a super majority party state, and ifa Republican ends up on the ballot, then,
you know, it doesn't matter whatthe Democratic does pretty much.
(50:55):
And that's one thing I'mlooking at with Prop 50.
You know,I'll start running my mouth after this.
It's potentially a very good moment forSteve Hilton.
Why?
Chad Bianco kind of has the Trump lane interms of being strong on immigration and
kind of very Trumpy in his, you know, kindof, you know, sort of cowboy presentation.
Hilton, on the other hand, is kind ofrunning a little more cool policy,
intellectual campaign.
And he's promised that if Prop 50 passes,
(51:18):
he will go to court totry to kill it in court.
So it's a ticket to ride forhim in terms of getting Republican votes.
But again, this is the Pyrrhicvictory that is California politics.
If you're a Republican, you win theprimary, you're pretty much dead water in
the general election,which gets to yet another tactic.
Will someone like Katie Porter, she feelsthat she's in a good first place position,
(51:40):
will she use her money to elevate herselfto make sure she finishes first or second?
Or if she's confident in finishing firstor second, does she do what Newsom
did in 2018, pour a lot of money intoattack ads against a Republican rival,
figuring that will elevate the Republicanand get that Republican as your,
as your opponent in the general election.
>> Lee Ohanian (51:58):
I wasn't so surprised Harris withdrew.
What I can just conjecture about her andher skill set.
The governor's job, I don't thinkwould have been a good match for.
That's not to be pejorative aboutthe former vice president, but
it's become almost an unmanageable task.
Jerry Brown, I think many people sayhe was a very successful governor.
(52:21):
When you talk one on one with him or in asmall group of people, he will talk about
just the many frustrations he had, themany challenges he faced with the state
legislature trying to reform ceqa, tryingto reform the state's pension system.
Brown was much more,I think, of a pragmatist.
He was not,I would call a progressive Democrat.
It's just an extremely difficult job.
(52:43):
I don't think it would lead tonecessarily higher office for her.
I am puzzled by why her numbers are solow here.
It may just be because the Governoris in the spotlight every
single day now and she is not.
Nevertheless she's, she can,she can raise money very easily and
that can do a lot in politics.
(53:06):
It is curious about Caruso becausehe can self finance a campaign.
He spent over $100 million ofhis own money on the LA mayor,
on the LA Mayor's race.
So if he does choose to run, whether forLA Mayor or for California governor,
he has a lot of money, personally,that he can throw that.
And Republicans in the pasthave often said, you know,
we just can't get money from.
We just can't get, get money becausepeople assume we're going to lose and
(53:28):
therefore we can't get money.
We can't run a good campaign and we lose.
It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
Caruso, even if he's not the mostadorned Democrat in the party,
he can get a lot of money on his own.
>> Bill Whalen (53:41):
Yeah. Keep in mind though,
money is not a guarantee of success.
While Arnold Schwarzenegger is fabulouslywealthy and that came in handy for
the recall election and his reelectionin 2006, Meg Whitman, so enough of that.
But you know, just one final thoughton Harrison we can close up.
Yeah.It's just remarkable that she, you know,
has just kind of fallenthis quickly in politics.
(54:01):
But I really was not surprisedthat she did not run for governor.
And this is, you know, to the,you know, the proverbial broken clock.
That's right twice a, twice a day.
And I was right on this.
But I just figured this way.
I don't think there's ever been a threestar general who wanted to become
a lieutenant colonel ora one star general.
And when you're vice president goingback to being governor of California,
unless you really love policy,
(54:21):
unless you're just a hopeless romanticwhen it comes to your home state,
you're not going to want to run forgovernor, you want to run for resident.
And so I just never understood why shewould want to kind of punch down from your
office, if you will.
And maybe Lee, she did look atwhat a difficult job this is.
It's a headache job on a daily basis andmaybe just decided that life is short and
there's a better path for her.
She does have a book coming out soon.
(54:43):
I guess I will buy it and read it.
I'm a glut for these things.
Final note by the way,the Gavin Newsom autobiography,
which was supposed to comeout in the spring and
then got pushed back to the fall, it's nowcoming out next February, so stay tuned.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (54:56):
Great analysis, gentlemen.
As always.Thank you for your time.
You've been listening toMatters of Policy and Politics,
the Hoover Institution podcastdevoted to governance and
balance of power here in America andaround the free world.
Please don't forget to rate, review and
subscribe to this podcastwherever you might hear it.
And if you don't mind,please spread the word.
Get your friends to have a listen.
The Hoover Institution has Facebook,Instagram and X feeds.
(55:16):
Our X handle is hooverinst.
That's @hooverinst.
Bill Whalen is on X.
His handle is @billwhalenca.
And Lee Ohanian is also on X.
His handle is @Lee_Ohanian.
Please visit the hoover website@hoover.organd sign up for the Hoover Daily Report,
where you can access the latestscholarship and analysis from our fellows.
Also check out California on youn Mind,where Bill Whalen and
(55:38):
Leo Hanian write every week.
Again, this is Jonathan Mavroidasitting in Bill Whelan's chair.
This week he'll be back for anotherepisode of Matters of Policy and Politics.
Thank you for listening.
>> Speaker 4 (55:48):
This podcast is a production of the Hoover Institution,
where we generate andpromote ideas, advancing freedom.
For more information about our work,to hear more of our podcasts or
view our video content,please visit hoover.
Org.
Hi, this is Bill Whalen from the Hoover Institution's Matters of
Policy and Politics podcast.
The Hoover Institution is proud toannounce two national competitions
honoring the life andwork of Thomas Sowell,
one of the most influentialpublic thinkers of our time.
For high school and
college students, we invite you to takepart in the Thomas Sowell Essay Contest.
This is your chance to engage deeplywith Sowell's ideas by applying them to
(00:21):
pressing issues in society or
by reflecting on how his writings haveshaped your own view of the world.
For creators of all kinds, we're hostingthe Multimedia Creator Competition.
In a video no longer than three minutes,share your bold and
thoughtful response to a simple butpowerful question.
And that question is, what lesson or
teaching from Thomas Sowell do Americansmost need to learn or remember today?
(00:42):
Winners in each category willreceive $5,000 plus a paid trip to
the Hoover Institution atStanford University for
a special celebration in Dr.Sowell's honor.
Entries are due by September 15th.
For details and submission links,
visit hoover.org thomaspecLet me repeat that for you.
Hoover.org Thomas Soul Legacy Good luck.
(01:06):
Hope to see you at the Hoover institution.
[MUSIC]
>> Jonathan Movroydis (01:12):
It's Thursday, August 21, 2025, and you're listening to
matters of policy and politics atthe Hoover Institution Podcast devoted
to governance and the balance of powerhere in America and around the free world.
I'm John Mavroydis ofthe Hoover Institution.
I'm sitting in the chair of Bill Whalen,
the Virginia Hobbs Carpenter DistinguishedPolicy Fellow in Journalism, so
that he can answer questions and providecommentary about California policy and
politics in which he iswell versed Bill Whalen,
(01:34):
in addition to being a Washington Postcolumnist, writes weekly for
Hoover's California onyoun Mind Web channel.
Whalen is joined today by Lee Ohanian,Hoover Institution Senior Fellow and
Professor of Economics andDirector of the Edinger Family Program in
Macroeconomic Research at the Universityof California, Los Angeles.
Ohanian also writes weekly about thepolicy environment of the Golden State for
California on your Mind, hello gentlemen.
How are you both doing today?
>> Bill Whalen (01:54):
Good, thanks.
>> Lee Ohanian (01:55):
Good, good to see you fellas.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (01:57):
Good to see you both.
Our show Today will cover three topics.
One, the November specialelection in California.
Two, what it means for Newsom and
its impact on the 2026 gubernatorialrace in the Golden State.
First, let's talk about the specialelection in California.
Lee, in your recent column for Californiaon your Mind, you describe Newsom and
the state legislature's plan to redrawdistrict lines in response to Texas
(02:21):
efforts to do so.
You explained that Both states have beenaccused of gerrymandering Republican
majorities in Tex to give their party anadvantage in US Congress ahead of the 2026
midterms.
And California Democratsare trying to do the same.
But for California, this requirevoters to pass Proposition 50, quote,
the election Rigging Responseact this November.
Lee, can you tell us what prompted Newsomand the state legislature's redistricting
(02:44):
plan, how the plan would reformCalifornia's system of redistricting and
whether you think it will bepopular enough with voters to pass?
>> Lee Ohanian (02:51):
Yeah, well, these are as I believe there's an old Chinese proverb
that goes,may you live in interesting times.
And we live in very interestingtimes here in California.
You know, the backdrop of this is,is really the upcoming 2026 midterms.
Historically, parties that winin a presidential election,
particularly what we just had with Trump,with Republicans taking presidency,
(03:16):
the Senate and the House, historicallythe midterms are not a good time for
the party, for the party in power.
So in Trump's first term, he and
the Republicans lost the House,40 seats swung to Democrats.
In Obama's first term,60 seats swung to Republicans.
(03:37):
That was around the time of the sortof mid right conservative Republicans.
So right now in the House,I believe there's about a seven seat,
seven seat majority for Republicans.
So the House is very much at risk forRepublicans.
Washington, Washington, D.C.
the DOJ and Trump went to Texas andsaid, hey, you know what,
(03:59):
you've had this enormous populationgrowth, perhaps you need to redistrict.
And the motivation forredistrict comes from population swings.
It typically is done every decadefollowing the decadal censuses.
Texas says we've had somuch population growth, 2 million people,
roughly 2 million peoplesince the 2020 census.
(04:20):
They've concentrated in Dallas,San Antonio and Houston.
We've got some districts thatreally merit being reconsidered for
redistricting because Texasargues they were put together in
a politically manipulative way.
So Texas is saying, hey, you know what,we're not gerrymandering.
(04:40):
We're actually correctingprevious mistakes.
Now, I'm not endorsing what Texas isdoing, but that's what's being advertised.
Mid decadal redistrictingis extremely right.
I don't know when the lasttime that was done.
Governor Newsom comes along andsays, well, you know what,
democracy is, is at risk here.
Texas is trying to just padthe Republican majority in the House.
(05:04):
Well, if Texas moves forwardwith their plan to redistrict,
then California is going to moveforward with is redistricting.
Now in Texas, the legislature does that.
In California.
You know, about 15 years ago, weestablished within the state constitution
a nonpartisan citizens Redistrictingcommittee to draw redistricting lines.
(05:27):
So the governor faces the challenge of, wehave to deal with the state constitution.
So in just the last few days,in a very rushed effort,
what the Democrats in California havedone have put together a legislative
referred constitutional amendment forthe November election.
And if you're still with me,those of you who are listening at home,
(05:51):
this bill, this Pat did, is this up forthis is up for a vote today.
Tomorrow is the deadline toget on the November ballot.
Is that right?
>> Bill Whalen (06:00):
Yeah, so note that we're doing this podcast early on Thursday in
California.
The legislature willconsider it on Thursday.
Newsom's expected to sign it on Friday.
>> Lee Ohanian (06:08):
Right, right, okay.
So with Democratic supermajorities in the state and
the assembly,it is almost certainly going to pass.
So we'll go to voters where it justrequires a simple majority now.
And again, if you're still with me,this is a complicated,
this is a complicatedamendment to the Constitution.
(06:29):
It would change redistricting forthe 26, 28 and 30 election cycles and
then go back to the citizens RedistrictingNonpartisan commission after 2030.
So there's a lot ofcomplications in place.
Politico did a poll of California voters,I believe 64%.
(06:51):
Bill, you probably know thismuch better than I do, but
I thought it was 64% that said no to,to the proposed redistricting.
But the Democrats in Californiaare advertising this as
the need to save democracy.
So there's been if if anyonefollows Ashley Zavala.
(07:12):
She's the NBC affiliateKCRA in Sacramento.
She's investigative reporter, nonpartisan.
Great.She's absol.
Wonderful.I'd love to follow her.
I'd encourage you toto Google her name and
watch two to three minute interviewsthat she did with Gail Pellerin,
who is the chair of the electionscommittee in the assembly, and
(07:33):
also Sabrina Cervantes,who is the election chair in the Senate.
Both are Democrats.
Those interviews say more in two minutes.
Those interviews say more than I cansay about the lack of transparency and
the political manipulationinvolved in this.
And in fact,neither one was willing to give one name
(07:56):
to the reporter of whowas involved in this.
And in fact, in the Zavala interview,
Pellerin, the chair of the electionsCommittee, was asked were any members of
the legislation involvedin drawing these maps?
And Pellerin answered,not to my knowledge.
And then another question came in thatsaid, well, one of these ACA 8 says
(08:17):
the legislature is supposed to beinvolved in drawing these districts.
So you know, Madam Chair, who drew thesemaps every day it's who drew these maps.
And the Democratic leadership isunwilling to say who did that,
and it's obvious why theywant political cover.
(08:38):
I believe Bill did the DemocraticCongressional campaign committee
from DC were they involved in this,I saw some reports about.
>> Bill Whalen (08:47):
That might have been.
It's primarily a fellow namedPaul Mitchell, not the guy who does hair
products, but Paul Mitchell isa consultant who was a genius at,
at doing California districts ofwhat Lee has talked about here.
So further confusing our listeners.
I hope not.
So what California is looking at isa November 4th special election,
a statewide election and it wouldpiggyback on local election as well.
(09:10):
The cost is going to be an issue here.
The 2021 recall election against GovernorNewsom that costs the state about $200
million.
Why?Because the state picks up the tab for
counties in these situations and countiescan spend millions of dollars in terms
of printing ballots and having to sendpeople to collect ballots and so forth.
But it's these wheels of motion thatreally kind of make this special.
(09:33):
So to do a November 4th special election,you have to.
And why November 4th?
Because California doesn't havea primary until next June.
You don't have to file fora congressional run until March.
But if you want to file withoutspending money, in other words,
you want to collect signatures,you could do it as early as December.
So you need to know wherethe districts are, number one.
(09:53):
Secondly, if you doan election on November 4th,
California says every registeredvoter in the state a ballot.
Now, they send that out 29days before the election.
But they also send outballots to military and
overseas people 45 days as earlyas 45 days before the election.
So if you back up,
I have it around September 20th thatthey're going to have to have ballot.
(10:15):
So you have to have these districtsall lined up on September 20th.
And that's the urgency in doing thisis kinda down and dirty way and
it is down to dirty in this regard.
There is a law in Sacramento that saysthat normally vetting of legislation there
has to be a 30 day period, period.
But Democrats have gone around that.
Instead they've used a practice calledganda, which stands for gut in the med.
(10:36):
What that means is ifAssemblyman Mavroidis has a bill and
Assemblyman Lahinian wants to dosomething different, he takes out what is
in Mavroidis bill and he dumps in hisbill and they vote on Lee's bill and
not your bill, even though lawmakersdon't know that necessarily voting on.
So that's what they've done here.
Now, last night, the California StateSupreme Court heard a Republican challenge
(10:58):
to this and said, thanks but no thanks.
This is part of what'sinteresting about California and
why it's kind of such bizarreland versus Washington, D.C.
whereas you have a very a Republicanconservative Supreme Court in Washington,
which is kind of the backstop againsta lot of matters there in California,
you have seven members onthe state Supreme Court,
six of whom appointed by Democrats,three by Newsom.
(11:18):
So that's not necessarilya sympathetic audience.
So here we are headed now towarda November special election in California.
And gentlemen, we're kind of in thisperiod of hyper politics in California.
We've had regularly scheduledelections each year in this decade,
with the exception of 2023.
It's sort of like in the beginningof this century where
you had six statewide elections inthe first seven years in the early 2000s.
(11:42):
So I do wonder as we look towardsthe special election, Lee,
when we look at turnout,when we look at messaging and so forth,
I think one factor might be fatigue thatvoters just maybe might be a little tired
of politics by the time this comes around.
>> Lee Ohanian (11:56):
Absolutely, I mean, just when you thought we could take just when
you thought we could takea break from politics,
of all the craziness of last year,along comes gerrymandering and
there's I mean, there's no sense inhiding what California is doing.
It's blatant gerrymandering,
now it's being offered as a way ofcounteracting what Texas is doing.
(12:20):
And of course, what in the piece,Jonathan, that you you talked about, that
I wrote for California on your mind lastweek, I noted that this opens the door to
what could potentially be a verydestructive war among of redistricting.
So Texas is almost certainly goingto go forward with redistricting,
which means California is going to trybased on the November special election.
(12:45):
Then what happens if Indiana triesto redistrict, for example, or
any other state?
I think it's just potentiallyvery damaging and Destructive.
And just to give you a sense of howthe California map would change,
California, California Republicansalready have
relatively littlerepresentation in the House.
(13:07):
Right now they have nine out of 52 seats,
which is about 17% of of the House seats.
And what I did in that piece is I,
I compared state voting patterns inthe last presidential election and
then compared those state votingpatterns to representation by
(13:28):
Republicans in a number of states thathave least eight House House seats.
And California right nowis the second state.
New Jersey is the first.
It has the second widest margin betweenthose who voted for Trump in California.
About 38% of Californians voted for Trump.
Only 17% representation ofRepublicans in the House.
(13:53):
If California does do this,the potential could be
only four House seats forRepublicans out of 52.
Meaning what is that?
That's a little bitunder 8% representation.
And based on what I know about the,we keep talking about the maps.
Based on what I know about the maps,here's how the,
(14:16):
the composition would change.
Right now there are roughly10 competitive nine.
Well, there's roughly nine competitivedistricts in California, meaning that
there's no more than a 10 percentagepoint difference between Republicans or
(14:36):
Democrats.
That's what we see right now,nine competitive districts.
The redistricting would dropthat from nine to four.
The number of Republican fairly solidRepublican districts will drop from
5 to 4.
The big difference would comein districts where Democrats
have between a 10 and30 percentage point lead.
(14:59):
That would change from the current 11seats or 11 districts to 24 districts.
So it's hard to look at this andbe happy, I think,
even if you are worried about Trump.
In that interview I spoke about withGail Pellerin and Ashley Zavala, Pellerin,
while ducking the questionof who drew the maps,
(15:21):
started, started a diatribe aboutTrump and talking about how we
live in an authoritarian state andwe no longer have democracy.
Even if you think that I don't thinkthis is, I don't think this is healthy.
And Bill, I was going to ask you,Governor Newsom is the face of this,
at least right now.
Governor Schwarzenegger,
(15:42):
who was instrumental in the nonpartisanredistricting, the Citizens Commission,
he has come out, perhaps not surprisingly,very much against this.
I wouldn't,
I wouldn't put Schwarzenegger in the kindof the same camp as the Trump Republicans.
He's from a different area.
But Bill, I was to going to ask,what do you think when
it comes down to Arnold versus Gavin,that could be very interesting.
(16:05):
How do you see that evolving?
>> Bill Whalen (16:07):
I love it.
The Governator versus the Gaminator.
It's an interestingmatchup in this regard.
So thanks for teeing this up becauseI did want to talk about messaging.
You mentioned that poll that showedthe public supporting the independent
redistricting commission.
I think Politico andthe Citroen center did that poll.
Newsom's poster is pretty privatelytelling people that this special
(16:28):
election will pass, it'll sail through.
I suspect that's a product of how they'reasking the question of voters, though.
But you're probably just framingit in very Trumpian terms.
Do you approve this to stopDonald Trump dead in his tracks?
To stop Donald Trump's attackon California, yada yada yada.
That probably is a good message.
But this is question is going to be howexactly the governor's campaign will bring
(16:50):
this forward.
He has a lot of talents as a politician.
He is telegenic.
He gives good speeches.
He is kind of very goodin this gotcha game,
which we should talk about a bit as well.
But he's not a good salesman, necessarily.
Ironic for a guy who made moneyin the wine sales business.
Well, if you look at hisrecord going to the ballot.
So a few years back he tried to pass a $15billion education bond called Prop 13.
(17:11):
Granted, people were a littleconfused because they see Prop 13,
they think property taxes in California,but that measure got skunked.
Newsom is very much the public face ofthat measure and it got pounded, and
education bonds rarely fail in California.
2024 Lee and Jonathan,
he tried to get a 10 billion dollarhomeless measure passed in California.
Proposition 1 campaign for it madehim very much a public face of that.
(17:33):
And Lee, you remember that thing?
It took weeks of vote counting to getthat thing over the top in a very
Democratic state.
So putting him as the publicface of this measure is risky.
I think there's reallyonly one smart tactic, and
that is just to run Donald Trump'sface constantly in ads.
Make this about Trump,hope that Trump takes the bait and
gets involved in the election.
(17:54):
But Yuli, you've stumbsomething very important here.
It's the opposition campaign.
So former Speaker Kevin McCarthy has saidhe'll raise $100 million to kill this
Charlie Munger,he's the Palo Alto physicist.
His father is the late legendaryCharles Munger of Berkshire Hathaway fame.
I think he said he'll chip inanother 20 or $30 million.
That's $130 million.
(18:14):
That's, that's spending moneyin California politics.
And they will run ads, and
you're rightly the smartest ad theycan run is Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Why?
Arnold is, yeah, he's an anti TrumpRepublican, but he's verily anti Trump.
He's about reform and about goodgovernment at the end of the day.
And he is fired up to go afterthis because this is a big part of
(18:35):
his legacy as governor of California,getting this, this thing passed.
So, yeah, you could have a showdownbetween Arnold and Gavin.
And I'm not sure that's a good thing forGavin, but, you know,
we'll get to more Gavin here in a moment.
It's just, you know, one thing Ijust want to emphasize here, though.
For all we're, you know, complainingabout the process here in California,
this is a classic example what'swrong in American politics.
It's always a matter of whose ox is gourd.
(18:57):
If you're a Democrat, you're delightedthe idea of lawfare against Donald Trump.
If you're Republican, you're delighted bythe idea of using the Justice Department
to go after Adam Schiff now in California.
So who's ox gets gored?
And in this case, if you're a CaliforniaRepublican, you are outraged and
frustrated because you may lose seats.
But, you know, Texas Democratsprobably feel very much the same way.
(19:17):
So welcome to hardball politics,gentlemen.
>> Lee Ohanian (19:20):
Yeah, welcome to hardball politics.
And you know,in the piece I read last week,
I noted that the termgerrymandering goes back to 1812.
>> Bill Whalen (19:29):
Yeah, Gerrymandering, technically, Elbridge Gerry.
>> Lee Ohanian (19:34):
Gerrymandering, I stand corrected.
And it was the, I believe the governorof Massachusetts who redrew
some district lines in Boston.
>> Bill Whalen (19:44):
Yes.
>> Lee Ohanian (19:45):
To protect themselves from the Federalists who were the opposition
party at that time.
So Jerry or Gary,coming from Gary, Elbridge.
And then the new district that wasredrawn looked like a salamander.
So we have, we have gerrymandering orgerrymandering.
And it's been going on forever.
(20:06):
I mean, you look at other states,Illinois, I think in the last election,
Illinois, I think 43% voted forRepublicans.
They only have 17%representation in the House.
Massachusetts has no representation forRepublicans in the House.
36% voted for Republicans in theirHouse in their House elections.
(20:32):
And then New York was 43% voting forRepublicans in the House.
They only have 27% representation.
So this is a country that has a longstanding principle of one person One vote.
And [COUGH] that's been abrogatedsubstantially over time,
and in some states more than others.
Michigan.
(20:53):
Michigan is very even.
I don't know the details andhistory of how that has worked out, but
we would, we would end up havingCalifornia at 48 out of 52,
potentially just being really,really off the charts.
So very interesting times.
>> Bill Whalen (21:11):
This gets very interesting, by the way.
By the end of the decade,the Brennan center,
which is a left leaning think tank inWashington, actually looked at what
they think the census might come out asin 2030 in terms of shifting populations.
And then they red congressionalmaps around the country.
And this is bad news for Democrats asfar as national prospects are concerned.
What they figure isunder doing their math,
(21:33):
they figured Texas would get four moreseats, Florida would get three more seats,
and California would losefour seats going down to 48.
So that's in the electoral College.
That's a net shift of 11 right now,adding seven for Republicans and
taking away four from Democrats.
And then they projected what it would meanfor a Democrat winning in 2032 under this.
And they took Kamala Harris'sperformance in 2024 and
(21:55):
figured she would have to win the lonecongressional seat in Nebraska.
She would have to pick up Pennsylvania,Michigan and Wisconsin, and
that would only get her to 200.
She'd also have to add on Arizona andNevada, and
all of that would just get herbarely over the top at 272.
So you're, you're the Democrats right now.
You're looking in the 2000-30s atleast of having to run the table in
(22:16):
the swing states right now.
So, so when you're moving around fourseats, you know, this helps Democrats,
at least in the midterm,and keeping the House.
Now, the problem here is that as far asthis presidential thing goes, what Newsom
has proposed is you don't abolishthe independent redistricting commission.
You just put it in a hibernation,you put it in a timeout,
you put it in sleep mode for2026, 2028 and 2030.
(22:36):
Then you go back to regularlyscheduled business,
independent redistricting in 2032.
And that kind of adds to the cynicismof just doing a timeout on this.
So again,we live in interesting times, Lee.
>> Lee Ohanian (22:47):
Yeah.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (22:49):
Next up, what does this mean for Gavin Newsom?
Much has been speculated aboutNewsom's run for higher office.
He's been to South Carolina,he's obviously term limited.
And there's no room for
him in the Senate with two Democratsin there right now recently elected.
In appealing to his base,Gavin's put on a tough guy hero act
against what he perceives asauthoritarianism on the right,
(23:10):
while using his podcast to invite thelikes of Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon,
which we've talked about on this podcast,to pivot signal to voters nationwide that
he can also strike a moderate andconceal your tone.
With that said, does this redistrictingoverhaul present a massive gamble for
Newsom?
Should he lose,
will he appear as a diminishedgovernor on the national stage, Bill?
>> Bill Whalen (23:30):
I am very contraried in this regard.
First, let me back up a second.
We did a little mini conferencehere after the election here at
the Hoover Institution.
We invited both Republican and Democraticpollsters who were out on the field in
2024 to talk about the two parties andtheir perceptions.
And a theme emerged, at least in termsof their take on the Democratic Party.
(23:51):
They said the party's problem writ largeis perceived as too weak and too woke.
So this explains in part, I think,what Governor Newsom is up to here.
He isn't addressingthe woke side of things.
So he did dance aroundthat on the podcast.
As you mentioned, Jonathan,he's going after weakness.
Right.And the idea just,
well, we're going to try to take downthese Alpha Republicans by being alpha
(24:11):
ourselves.
I'm not sure if it passesthe authenticity test.
We'll find out on November 4th whether ornot.
But that's his thing right now.
But I think this is actuallya pretty smart move for
Governor Newsom in this regard.
One of my favorite columns ever writtenwas one written years and years ago.
It was right after the royal weddingof William and Kate Middleton.
(24:33):
And the title of the,of the op ed was called Pippa Can't Win.
And it was referencing Pippa Middleton,the, you know, very attractive sister
of Kate Middleton who was the maidof honor at the wedding and kind of
stole some of the thunder from the weddingfor her fabulous derriere in her dress.
It became kind of international sensation.
And what the column was notingwas that after the wedding,
(24:53):
Pippa became a celebrity andshe started monetizing off it and
suddenly she was contracted work with theToday show with NBC and some other things.
And the point of the column was that shecan't win in regard whatever she does in
the business side of things, it will bebecause of her association with her sister
and whoever she ends up marrying in life.
While he may be a wonderful fella,he may find the cure for cancer,
(25:14):
he's not going to bethe future king of England.
So Pippa can't win in that regard.
But I would argue Gavincan't lose in this regard.
He obviously doesn't lose.
If Proposition 50 passes andhe gets his way,
he's now a hero in Democratic circles.
He may have helped deliver the House forthem in 2026.
But what if Proposition 50 fails?
Yes, embarrassing because it's his baby.
(25:35):
Yes, egg on his face.
But he'll still get credit withthe National Party, with activists,
people out there who vote on primaries in2028 for unlike other governors fighting
the good fight andtrying to pick up seats for the House.
As for back in Sacramento,yeah, it's, it's embarrassing.
But first of all, he's already kind ofsemi checked out of the, of the job.
The national review was kindof summed it up brilliantly.
(25:57):
The other day they said unannouncedpresidential candidate and
part time governor Kevin Newsom, he willstill have one year left in office and
he still controls a lot of influence inSacramento with the budget process and
the legislative process.
So he would be a lame duck, buthe could still wield some influence.
So I just don't see howhe loses this scenario.
And again, this gets back tothe very cynical nature of all this.
(26:19):
He's doing this to get attention.
He's doing this position himself.
For 2028, poly marketing rightnow has him at about 28%.
That's double what AOC gets.
Now.A lot of that's just based off the current
name recognition.
But in terms of setting himself up fora run after he leaves office in 2027,
I think this is a reallysmart move on his part.
>> Lee Ohanian (26:38):
Bill, I agree with you.
It's a smart move.
And you know, what I'm looking at isrecent polls about his favorability and
approval ratings.
UC Irvine runs the poll, approval poll.
And their latest one,I believe was in July,
59% of those surveyed disapprovedof Newsom's job performance.
So just take a moment to think about59% in the blues state in the country,
(27:03):
perhaps disapproving of theirDemocratic governor's performance.
However, when asked about hisbattles with Trump there,
people had a more favorableimpression of him.
So Newsom is in hisseventh year as governor.
We spoke many times andabout Newsom's ability and
(27:24):
performance to move the state forward.
And many others have also beencritical of some of his policies.
You know, we've gone throughmany of them in the past.
AB5 was one which made it illegalto be an independent contractor.
And that, of course, was followed up byLyft and Uber fighting that spending,
you know, over $100 million to fight that.
(27:45):
So the governor is, I think,playing the long game.
2028, his timing is perfect forrunning for president.
And so I think this is what he excels at.
He's telegenic.
Some of what he says,in my opinion, some of what he
says comes across well to voters becausehe says it with a lot of commitment.
I often wor that the depth andsubstance of what he talks about.
(28:08):
But clearly,people like what he's doing on the left.
I think when you,when you think about his future prospects,
you know, national politics isa very interesting place right now.
Roughly 44% are independents, about 24% of
Republicans, about 24, 25% of Democrats.
(28:29):
And when you look at last fall's election,virtually no Democrats voted for Trump.
Virtually, no Republicans voted forHarris.
You've got this 44% in the middlethat narrowly went for
Trump in the last election.
So I don't think What Newsom isdoing now is going to play all that
(28:50):
well to those 44% ofindependents who find, you know,
at this point,don't find identity with either party.
If you go back 50 or 60 years, there arevery few independents in the country now,
it's by far the majority.
I don't think his tweetsthat make fun of Trump and
that are coming out of this press office,they're all in capitalized letters.
(29:14):
They talk like Trump.
They end with thank you foryour attention, with two or
three exclamation points.
I don't find thoseparticularly compelling.
I think most, most parodies of Trumpfall flat just because he is Trump.
He's been doing this his whole life.
Yeah, I do think he'splaying to a strength.
I don't know how well it will servehim nationally in the Democrat.
(29:36):
You know, the Democratic Partyis in such trouble now.
Not to say that.
I feel.
Not to say thatthe Republican Party is not.
But AOC is going to take over fromSanders for, For the progressives.
Newsom is very different than Butijich,he's very different than Andy Beshar,
very popular Democratic governorin Kentucky, which is a red state.
(29:59):
He's very different fromJosh Shapiro in Pennsylvania.
So this is his shtick, this is what hedoes well, but I don't think it will.
I don't think it'll be enough forhim down the road.
>> Bill Whalen (30:10):
A concern for news of looking at 2028, Lee and Jonathan
would be one of timing, kind of a grape,if we wanna use Newsom's wine analogy.
Kind of blushing early in thathe's in peak season right now.
He's just.
He's crushing the other 20,28 people in terms of attention.
You see the poly market numbers.
Politico did a statewide pollthe other day where they asked Calif.
(30:31):
There was support forpresident that's within California.
He topped former Vice President KamalaHarris, I think something like 24 to 19 or
something like that.
I'm just guessing numbers here right now,but
they named four Democrats in that poll.
Newsom, Harris, AOC and Pete Buttigieg.
If I'm Gavin Newsom running forpresident, I like my odds in that field.
That's not a terribly strong field.
But the reality, though, is presidentialpolitics don't work that way.
(30:54):
You don't look three yearsout at the field and
kind of nail whothe nominee is going to be.
Things change, and parties oftentimeslook for the new shiny thing,
the new as they sayhere in Silicon Valley.
If you've done a poll of Democrats in 2005after their after the loss of George W.
Bush, Barack Obama does not registeras a presidential candidate.
And yet 2008, they go with Barack Obama.
(31:15):
He do a poll of Republicans after 2013,after the the loss to Obama,
Mitt Romney, Donald Trump is notgonna lead the field either.
So things change.
And I have a sneaky feeling the futureof the Democratic Party might not
be Gavin Newsom.
It might not be one of the other currentgovernors who get a lot of attention,
like Beshear, who you mentioned, or
Shapiro in Pennsylvania, Gretchen Whitmerin Pennsylv, Pennsylvania.
(31:35):
I would look maybe at West Moore,the governor of Maryland,
who is staying out of a lot ofthese woke battles right now.
Very interesting.
So Democrats are up in arms because DonaldTrump sends National Guard troops into
Washington to quell crime.
And Democrats are going nutsabout authoritarianism and
what Governor Moore is doing.
At the same time, he's pointing out,
(31:56):
look at what I've done inBaltimore in terms of crime.
In other words, he's pointing to a record.
I think that's smart long term politics.
So Democrats may go for him.
They may look at the newgovernor of Virginia.
If Abigail Spanberger winsthat election this fall, they
may look at the new governor of New Jerseyas kind of the next thing, if you will.
Otherwise, I kinda wonder if there'sgonna be a little gen turnover.
Newsom has been involved in politics.
(32:18):
By 2028, it will be 25 years since he wasfirst elected mayor of San Francisco.
That is a long time in politics.
That is an awfully long record.
And if I'm a Democrat makingthe realpolitik decision of what I want
a nominee,having seen what Kamala Harris in
2024 with someone kinda mildlyattached to California.
Remember they use this one ad against heron gender reassignment surgery to show
(32:40):
she was kind of California out of touch.
Imagine what they coulddo with Gavin Newsom.
So that might give me concerns tohave to go in Newsom's direction.
So yeah, just, you know,he may get a moment in November.
He may be hailed as a, as a hero forthe party, but you know,
the question will be whatdoes he do after that?
>> Lee Ohanian (32:55):
Yeah. Best case scenario for, for
the governor is that Proposition 53redistricting that voters appro.
Yeah.
So that'll be huge for him politically.
But Bill's really interestingwhen you note that Obama kind of
came out of nowhere to win.
Bill Clinton came out ofnowhere to win in 1992.
(33:16):
Highly prominent politicians such asAl Gore and John Kerry did not win.
Kamala Harris did not win despite beingvice president and God, how much was it?
How much.
How much was spent?
>> Bill Whalen (33:28):
A little over a billion dollars, wasn't it?
107 days.
>> Lee Ohanian (33:33):
So yeah, so I agree it's way too early.
This will be in.
So this will.
If it happens, it happens in November.
That's two years before the race.
So those interesting names,the Maryland governor.
Yeah, he's quite popular.
Yeah.When you look at the possibility of
candidates and whether they can beat Vanceor whoever emerges from the Republicans,
(33:55):
it's interesting, Bill,it was either yesterday, the day before,
the chair of Bed Bath beyond.
And who among us?
Bed, Bath and Beyond.
So I'm having->> Bill Whalen: How many
times you think Gavin Newsom hasbeen to bed past and Beyond?
Yeah, no, I mean my wife, bless her heart,
I won't say she dragged me in there, but.
But it's been a while, so.
(34:17):
So the Bed Bath andBeyond share said we will not open or
operate retail stores in California.
California has created one of the mostover-regulated, expensive and
risky environments forbusiness in America.
It's a system that makesit harder to employ people,
harder to keep doors open andharder to deliver value to customers.
(34:42):
So Bed Bath beyond, of course went throughbankruptcy and now they're emerging
from bankruptcy and they're opening smallretail stores in a number of states.
I believe Newsom's responsewas something like,
we wish you well and being relevant again.
And that contrasts sharply withthe mayor of San Jose, Matt Mahan.
Right.Who is.
(35:03):
Bill, he's a Democrat?
>> Bill Whalen (35:04):
Mayhan is a Democrat.
>> Lee Ohanian (35:06):
And Mayhem was quoted saying, in response to the bed bathing out
statement, Mahan said, this is serious,we're shooting ourselves in the foot.
We need to acknowledge thatSan Jose is open for business.
We are doing everything we can to makeit easier for our employers to succeed.
So.
>> Bill Whalen (35:25):
Right. >> Lee Ohanian
Democrat versus the governor is saying,we hope you become relevant again.
And yeah, statements like that just,
they just aren't going toplay well with the middle.
I don't think they will play allthat well with almost anyone.
The governor gets.
He gets very bristly whenanyone criticizes the state or
(35:46):
criticizes his policies.
And I think politicallyhe would be better off to
get out in front of thisbecause there are so
many visuals to show just there'ssome wonderful visuals of California.
Those aren't going to emerge in 28.
They will be visuals of San Franciscoin the Tenderloin, Venice,
(36:08):
California and homelessness.
It's not gonna be a pretty site.
And I think the government be much betterat getting in front of those issues than.
Because those are going to be.
Those going to be very,very easy to pin on him.
Yeah, here's what,
here's what they need to thinkabout in terms of messaging.
If they want to look at 2028, the fallbackposition from the governor's office is
(36:30):
always California hasworld's largest economy.
Look how many Fortune 500companies in California.
Look at all the kind of gender stuff.
Well, that sure,California is a colossus in that regard.
It dwarfs other states in terms ofeconomy, in terms of population.
But what it can't point to,Lee and Jonathan is progress.
And this is a problem for a presidentialcandidate, especially a governor.
You need to point to X, Y and Z.
(36:52):
That happened under your watch whileyou were governor of your state.
And I'm kind of curious as to whatNewsom would do Lee in terms of.
If you point out, you know,if you put it to him saying, okay,
give me example of three great innovativebusiness Things you did three.
Three companies that attractedto California, you know,
under your eight years, and, you know,maybe it could come up with three, but
just, that's not the narrativeof California right now.
(37:12):
So he's got to find examples of progress,not just, not just talk about quantity,
but quality.
>> Lee Ohanian (37:17):
Yeah. You know, I mean, since.
So now in, in the 1980 election,it was Reagan.
I won't get the wording exactly right, butit was something like, are you better off?
>> Bill Whalen (37:29):
Are you better off today than you were four years ago?
>> Lee Ohanian (37:31):
Four years ago.
So, you know, that's been a mantrain politics for 45 years.
What the governor often does whencriticized is he turns to spending,
because we do spend an awfullot in California and
the state budget has risen somewherearound 50% since he became governor.
(37:54):
So that's a very substantial increase.
So what he'll say in response to criticismis, well, I've double spending on fire
protection, and we've increased spendinghere, we've increased spending there.
So that's often what he will say.
And those statements are true.
But what's not happening is turningthat spending into progress.
(38:15):
And what's not happening isjust the enormous backlog
of infrastructure the state needs to make.
The governor's gone all in on,on fighting climate change and
banning gasoline cars,which Trump overturned.
We're going to need tens of billionsof investments in our electrical grid.
(38:40):
We need billions of investments inwater conveyance, water storage,
wastewater, drainage.
We haven't even maintained ourexisting infrastructure adequately,
much less making the need to newinvestments that the state's
going to require going forward.
So the governor points to spending as a,as a measure of success,
(39:02):
but finding tangible resultsof that is difficult.
He talked about a Marshall Plan forhousing.
Housing permits are really notan awful lot different than they were
when he took office.
He talked about the inhumanityof homelessness.
He made a very powerful,moving speech about that.
(39:22):
I believe in his 2020 State of the State,homelessness has risen.
What do you sense response tothat is that in percentage terms,
it's not rising as muchas in other states.
And, and again, that's.
I just don't think that's going to playwell with, with that 44 in the middle.
>> Bill Whalen (39:41):
It will, and this would be another challenge for
him running national office.
He is sort of developing a reputation,a narrative.
You see it more and more stories now.
He's a guy who likes totalk really big ideas.
You mentioned homelessness,housing, climate change, but
he doesn't follow through on the ideas.
It's the execution,the eyes fall short, they go away.
This governor not toolong ago wanted to come.
Constitutional amendment on gun control.
(40:02):
What happened to that?
I think he wanted a constitutionalamendment on abortion.
What happened to that?
So he loves big ideas.
He likes to get the attention from them,but he doesn't follow through on them.
So, you know, to be continued.
>> Lee Ohanian (40:13):
Yeah, yeah.
Many big ideas.
I sometimes think about what would havehappened if he had just taken one of those
big ideas, whether it was housing orhomelessness or improving California's K
through 12 system, which is,in my opinion, not serving our kids well.
If he had just picked one and said,I've got eight years to get this done,
(40:34):
let's see what we can do.
I often wonder what wouldhave happened with that.
Kudos to the governor for
signing legislation that changes CEAsignificantly for urban housing.
We don't have time to go into today,
but my opinion is it's not really goingto make all that much of a difference.
But I do applaud his, his signing of thosebills and his, and his threats to say
(40:56):
that he was not going to sign the budgetunless CEQA was substantially amended.
So that shows what the governor can do.
I wish he had done more of that during,
and perhaps he will do more of thatin his last couple years in office.
But it's a governorship ofa lot of the spending and
in my opinion,not as much to show for that.
>> Bill Whalen (41:15):
One final thought just before we switch and
Talk about the 2026 race isthe quid pro quo of all this.
So in politics, you do a favor forsomebody you want to favor in return.
You've seen this in terms of gettingtop 50 through the legislature.
One of the districts that gets resignedunder, gets redesigned is District 1.
This is a very Republican district.
Doug Lamafa is the Republican incumbent.
(41:39):
This goes from a very Republicandistrict to a very Democratic district.
And why is that?
Well, that's because Mike McGuire, who isthe Senate president pro tem, he wants
to run in that district and so theyredesigned it to incorporate his area.
So that's a quid pro quo.
But what I'm concerned about is the peopleputting the money behind this campaign for
the governor.
He's going to get somevery wealthy individuals.
I think one fellow down in Los Angeleshas already chipped in a couple
(42:01):
million dollars.
But you look at the governor'spress conference the other day,
it's the usual suspects.
It's seiu, it's, it's, you know,it's the teachers, units, all the people,
the public employees getbehind the governor.
They're gonna give him money,they're gonna want something in return.
So that's going to be one ofthe narratives in 2026 if
this thing does go through.
What is the quo for the.
What is the quo for the quid?
>> Lee Ohanian (42:22):
Yeah, what is the quote for the quid?
And, and yeah, Bill, I just,I don't think that was good visual.
I mean, we, we look at this stuff closely.
Most voters don't have the,don't have the time to, to do,
to do that as much as we do.
But the SEIU andteachers unions aren't there for, for
the principle of fighting democracy,in my opinion.
(42:45):
They're there because the status quoleadership is very favorable for
the SEIU and for teachers unions, and theydo not want to get the apple cart upset.
You know, Bill, there was an interestingarticle run by the Chronicle,
San Francisco Chronicle,which is not a conservative newspaper.
The title of the article was
How Fair Newsom's ProposedCalifornia Congressional Districts.
(43:07):
We take a closer look.
They're quite critical of this plan.
So I don't know what the LA Timeshas come out with, but
Newsom is getting the message thatthis is going to sail through.
It has a chance if it's come, if it'scompletely pinned on Trump and as you say,
just showed the face of Trump in everypossible act had and run on that, and
(43:30):
only that, because I think ifthey run on anything else,
it'll be a losing proposition for them.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (43:36):
Gentlemen, this brings us to our third and
final segment of the podcast today,and that is propositions.
Proposition 50's possible impacton the 2026 gubernatorial race.
The race has shifted ground.
Kamala Harris decided notto run earlier this month.
And Lieutenant Governor Alani Kunalakishas failed from the race,
(43:58):
choosing to run for state treas instead.
That leads former Congressman Katie Porterof Irvine as the nominal front runner.
Gentlemen, the question is this.
What happens to Democraticmessaging if Proposition 50 fails?
Will Democrats continue tofocus on national politics or
hone in on issues of housing and crime?
Bill, does this open an advantage formoderates like LA businessman Rick Caruso,
(44:21):
who you recently interviewed onGoodfellows, which was a great interview,
by the way, who seems to bea champion of quality of life issues?
>> Bill Whalen (44:28):
Yeah, thank you for mentioning Caruso because he may run for
mayor of Los Angeles next year.
He may run for governor, we don't know.
But if he runs for governor,he is a Democrat, but
he's a Democrat by way of having been anIndependent and before that a Republican.
And there are a handful ofDemocrats already running.
So I don't think strategy dictates thathe tries to out Democrat the Democrats.
He's gonna have to build a differentcoalition of Democrats, but
(44:51):
also independents andmaybe a few Republicans.
A problem solving caucus, if you will.
So my theory is this.
If Prop 50 goes down, it might bea combination of Arnold Schwarzenegger,
maybe a little toxic Gavin Newsom, justmaybe people think this is a bit too much
like in the independent commissionturnout and so forth, but
it might cause Democratic candidates tokind of reconsider just the, you know,
(45:16):
abject Trump bashing,
that there are other things going onin California besides Donald Trump.
And you know, they should have gotten awhiff of this in the 2024 Proposition 36,
the Anti Crime measure.
It won in every county across California.
That rarely happens fora ballot initiative.
It was opposed by Governor Newsom.
He and the legislature tried to tryto make an end run around it by
(45:37):
passing bills.
The legislature is supposedly the same,but not the same.
That's a message if I'm Democrats andI need to wake up and
pay more attention to salient concerns.
So that's a limit of Trump bashing.
But as we look at the 2026 field,two things stand out.
One, this is a very different electioncompared to the last two governors races
in this regard.
Katie Porter, if you look at earlypolling, she's the front runner.
(46:00):
It's 18% though it ishardly lapping the field.
It's hardly dominant.
If you take the two Republicansrunning against her, Steve Hilton,
the former Fox News commentator,
and Chad Bianco, he's the Riverside countysheriff, they combined get about 19%.
I think Hilton gets 14% of that.
So right now would bea Porter Hilton runoff, if you will.
(46:20):
Caruso maybe changes the math on that.
But we'll see how Porter does with this ifshe holds up as the, as the front runner.
So just very curious in that regard.
But it's, you know, the public's notpaying attention to the 2026 race right
now and that's in part becausethe special election steps on it.
But I'll be curious to see how theseDemocrats do talk about the state
(46:42):
of California moving forward.
They'll be nice to Governor Newsom.
They're not going to throwthem under the bus or
criticize just as Newsomdidn't criticize Jerry Brown.
But there are a lot of things theyneed to, you know, address in terms of
soft underbelly California because as Leementioned, Newsom's numbers aren't great.
And I can tell if you have you looked atpolls, California for the past 15 years,
(47:02):
the state is constantly on the wrong trackwhen it comes to that question of voters
of right track, wrong track.
People think there's something off here.
So let's see if Democrats at leastacknowledge that something is off.
>> Lee Ohanian (47:13):
Yeah, the interesting for the 26th gubernatorial race,
Katie Porter is in the lead andyou know, she ran for
US Senate against Schiff andSteve Garvey and some others.
She didn't really get anytraction in that race at all.
It ended up being a runoff between Garveyand Schiff, Schiff winning very easily.
You know,what strikes me interesting Bill,
(47:36):
about California politics is that itis such a super majority state that
within the state's Democratic Party theycan do the leaders of the Democratic Party
can just do an awful lot of thingsalmost with predetermination.
I mean, years ago Kamala Harris,Gavin Newsom were the rising stars.
(47:57):
Kamala slated into the Senate.
Newsom went into lieutenant governor andthen governor.
So Porter lost, in my opinion,because, you know,
Schiff had an awful lot of money.
He had Pelosi's endorsement, as I recall.
So there's just, you know, it'sinteresting because there's a, you know,
(48:18):
a handful of people inthe state Democratic Party.
Willie Brown is one of them.
And I found it surprising.
You're, you're, you're much moredeeply into state politics than I am.
But I found it surprising that Brown,essentially,
he said before Harris chose not to run,he said that.
(48:40):
I parse from his statement,I like Rick Caruso.
I don't think this is the right job forKamala.
I found that so striking because Caruso,
he is a Democrat, but he's notconsidered inside the full Democrat.
He was in the LA election formayor, which Karen Bass won.
And many people now, I suspect,you know, wish they had voted for
(49:03):
Caruso because he was inthe Palisades when it was burning.
She was in the country of Ghana.
Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Barack Obama,all campaign for Karen Bass.
And I think one reason because isthat she's been a lifelong very,
very true Democrat in Crusoe.
Has not been.
But I found that.
(49:23):
I found that I found those wordsfrom Willie Brown, who is.
>> Bill Whalen (49:28):
Willie likes being around money.
So clarify that.
There's a very funny story that I'll tellyou when the podcast is over about that
because I don't want to slander him, butthe very funny story nonetheless, but,
you know, we will see exactly.
One thing that does stand outhere is Kamala Harris and
just really kind of what weakgenes she has in California.
So she carries the state,obviously in the presidential election.
(49:51):
She was the, you know,front runner for the governor's race.
Terms of name recognition, pretty much.
But then she doesn't run for governor, and
then that poll comes out showing hertrailing Newsom inside of California.
This is a really astoundingthing when you look at it.
Vice president sitting.
Vice presidents usually have a pretty easyshot at getting the party's nomination.
If you handle that job right, you've donea good job of, you know, building up.
(50:12):
I use and chits people, you know, like theoffice and so you can get the nomination.
But former vice presidents, to kind oftumble that far that fast shows you
that she really does not have a holdon the California Democratic Party and
the national party for that measure too.
So again, this kind of adds to the openQuestion of Democrats moving forward.
You know, it's.
There was no Jerry Brownsuccessor in 2018.
(50:35):
Jerry Brown was kind of a unique act.
Now, there could be a Gavin Newsomfollower in terms of style, but
we'll see if any otherDemocrat mimics that.
Or again, if they look at the polls anddecide that, you know,
voters are hungry fora little something a little different.
But you know what, Lee?
It is a super majority party state, and ifa Republican ends up on the ballot, then,
you know, it doesn't matter whatthe Democratic does pretty much.
(50:55):
And that's one thing I'mlooking at with Prop 50.
You know,I'll start running my mouth after this.
It's potentially a very good moment forSteve Hilton.
Why?
Chad Bianco kind of has the Trump lane interms of being strong on immigration and
kind of very Trumpy in his, you know, kindof, you know, sort of cowboy presentation.
Hilton, on the other hand, is kind ofrunning a little more cool policy,
intellectual campaign.
And he's promised that if Prop 50 passes,
(51:18):
he will go to court totry to kill it in court.
So it's a ticket to ride forhim in terms of getting Republican votes.
But again, this is the Pyrrhicvictory that is California politics.
If you're a Republican, you win theprimary, you're pretty much dead water in
the general election,which gets to yet another tactic.
Will someone like Katie Porter, she feelsthat she's in a good first place position,
(51:40):
will she use her money to elevate herselfto make sure she finishes first or second?
Or if she's confident in finishing firstor second, does she do what Newsom
did in 2018, pour a lot of money intoattack ads against a Republican rival,
figuring that will elevate the Republicanand get that Republican as your,
as your opponent in the general election.
>> Lee Ohanian (51:58):
I wasn't so surprised Harris withdrew.
What I can just conjecture about her andher skill set.
The governor's job, I don't thinkwould have been a good match for.
That's not to be pejorative aboutthe former vice president, but
it's become almost an unmanageable task.
Jerry Brown, I think many people sayhe was a very successful governor.
(52:21):
When you talk one on one with him or in asmall group of people, he will talk about
just the many frustrations he had, themany challenges he faced with the state
legislature trying to reform ceqa, tryingto reform the state's pension system.
Brown was much more,I think, of a pragmatist.
He was not,I would call a progressive Democrat.
It's just an extremely difficult job.
(52:43):
I don't think it would lead tonecessarily higher office for her.
I am puzzled by why her numbers are solow here.
It may just be because the Governoris in the spotlight every
single day now and she is not.
Nevertheless she's, she can,she can raise money very easily and
that can do a lot in politics.
(53:06):
It is curious about Caruso becausehe can self finance a campaign.
He spent over $100 million ofhis own money on the LA mayor,
on the LA Mayor's race.
So if he does choose to run, whether forLA Mayor or for California governor,
he has a lot of money, personally,that he can throw that.
And Republicans in the pasthave often said, you know,
we just can't get money from.
We just can't get, get money becausepeople assume we're going to lose and
(53:28):
therefore we can't get money.
We can't run a good campaign and we lose.
It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
Caruso, even if he's not the mostadorned Democrat in the party,
he can get a lot of money on his own.
>> Bill Whalen (53:41):
Yeah. Keep in mind though,
money is not a guarantee of success.
While Arnold Schwarzenegger is fabulouslywealthy and that came in handy for
the recall election and his reelectionin 2006, Meg Whitman, so enough of that.
But you know, just one final thoughton Harrison we can close up.
Yeah.It's just remarkable that she, you know,
has just kind of fallenthis quickly in politics.
(54:01):
But I really was not surprisedthat she did not run for governor.
And this is, you know, to the,you know, the proverbial broken clock.
That's right twice a, twice a day.
And I was right on this.
But I just figured this way.
I don't think there's ever been a threestar general who wanted to become
a lieutenant colonel ora one star general.
And when you're vice president goingback to being governor of California,
unless you really love policy,
(54:21):
unless you're just a hopeless romanticwhen it comes to your home state,
you're not going to want to run forgovernor, you want to run for resident.
And so I just never understood why shewould want to kind of punch down from your
office, if you will.
And maybe Lee, she did look atwhat a difficult job this is.
It's a headache job on a daily basis andmaybe just decided that life is short and
there's a better path for her.
She does have a book coming out soon.
(54:43):
I guess I will buy it and read it.
I'm a glut for these things.
Final note by the way,the Gavin Newsom autobiography,
which was supposed to comeout in the spring and
then got pushed back to the fall, it's nowcoming out next February, so stay tuned.
>> Jonathan Movroydis (54:56):
Great analysis, gentlemen.
As always.Thank you for your time.
You've been listening toMatters of Policy and Politics,
the Hoover Institution podcastdevoted to governance and
balance of power here in America andaround the free world.
Please don't forget to rate, review and
subscribe to this podcastwherever you might hear it.
And if you don't mind,please spread the word.
Get your friends to have a listen.
The Hoover Institution has Facebook,Instagram and X feeds.
(55:16):
Our X handle is hooverinst.
That's @hooverinst.
Bill Whalen is on X.
His handle is @billwhalenca.
And Lee Ohanian is also on X.
His handle is @Lee_Ohanian.
Please visit the hoover website@hoover.organd sign up for the Hoover Daily Report,
where you can access the latestscholarship and analysis from our fellows.
Also check out California on youn Mind,where Bill Whalen and
(55:38):
Leo Hanian write every week.
Again, this is Jonathan Mavroidasitting in Bill Whelan's chair.
This week he'll be back for anotherepisode of Matters of Policy and Politics.
Thank you for listening.
>> Speaker 4 (55:48):
This podcast is a production of the Hoover Institution,
where we generate andpromote ideas, advancing freedom.
For more information about our work,to hear more of our podcasts or
view our video content,please visit hoover.
Org.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.