Gavin Newsom Bashes the ‘Poisonous Populism of the Right’ in Heated, Partisan State of the State Address

Governor Gavin Newsom (D., Calif.) attacked national Republicans and “delusional California bashers” in his pre-recorded State of the State address on Tuesday, claiming they’re an existential threat to California’s progressive values.

“Forces are threatening the very foundation of California’s success. Our pluralism, our innovative spirit, and our diversity,” Newsom said in the speech’s opening, adding that those values “are the antidote to the poisonous populism of the right.”

With his latest State of the State address, the Democratic governor definitively stepped into his role as a campaign surrogate for President Joe Biden ahead of his televised debate with former president Donald Trump on Thursday. During his 28-minute speech, Newsom leaned heavily into national issues such as border security, crime, and the economy.

He attacked congressional Republicans for blocking a bipartisan border deal in February, saying they care more about “pure, unadulterated partisan politics” than addressing the record influx of immigration.

“Republicans in Congress choose cynicism and the dangerous path of chaos instead of doing their job to help us secure the border,” he said.

If passed and signed into law, the border deal would have sent new border agents and immigration judges, as well as personnel and financial aid, to the southern border. Immigration hawks, however, argued it did not do enough to reform an overly permissive asylum system.

Newsom touted California’s response to drug smuggling at the U.S.–Mexico border. He said California seized over 62,000 pounds of fentanyl last year and 5.8 million fentanyl-laced pills in the first five months of this year alone.

However, what he did not mention is the number of illegal immigrants coming to the state. In 2021, the Pew Research Center estimated there were 1.85 million illegal immigrants living in California. Refusing to cooperate with ICE officials, the state has welfare programs in place that attract illegal immigrants each year.

The governor also defended his state’s record on reducing crime. In San Francisco, reported property crime is down 32 percent, and in Oakland, it has decreased by 33 percent. Newsom claims that his deployment of 120 California Highway Patrol officers to the San Francisco Bay Area in February helped local law enforcement reverse the rise in thefts and violence.

The governor then called out red states for having higher homicide rates than California and blamed conservative media outlets for stoking “fear and division” when reporting on California’s crime trends.

“Meanwhile, people are gunned down at higher rates in Republican states than in Democratic states,” he said. “Eight of the ten most violent states in America are red states. Even cities like Jacksonville and Memphis have significantly higher homicide rates than cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles. But that’s not what you hear. Instead, you hear wall-to-wall right-wing media coverage about lawless blue cities and blue states.”

According to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, California had a homicide rate of 5.9 per 100,000 people in 2022. By contrast, Florida stood at 7.2 per 100,000 and Texas at 7.6 per 100,000. While Florida and Texas may have had higher murder rates two years ago, California’s recent decreases come only after a 31 percent homicide spike from 2019 to 2020 and remain high relative to the state’s pre-2020 homicide rates.

Speaking about the economy, Newsom juxtaposed California’s tax rates of poor and wealthy residents with those of Texas and Florida.

“California is not a high-tax state,” he asserted. “Conservative states tax their poorest residents — people struggling with two jobs, hospital bills, and child care — at a higher rate than we tax our wealthiest residents.”

In Texas, the bottom 20 percent of earners are taxed 12.8 percent — higher than California’s 12 percent tax rate for the top 1 percent of earners. In California, the bottom 20 percent are taxed 11.7 percent. Meanwhile, Florida taxes poor residents 13.2 percent. However, once local and property taxes are taken into account, the tax burden and cost of living in California exceed those of Texas and Florida.

By the end of the speech, Newsom claimed California remains “strong and resilient.” Republican lawmakers in the state, however, feel differently.

Prior to Tuesday’s address, California senate Republicans accused the governor of continuing to politicize serious issues that the state faces — namely crime, homelessness, and housing costs. Newsom addressed all three topics in his speech but in the context of national politics.

The California senate’s GOP caucus also criticized the governor’s decision to pre-record the speech. Newsom was originally scheduled to deliver the annual State of the State speech in front of state lawmakers on March 18; he did so more than three months later.

“While this pre-recorded speech fulfills the governor’s legal mandate, it does not in any real way fulfill his responsibility to Californians who deserve a safe, affordable, and opportunity-filled future,” state Republican senator Kelly Seyarto said in a statement. “California remains the country’s homeless capital, businesses are closing their doors, and crime continues to rise. The state of this state is simply not good under Newsom’s leadership, and any claims to the contrary he makes in his speech will be patently false. The good news is, it can be fixed and Legislative Republicans continue to work to that end.”