Even while many Americans struggle with the cost of living, a proposed tax on California’s wealthiest people is loaded with controversy. The proposal would see a one-time 5% tax levied on California residents whose net worth exceeds $1.1 billion. But the proposal, which could potentially be on the state’s ballot during the November midterms, has led to infighting within both political parties and included California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D).

‘It will reduce investments’

Opponents of the proposed billionaire tax argue that it would cause the ultrawealthy to flee the state, thereby eliminating economic growth in California. Billionaires and their allies are “blowing rhetorical gaskets,” claiming that the tax would “lead to the financial ruin of California, the obliteration of Silicon Valley and possibly even the end of capitalism as we know it,” said Mariel Garza at The Boston Globe. Many also feel the “deep concern over this potential ballot measure is about more than the ultrawealthy having to hand over some of their stash.”

There is a “real question about how states that expanded Medicaid, America’s health-insurance scheme for the not-so-well-off, will cope with cuts” implemented by President Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill legislation, said The Economist. But in a state with as many billionaires as California, attempting to “solve the problem with a one-time wealth tax could imperil the state’s general fund in the long term.”

While nearly all Republicans are against the tax, Newsom, a potential 2028 Democratic presidential contender, is also opposed. The billionaire tax will “reduce investments in education,” Newsom told Bloomberg Businessweek. “It will reduce investments in teachers and librarians, child care. It will reduce investments in firefighting and police.” Despite acknowledging that many people want to see billionaires pay more in taxes, the proposal would have an “impact as it relates to the flow of capital, the impacts on the market, which are not inconsequential.”

‘Billionaires aren’t going to flee California’

Some say that the billionaire tax is a good idea that wouldn’t incentivize most of the ultrawealthy to leave the state. People like Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page have been “warning that a possible wealth tax would scare off more tech moguls like them,” but they “represent the exception to the rule of a largely settled corner of economics,” said Yousef Baig at CalMatters. Business leaders like the Google co-founders “amass vast fortunes without paying taxes to begin with,” so “good riddance. It’s not like Google is leaving Mountain View.”

Others reject the “argument that wealth taxes are doomed to fail because they have been repealed in many countries such as France, pointing instead to successful, sustained models in Switzerland and Spain,” said Nick Lichtenberg at Fortune. There needs to be a change because capitalism “doesn’t seem to be working well,” said Brian Galle, a tax law expert and the man behind the billionaire tax proposal, to Fortune. Capitalism is a “great system that probably has, you know, enriched the lives of billions of people, but I’m not sure that our system is a functioning capitalist system right now.”

Even some who would be affected by the tax have no problem with it. “We chose to live in Silicon Valley, and whatever taxes I guess they would like to apply, so be it. I’m perfectly fine with it,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, the world’s ninth-richest person, told Bloomberg. “I’ve got to tell you, I have not even thought about it once.”

California’s governor has been an outspoken critic of the Trump administration, and he has found his latest target: Gavin Newsom (D) has filed a civil rights complaint against Dr. Mehmet Oz, the head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, over the latter’s allegations of health care fraud in the Golden State. While Newsom has claimed the allegations are racially motivated, Oz is pushing back.

Video origins

The feud began after Oz posted a video on X claiming to document health care fraud being perpetrated by Armenian immigrants throughout Los Angeles County. The county has become an “epicenter for health care fraud in America,” Oz said in the video, alleging $3.5 billion of fraud in Los Angeles and that the schemes are “run, quite a bit of it, by the Russian Armenian mafia.”

Oz’s allegations are largely against hospice centers and home health care businesses. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which Oz runs, “certifies hospice providers to accept patients on government-subsidized health insurance,” said The Associated Press.

The fraud “isn’t isolated to California, though as far as our team can tell, it’s the worst,” said Oz. But while he claims to be focusing on medical fraud, the video showed him standing not in front of a health care center but an Armenian-owned bakery.

In response to the video, Newsom filed a civil rights complaint against Oz. The video includes “racially charged and false public statements,” and Oz’s words “reveal a discriminatory motive that could infect how allegations of alleged fraud are conducted,” Newsom said in the filing.

The filing represents the peak of a “dayslong public quarrel” between Newsom and Oz, said The Guardian. The Armenian National Committee of America also filed a similar civil rights complaint.

‘No Armenian mafia going on here’

Newsom is not the only one disputing Oz’s allegations. California, and specifically the greater Los Angeles area, has the largest Armenian American population in the U.S., according to the World Population Review, and many are speaking out. The video has “generated intense local backlash” among this Armenian diaspora, said The New York Times. Fraud allegations in Los Angeles have also been investigated before, and “hospice fraud investigations and prosecutions have been ongoing for at least five years in California.”

“I am really disappointed,” said Movses Bislamyan, the owner of the bakery seen in Oz’s video, to KABC-TV Los Angeles. Oz was “recording my signs and location and talking about some kind of fraud going on here. We have nothing to do with it. It has nothing to do whatsoever with the grocery store.” There’s “no Armenian mafia going on here. We are just hard-working businessmen. I don't understand why he’s mentioning" just Armenians, "especially Russian Armenians.” Newsom’s civil rights complaint claimed the bakery experienced a 30% drop in business after the video’s release.

But Oz maintains that he’s identifying fraud and says he will continue to do so. “If there were a real defense for California’s fraud crisis, we would hear it," Oz said on X in response to Newsom’s civil rights complaint. "CMS and law enforcement will keep doing the actual work: going after fraudsters, period."

“Nothing brings tech titans together like taxes,” said Margaux MacColl in The San Francisco Standard. And right now, the moguls are united in rage about a mooted wealth tax in California, which, they warn, could destroy Silicon Valley’s startup ecosystem and lead to the next great tech company being built in China.

The ballot initiative, proposed by a healthcare workers’ union, will be put to a vote in November, provided it secures the requisite number of signatures. If passed into law, it would impose a one-time, 5% levy on the assets of California residents with a net worth above $1bn: about 200 people. The tax would raise an estimated $100bn, which would be placed in a special fund, with the proceeds going towards healthcare and education. Venture capitalist Peter Thiel and Google co-founder Larry Page are among the billionaires preparing to change their official state residency in response to the proposal, said The New York Times.

‘The money could make a real difference’

Spare me the oligarchs’ whiny protests, said Paul Waldman on Substack. Larry Page stands to lose some $13bn under this measure. That’s “a lot of money”, but it’s almost nothing to him: he regularly loses or gains that much over a matter of days as a result of the movements of the stock market. And remember, he and other tech moguls are “exponentially richer than they would otherwise have been because of California” and its unique position as a hub for innovators, entrepreneurs and investors. The money could make a real difference. And I confidently predict that the moguls will survive being left with just “95% of more money than anyone could spend in a hundred lifetimes”.

‘Progressives will come back for more’

Like it or not, wealth is mobile these days, said The Washington Post, and California’s taxes are “already sky high”. In 2012, the state increased the marginal tax rate on high-income households by 3%, as a “temporary measure”. It later extended it to 2030. If the new wealth tax is adopted, it won’t be a one-off. Progressives will come back for more.

“California’s real fiscal problem is that revenue can’t keep pace with Democratic spending,” said The Wall Street Journal. The wealth tax will only make its deficit bigger, by driving out the top 1% who pay half of the state’s income tax. The Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, seems to be aware of this: he opposes the wealth tax. But if the vote goes ahead, he’ll have a difficult choice between economic good sense and “the California Left”.

As President Donald Trump pushes Texas Republicans to adopt a controversial new redistricting plan to pad their congressional majority by up to five seats, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has begun to float a similar scheme of his own. He's considering redrawing his state's legislative districts to further benefit Democrats; as Newsom said on X, "two can play that game."

Newsom, who has spent much of the second Trump administration pitching himself as a party leader for Democrats, justified his California redistricting plan as necessary to reporters on Wednesday. The "existential threat of what Donald Trump and some of these Republican states are trying to do" necessitates equally drastic measures from liberals, Newsom said, framing himself and his plan as at the forefront of the Democrats' growing opposition to this White House.

While Newsom's blue gerrymandering plan has excited some in the party looking for a more aggressive response to the Trump administration, not all Democrats are eager to delve into the messy business of redistricting. As befits a plan as audacious and disruptive as the one Newsom has proposed, opinions vary.

'Not going to fight with one hand tied behind my back'

Democratic supporters of blue-state gerrymandering deem it an "essential offensive posture" that could "make the difference in reclaiming the House" next year, The Texas Tribune said. The party needs to "fight fire with fire," said one Democrat to the outlet. "I'm not going to fight with one hand tied behind my back," said another, adding that "we shouldn't be so nice" if Texas' redistricting moves forward. Voters are "looking for a fight from the Democratic Party," said former Biden administration official Neera Tanden to Politico. Newsom's "response to Texas is the kind of thing I think they are looking for."

For some Texas Democrats, there is even a hope that efforts to counter their state's potential redistricting with similar measures in blue states might "dissuade Republicans from going ahead with the plan" altogether, said the Tribune. The notion of "lowering themselves to Trump's level" has "some Democrats feeling uneasy," said Ja'han Jones at MSNBC. The "counterpoint" to that, though, is that no matter how "concerned about the civil rights implications of California's responsive gerrymander" one may be, the "implications of sitting idly as Texas implements its own are arguably worse."

Redrawing California's electoral maps to "squeeze between five and seven more Democratic seats" for the party is a "brazen political gamble," said Punchbowl News. It's also "exactly the kind of ploy that the Democratic Party base has been demanding," even though it will be "extremely hard to pull off."

'Legitimizing the race to the bottom'

Newsom's plan is "all hat and no cattle," said the Los Angeles Times, using a Texas expression. To successfully redraw California's congressional districts, Newsom would have to break the state's 2010 law that left redistricting to a bipartisan commission, leading to an "inevitable lawsuit" in which he'd "prevail with a sympathetic ruling from the California Supreme Court." Alternately, Newsom could put the redistricting question back to voters "through a new constitutional amendment, in a hurried-up special election ahead of the 2026 midterms."

Ultimately, there is "no downside" for Newsom to try either method, said redistricting expert Paul Mitchell to the Sacramento Bee. Even if both fail, "maps that are really pretty good for Dems are still in place." But by "legitimizing the race to the bottom of gerrymandering, Democrats will ultimately lose," said California Assemblymember Alex Lee (D) at Politico. The "optics" of politicians retaking power formerly delegated to a non-partisan panel are "horrendous and indefensible," said an unnamed Democratic consultant to the outlet. "That's a crazy hill to die on."

As an "ambitious governor" who is ostensibly arguing that the state's constitutionally enshrined redistricting commission "ought to be ignored," Newsom risks "violating his oath," said the National Review. Doing so offers "ample justification for impeachment and removal from office."

Newsom's "inclination to want to retaliate" is understandable in the "national context," said Pomona College Politics Professor Sara Sadhwani to the San Francisco Chronicle. But the people of California have "made it clear at the ballot that the governor does not have that power."

For more than a century, the word "Hollywood" has been synonymous with "movies." That reality is changing. Television and film productions are moving to other states and countries, leaving America's glamour capital to ponder its place in the pop culture firmament.

The steep drop in Hollywood-based productions has begun to "spark panic and anger within the industry," said The Guardian. The number of shows and films being made in California has dropped more than 30% over five years, a wound inflicted by Covid-19, writer and actor strikes and even the wildfires that devastated Los Angeles over the winter. Just 20% of shows made for North American audiences are filmed in the Golden State. Those numbers are an "emergency" for Hollywood, said Alexandra Pechman, a Los Angeles-based writer and director.

What did the commentators say?

Finances come into play. Rob Lowe's Fox TV game show "The Floor" was shot in Ireland because it "makes more financial sense than filming in California," said The New York Times. International studios have "lower labor costs and more expansive tax incentives" than Hollywood can offer. The risk now is that California will "become to the entertainment industry what Detroit has become to the auto industry," said Michael F. Miller Jr., a vice president at the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees.

The "bright lights of Los Angeles have dimmed" because other countries and U.S. states "offered better tax incentives to lure the industry away," said Ed Lammi, a former executive vice president of production for Sony Pictures Television, at CalMatters. California must increase the size of its tax incentives and expand the kinds of productions that qualify for them. Otherwise, shows like "Cobra Kai" will continue to be shot in places like Atlanta instead of Hollywood. "No one should have to leave California in pursuit of the Hollywood dream."

Hollywood "doesn't need a tax subsidy," said The Wall Street Journal editorial board. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is urging President Donald Trump to get "on board" with a proposed $7.5 billion tax credit to expand film and TV production in California. The high cost of production in the state is the "result in large part of the state government's policies." Fixing those policies would mean getting crosswise with "progressive interests." Republicans who control Congress should not "fall for the Tinseltown tax gambit."

What next?

In early May, Trump announced tariffs on foreign productions, a move that "scrambled all bets" on Hollywood's immediate future, said The Hollywood Reporter. Movie executives pooh-poohed the idea, but "at least he's trying something," said one unnamed indie filmmaker.

There are opportunities in Hollywood "working for YouTubers, starring in mini-dramas and building side hustles," said Business Insider. The pay for actors and production crew is not as good as it was for big old-school movie productions, but the work can be consistent. And such projects may be where the audience of the future is at, said Marisa Levy, who once made shows for Discovery TLC but now makes "branded content" for Rebel Girls, a digital media company. "You can still shape the culture."

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) positions himself as a national figure for Democrats searching for party leadership following President Donald Trump's return to office. But his administration has just pulled back on the promise of health care for all in its latest budget proposal.

For years, Newsom made expanding California's public health care program toward a single-payer system one of the tentpole issues of his political career. Instead, his spending plan for the coming year would see undocumented migrants paying a hefty monthly premium to participate in the state's Medi-Cal Medicaid program. The shift would also block new enrollees starting in the coming year.

'Significant retreat' on a 'linchpin' issue

Newsom's budget proposal comes as the costs of his health care plan have "exceeded expectations" amid broader anticipation of "challenging economic times ahead," said the Los Angeles Times. Requiring Medi-Cal participants with "unsatisfactory immigration status" to pay a $100 monthly premium would "reduce the financial burden on the state" and could ultimately "lower the total number of people enrolled" in the program "if some immigrants cannot afford the new premiums."

The proposed changes represent a "significant retreat on an issue" that Newsom has held as a "linchpin" of his broader goal of universal health care coverage in California, Politico said. The backtracking will be a "political gift to conservatives" and is "certain to encounter resistance" from California's Democratic lawmakers and health care advocates alike.

While Newsom has blamed the state budget shortfalls "partly on a projected $16 billion drop in tax revenues resulting from Trump's turbulent trade wars," it's been "clear for months" that the state's Medi-Cal program for low-income residents of all immigration statuses has cost "billions more than expected," said The New York Times. The "conundrum" facing Newsom is whether to cut Medi-Cal benefits for all participants, including citizens, focus solely on immigrant participants or "pursue some combination of both."

Another thing "complicating" Newsom's "political tightrope" is polling that shows programs which provide health care to undocumented migrants have "tepid support," CBS News said. Moreover, any serious budget trouble in California could "harm" Newsom's "political legacy" ahead of a potential 2028 presidential run.

Rightward tack in recent months

Costs associated with medical coverage for undocumented immigrants have become a "sensitive issue" for California's Democrats given both President Trump's "focus on deportations" and the "electorate's interest in scaling back illegal immigration" as a whole, The New York Times said. While the coverage for undocumented immigrants is "funded by state revenue," the San Francisco Chronicle said, "most of the program is funded through federal Medicaid dollars" now being targeted by congressional Republicans who have "singled out California for scrutiny."

In this broader political context, Newsom has begun "embracing policy positions Republicans have begged him to adopt," said California Globe. His attempt at a "reputation facelift" will "likely end up as a facelift gone wrong." The Medi-Cal budget battle comes as Newsom, with an eye toward 2028, has "tacked to the right on a series of notable policy issues in recent months," NBC News said, including a podcast interview with right wing operative Charlie Kirk and a push for California cities to remove all unhoused encampments "without delay."

What happened

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) declared a state of emergency Wednesday as a rash of H5N1 avian flu outbreaks at Central Valley dairies spread to Southern California. Hours earlier, federal health officials announced that a Louisiana resident was hospitalized with the nation's first severe bird flu infection.

Who said what

The emergency proclamation is a "targeted action to ensure government agencies have the resources and flexibility they need to respond quickly to this outbreak," Newsom said in a press release. California is home to 645 of America's 865 infected cattle herds, according to the USDA. The virus was also detected in raw milk in California stores, leading to a recall last month. Los Angeles County yesterday "confirmed the deaths of two cats from bird flu infections after drinking the recalled raw milk," The Associated Press said.

None of the 61 confirmed human H5N1 infections have been conclusively tied to raw milk consumption, but 37 were traced to interaction with infected cattle. The Louisiana patient was infected through a backyard bird flock, contracting a "version of the virus that has been found in birds, not the one that is spreading in cows," The New York Times said.

What next?

Newsom's declaration was a "stark acknowledgment of the increasing seriousness of bird flu's spread," the Times said, but H5N1 "cannot yet spread easily among people" and "still poses little danger to the average American."

Vice President Kamala Harris has secured the necessary delegates to become the Democratic nominee for president, but she has one big job left: picking a vice presidential running mate. As the countdown to the 2024 election passes the 100-day mark, the Harris campaign has reportedly been vetting numerous potential VP contenders. 

Some of these names are prominent figures on the national stage, while others, such as North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, have already ruled themselves out. But with the Democratic National Convention's virtual roll call days away, Americans will likely know Harris' choice sooner rather than later. 

What did the commentators say? 

Each of the known contenders has a "distinct set of political assets. Some have geographic ties that may help with the Electoral College math. Some are strong debaters ready to make Democrats' case," said Katie Glueck at The New York Times. Harris' reported shortlist is also "stacked with contenders who can raise big money," said Brian Schwartz at CNBC. 

This shortlist appears down to "three elected officials with nationwide appeal: Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz," said Nancy Cook, Josh Wingrove, and Jenny Leonard at Bloomberg. All three of these contenders are "white, male politicians with centrist leanings who could help Harris appeal to swing-state voters, as well as business leaders and donors." They also have a "track record of attacking Trump and his firebrand style of politics."

When it comes to Democratic politicians on Capitol Hill, many think Harris "should pick Sen. Mark Kelly as her vice president, believing he would offset her biggest current weakness: the border," said Politico. Kelly has "pushed the Biden administration to take a tougher position on border security and aligned more closely with other border-state Democrats." However, he sometimes struggles to "connect with voters on the ground or command attention on the stump," and has "never been considered among the top tier of Democratic orators." 

If Kelly were picked, Arizona would hold a special Senate election in 2026, and "in a state like Arizona, a Democratic victory would be far from assured," said Timothy Noah at The New Republic. As a result of the Democrat's thin Senate majority, there is "no current senator [who] should be under consideration for the Democratic vice presidential slot," especially because there is "little evidence that vice presidential candidates help with winning their home states."

Walz, meanwhile, is a "popular two-term Midwestern governor, former congressman, military veteran and former public school teacher" whose "canny folksiness is just one of the attributes that make him uniquely suited to be the Democratic vice presidential nominee," said Adam Edelman at NBC News. Picking Walz could also create "broad appeal across the critical nearby 'blue wall' states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — something few other VP contenders can offer." 

Many pundits feel that Shapiro is at the top of Harris' list. In particular, Republicans "see Shapiro, a first-term governor from a critical state, as Harris' strongest vice presidential contender," said Julia Terruso at The Philadelphia Inquirer. Beyond popularity in his own state, Shapiro "could pull in more moderate voters and even some Republicans, which he has done in all three of his previous statewide campaigns." Shapiro "would be the one that makes it the most challenging" for Republicans, Bill Bretz, the GOP chair in Pennsylvania's Westmoreland County, said to the Inquirer. A new Bloomberg / Morning Consult poll also shows Pennsylvania is the battleground state where Harris trails Trump the most, and picking the Keystone State governor could help close that gap.

But "there are demerits to Shapiro, too," Emily Tamkin said at Slate. Shapiro, who is Jewish, is strongly pro-Israel, and this stance "could very well hurt Democratic unity and suppress voter turnout on the political left." It may also "signify an embrace of an understanding of antisemitism that some American Jews contest, issuing a ruling on American Jewish political identity that many would chafe against."

What next? 

Other names are also being vetted for VP by the Harris campaign. This includes Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was also in the running, but like Cooper, took herself out of contention.

It has already been reported that Harris is planning to campaign with her vice presidential pick in the first full week of August, following the Democratic National Committee beginning its virtual roll call on Aug. 1. This means it's all but certain that Harris' choice to accompany her on the ticket is days away.

"I am running. I am the leader of the Democratic Party. No one is pushing me out." These were the words of President Joe Biden during a recent phone call with his staffers, according to The Associated Press. Biden's strong statement came amid increasing calls for him to step aside as the presumptive Democratic nominee following a poor performance in his debate against Donald Trump.

So while it seems that Biden will indeed be the Democratic Party's nominee this November, what would happen if the president changed his mind? Here are some Democrats who could potentially replace him at the top of the ticket. 

Kamala Harris

The first female vice president seems like an obvious choice to try and become the first female president. A recent CNN/SSRS poll found that Kamala Harris trailed Trump by only two points in a hypothetical matchup, while Biden trailed Trump by six points. 

Despite frequent criticism, Harris is "emerging as an indispensable surrogate and defender, and maybe even successor," said Vox, and has been "able to showcase her value on the campaign trail." However, she would still need to win a majority of delegates, as "party rules give the vice president no major mechanical benefit over other candidates," said NBC News. 

Gavin Newsom

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has long been working to raise his national profile and is frequently cited as a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2028. He could get his chance earlier, though, if Biden were to decide to drop out. 

The governor is no stranger to domestic and foreign policy experience. Newsom has "popped up in Tel Aviv and Beijing, meeting with world leaders [and] promoting his climate agenda," said The Washington Post, and last year he "toured Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas to push back against what he describes as 'the rollback of progress' on civil, women's and LBGTQ+ rights." 

J.B. Pritzker 

He's not as well known on the national stage as Newsom, but Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker could end up being just as influential in the coming months. Pritzker has been the governor of Illinois for five years and notably helped helm the state's Covid-19 response. 

For now, the billionaire Pritzker is a "surrogate for the Biden campaign, but his name has been mentioned as an emergency replacement" for the president, said Axios. He has gone head-to-head with Trump online in recent months and leads a nonprofit group to fund abortion rights ballot measures.

Gretchen Whitmer

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer likely has the second-largest profile nationally among Democratic governors and is already a co-chair of Biden's campaign. So it's no surprise that her name is being floated to take over the ticket.

Whitmer leads a "critical swing state" and has "championed gun safety legislation, electric car manufacturing and abortion rights," said NPR. Perhaps none of Biden's potential replacements have "been the recipient of more wish-casting among despairing Democrats than the second-term Michigan governor," said Politico, though Whitmer herself, like Newsom, has pushed back against these calls.

Pete Buttigieg

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg is one of the more recognizable Cabinet secretaries and has worked in tandem with Biden throughout his first term. Buttigieg also has campaign experience, having run for president in 2020. 

Buttigieg, a Navy veteran and the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, would shatter a significant barrier as the first openly gay U.S. president. But "despite his credentials, the Data for Progress poll shows Buttigieg trailing Trump if he were to replace Biden on the Democratic ticket," said Newsweek.

Josh Shapiro

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is another state leader with a growing national profile. He also has experience against MAGA-backed candidates, as Shapiro beat Trump-endorsed conspiracy theorist Doug Mastriano in a landslide to become governor. Shapiro would also break a major barrier as the first Jewish president. 

There is a "case to be made for Josh," Biden fundraiser Alan Kessler said to The Philadelphia Inquirer, because "you don't win in November without winning Pennsylvania." Even so, Shapiro remains "light years away from the top of the 2024 presidential ballot," and his candidacy doesn't "have any basis in reality," said Kessler.

Talk has been swirling since last week's presidential debate that the Democratic Party may seek to replace President Joe Biden on its 2024 presidential ticket, and one name pundits have consistently put forward is California Gov. Gavin Newsom. The 56-year-old has led the Golden State since 2019 and has raised his national profile considerably over the last few years. 

But even if Biden doesn't drop out of this November's race, Newsom is unlikely to disappear from the national stage; the governor has long been groomed as a rising face of the party and could emerge as the frontrunner to be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2028. Where did Newsom get his start, how has he run California and what are his future ambitions?

Newsom's beginnings and governorship

Gavin Newsom was born in San Francisco in 1967. His father was a state appeals court judge, giving Newsom an early interest in politics. He "received a partial baseball scholarship from Santa Clara University, where he graduated in 1989 with a degree in political science," according to Newsom's gubernatorial biography. 

Newsom then made his way up the totem pole in San Francisco politics throughout the 1990s. In 2003, he was elected the city's mayor, serving until 2011. Newsom then immediately jumped into statewide politics, serving as California's lieutenant governor. He was elected the 40th governor of California in 2018, beating his Republican challenger by nearly three million votes, and was reelected in 2022. 

As governor, Newsom has "led a historic transformation of the state's behavioral health care system, awarded over $267 million to 55 cities and counties to combat and increase prosecutions of organized retail crime, launched the Reproductive Freedom Alliance and built new climate partnerships across the globe," according to a press release from the governor's office. But his tenure has also been controversial; Newsom faced a recall vote in 2021 following "mask mandates, shuttered schools, sluggish vaccine rollouts" and increased crime and homelessness in California, said CalMatters. However, the governor was able to fend off this recall attempt by a large margin. 

Newsom's future

For all of the talk of replacing Biden, that doesn't appear to be a likely scenario. The president has said he intends to stay in the race, and Democrats "aren't going to turn our backs because of one performance. What kind of party does that?" Newsom said after Biden's debate. If Biden were to change his mind and drop out, Newsom would need to win enough delegates at the brokered Democratic National Convention this summer.  

But this doesn't mean that Democrats aren't still high on Newsom's prospects in 2028, and the governor has been traversing the U.S. and abroad raising his profile. In 2023, he "toured Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas to push back against what he describes as 'the rollback of progress' on civil, women's and LBGTQ+ rights in red states," said The Washington Post. He also "popped up in Tel Aviv and Beijing, meeting with world leaders [and] promoting his climate agenda."

While "other potential White House aspirants are quietly laying the groundwork for the future, the second-term governor has been more of an attention-seeking missile," said the Post. Newsom has been "darting across the country and the world stage as he courts a broad array of Democratic constituencies who could be helpful in a future presidential run." 

Perhaps most notably, this includes a long-running feud with a formerly shining GOP star: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The pair have sparred numerous times over each other's running of their states, and in 2023 participated in a feisty debate with each other. That matchup, perhaps a preview of what the California governor would be like during a presidential campaign, "revealed a new side of Newsom — who'd never participated in such a high-profile debate since he governs a deep-blue state," said Politico. It also presented a "kind of fantasy for an alternate world many yearn for — a 2000s-era throwback."

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) tweeted Monday that his state will not be doing business with Walgreens after the company announced it would not distribute abortion pills in some GOP-led states where abortion is still legal, Reuters reports. The drugstore's announcement came after Republican attorneys general warned Walgreens "of risking breaking the law if it distributed the pills," Reuters summarizes.

Newsom wrote that California would not work with Walgreens or "any company that cowers to the extremists and puts women's lives at risk." A spokesperson for Newsom told Reuters that "all relationships" between the company and California are under review, though they declined to explain how the pair's business relationship might change.

Last month Walgreens responded to the legal threats from Republican state leaders by committing to not selling the pills in 20 states, including Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, and Montana, where abortion medications are legal, per sexual rights research group The Guttmacher Institute.

That said, an early March statement from Walgreens is "at odds" with that commitment, The Washington Post writes. In the statement, the company says that it "plans to dispense Mifepristone in any jurisdiction where it is legally permissible to do so."

"Once we are certified by the FDA, we will dispense this medication consistent with federal and state laws," the statement continues.

In January, the Food and Drug Administration changed regulations to allow retail pharmacies to dispense Mifepristone, an abortion pill, as long as it was prescribed by a certified health care provider prescribed it and sold by a certified pharmacy. But when "leading chains like Walgreens, CVS, and Rite Aid announced they would apply for certification to sell mifepristone, the pushback was swift," says the Post. In addition to the warning letters from GOP leaders, anti-abortion protestors also crashed a Walgreens shareholder meeting.

The company is still seeking certification and therefore does not carry Mifepristone at this time.

The 2024 presidential election is still more than two years away, but it's not a sure thing that we'll see a rematch of Joe Biden versus Donald Trump. Biden leads a Democratic Party disappointed in his failure to deliver a forceful response to the Supreme Court's ruling overturning abortion rights, and Trump is vulnerable to Republican conservatives who love his "America first" agenda but would like to move on without all of the former president's scandalous baggage.

Who might step forward to replace them on the ballots? Governors, of course. For a long stretch of the late 20th century, experience as the chief executive of a state was the surest path to the White House: Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush all served as governors. Can the nation's statehouses provide a platform for America's next president? Here are four possibilities.

The Fox News favorite: Ron DeSantis

The Florida Republican is clearly positioning himself to lead the GOP if Trump decides not to run, and maybe even if he does. "DeSantis is building a campaign to take on Trump. And he can win," Jonathan Chait writes at New York, pointing to a recent New Hampshire poll that has DeSantis winning a primary battle in that state by a narrow two-point margin. The most striking aspect of that poll is that DeSantis leads Trump by double-digit large margins among Fox News viewers and voters who listen to conservative talk radio. That's because the conservative media establishment — not just Fox, but outlets like National Review and American Greatness — have pushed DeSantis to the front of the pack by featuring him prominently in their coverage. Chait's conclusion: "Republicans who consume conservative media are getting the message."

DeSantis has positioned himself at the head of the pack by making Florida a laboratory for right-wing governance: He's signed laws forbidding school districts from requiring masks to prevent the spread of COVID, banning discussion of sexuality in classrooms and stripping Disney of its tax advantages for opposing the classroom law. "DeSantis has remade the political landscape in Florida," Dexter Filkins wrote in a recent New Yorker profile. "It seems conceivable that he could attempt something similar on a national level."

The angry Democrat: Gavin Newsom

California's governor easily survived a recall election last year and, in the wake of the Supreme Court's abortion ruling, has offered himself as the man to lead the Democratic Party into battle. "Newsom is now planning to do what he demanded of fellow Democrats: directly engage with Republicans in those culture wars," Christopher Cadelago and David Siders write for Politico. While his prominence in the latest hot-button debates has prompted presidential speculation, observers say he wouldn't challenge Biden in a primary, and would be hesitant to take on Vice President Kamala Harris — a California ally — if she decided to run. But that comes with a caveat: "If her candidacy appeared weak, it would not be unthinkable" for Newsom to run.

Despite his protestations, Newsom just ran an ad on Fox News criticizing DeSantis. That's not the kind of thing a person who isn't running for president does. But there are questions about what kind of appeal a deep-blue Californian would have in red and purple states. "All three of the country's Californian presidents — Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan — were Republicans," Blake Hounshell points out in The New York Times. "No Democrat from California has ever been elected to the Oval Office."

The fresh face: Glenn Youngkin

Wait. Wasn't Virginia's Republican governor elected just last year? Yes, that's true, but it's also true that Virginia term-limits its governors to a single term — which means Youngkin is already thinking about his next job. Glenn Youngkin "is nowhere close to announcing his candidacy. He's just in the megadonor meeting stage, trying to better read the room," Dan Primack writes for Axios. "But his underdog victory in Virginia was emboldening, and there's a pragmatic case for seeking higher office before establishing too much of a record in lower office (see Obama, Barack)."

Youngkin's appeal might be his ability to reach beyond the GOP's base. During his gubernatorial run, "Youngkin managed to excite the deep-red base without alienating moderate suburbanites," Laura Vozzella and Gregory S. Schneider write for The Washington Post. His ability to appeal to Trump voters without resorting to Trumpist bombast might be a winner on the national level, too: "Republicans pointed to his win as a template for a way forward from the Trump presidency." But he'll soon find out if GOP donors decide to put their money behind that gamble.

The billionaire: J.B. Pritzker

The Democratic governor of Illinois has attracted attention for a couple of reasons. First, he made a trip to New Hampshire in June to give a speech to Dems in that state — just days before the gubernatorial primary election in his own state. Second, he made headlines around the same time for suggesting that Biden might face a primary challenge in 2024. "That's not something I'm encouraging, but it's certainly possible," he told NBC News. "We've seen it in the past." Democrats tout his policy accomplishments as governor, Tina Sfondeles reports for the Chicago Sun-Times, including "legalizing cannabis, raising the minimum wage, expanding voting rights, reforming criminal justice and enshrining reproductive rights."

A third factor in the presidential speculation: Pritzker has deep pockets — Forbes estimates his net worth at $3.6 billion, money that comes from his former career running a private equity firm, as well as his status as an heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune. He's used that money freely in his gubernatorial campaigns. "Which means that if Pritzker wants to run against Biden in 2024," Chris Cillizza writes for CNN, "he won't lose for a lack of funds."

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) visited a stretch of Union Pacific railroad tracks in Los Angeles on Thursday and helped clean up the littered packaging from thousands of goods stolen from shipping containers. Video of the debris-strewn tracks gained national attention last week, prompting outrage and confusion over how such rampant pillaging could happen in the heart of one of America's largest cities.

"The images looked like a Third World country," Newsom told reporters. "What you saw here in the last week is just not acceptable. So, I took off the suit and tie and said I'm coming because I couldn't take it. I can't turn on the news anymore. What the hell is going on?"

What's going on, experts tell the Los Angeles Times, is that organized crime rings and petty bandits have found a way to exploit a weak link in the supply chain. Trains loaded with goods ordered online often have to wait to enter congested freight yards, and "a train at rest is a train at risk," said Keith Lewis at cargo theft tracker CargoNet.

Union Pacific, in charge of security along its tracks, has also slashed its private police force, former employees and police tell the Times. "Union Pacific from Yuma, Arizona, to L.A. has six people patrolling," said Los Angeles Police Capt. German Hurtado, whose precinct inclues the theft-plagued tracks. "It is like digging sand at the beach."

Union Pacific, a publicly traded company based in Omaha, "is worth $155 billion and reported record profits on Thursday," the Times notes. "The other major railroad operator, BNSF, said it has not seen the same level of theft around its facilities."

Union Pacific would not say how many agents it has, but it did say thefts have jumped 160 percent since December 2020. Various law enforcement agencies arrested 122 people along Union Pacific tracks from February to December 2021, the Times reports, citing LAPD data. Newsom put the number of arrests at 280 and said the thieves and people who fence the stolen goods "need to be held to account."

Robert Vega, who lives near the tracks, told the Times he noticed a sharp spike in thefts about seven months ago, as the police presence waned. On any Friday night, "you could see sparks flying" as thieves cut the locks, he said. "I can come out at night and there are trucks loading up. It's insane."

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Thursday denied parole for Sirhan Sirhan, the 77-year-old man convicted in 1969 of murdering Robert F. Kennedy.

"Mr. Sirhan's assassination of Sen. Kennedy is among the most notorious crimes in American history," Newsom said in a statement. "After decades in prison, he has failed to address the deficiencies that led him to assassinate Sen. Kennedy. Mr. Sirhan lacks the insight that would prevent him from making the same type of dangerous decisions he made in the past."

In an opinion piece published Thursday afternoon in the Los Angeles Times, Newsom further explained that he carefully reviewed the case and examined historical records, and determined that Sirhan has "not developed the accountability and insight required to support his safe release into the community." Sirhan is "a potent symbol of political violence," Newsom wrote, and Kennedy's assassination "not only changed the course of this nation and robbed the world of a promising young leader, it also left his 11 children without a father and his wife without a husband. Kennedy's family bears his loss every day."

Kennedy was shot and killed in June 1968 at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, shortly after he won California's Democratic presidential primary. Sirhan, a Palestinian immigrant, claimed that he didn't remember opening fire. He was originally sentenced to death, but this was commuted to life in prison when California briefly outlawed capital punishment in 1972.

A two-person state parole panel recommended in August that Sirhan receive parole. While two of Kennedy's children said they supported his release, six others stated that they were upset by the recommendation.

It wasn't hard to see this coming: California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday threatened to use Texas' unusual abortion law as a model for new gun restrictions in his own state.

"SCOTUS is letting private citizens in Texas sue to stop abortion?! If that's the precedent then we'll let Californians sue those who put ghost guns and assault weapons on our streets," Newsom, a Democrat, tweeted after the Supreme Court's decision on Friday to let the law remain in effect while abortion providers bring court challenges. "If TX can ban abortion and endanger lives, CA can ban deadly weapons of war and save lives."

Newsom's anger should be understandable, even if you're against abortion. The Texas law's enforcement mechanism — which encourages random private citizens to sue abortion providers in civil courts — is novel, alarming, and unjust. If the law is ultimately allowed to stand, it's likely that blue states will continue to be tempted to match red states with similar laws aimed at lefty hobbyhorses.

That would be disastrous, for several reasons.

Ideally, civil courts exist to fairly arbitrate and resolve disputes between citizens — usually a case in which one or both litigants has suffered some kind of injury or loss. The Texas law does something different: It uses those courts to create a new class of conflict, one in which a plaintiff is allowed to sue even if they have no relationship whatsoever to the persons either providing or receiving care. (Indeed, the first Texas lawsuit was brought by a former lawyer from Arkansas, more or less because he could.)

The law invites Americans to get up in each other's business. So, presumably, would Newsom's anti-gun law, as well as any other similar laws that both Republican- and Democratic-led states might pass. That's probably unwise at any point in history. At this particular moment, with partisans on both sides so bitterly pitted against each other and with democracy itself seemingly in the balance, such laws would throw kindling on the fire. Instead of trying to resolve our political differences through normal processes and debate — a frustrating slog that often can produce results we hate — Americans would be unleashed to simply sue each other over their political differences, to try to dominate the disagreeable and deplorable into bankruptcy and ruin. Who wants to live in a country like that?

But the proliferation of Texas-style laws wouldn't just pit citizen against citizen: They would probably also serve as a crippling blow to the already shaky legitimacy of the courts. That legitimacy relies, in part, on the courts being seen as fair and reasonably neutral. It's why judges sometimes recuse themselves in cases where they're seen to have a conflict of interest, and why Supreme Court justices have argued so vociferously and unconvincingly in recent months that their job isn't political. (It is, and few people believe otherwise, but for now the fiction must be preserved.)

The Texas law mocks the ideal of impartiality by putting a thumb on the scale for pro-life litigants — among other provisions, it allows plaintiffs to recover attorney's fees if they win their lawsuits, but not the abortion providers who would be defending those suits. "These provisions are considerable departures from the norm in Texas courts and in most courts across the Nation," Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent from the court's Friday ruling. If such procedural trickery leads Americans to believe they can't get a fair deal in the courts, the judicial system will take a nasty hit — and it will be entirely deserved.

Even if the courts somehow manage to survive such a process, it's not clear the country could. America has 50 states, each with a different set of laws that reflect the differing values, priorities, and powers of their voters and leaders: Just ask, say, any Philadelphian who has crossed the Delaware River to New Jersey to avoid dealing with Pennsylvania's weird liquor laws. Those differences can be harmless, if inconvenient. They're mostly accommodated. As Newsom's rhetoric suggests, Texas-style laws could well harden the political divisions between red states and blue states, with radical differences in legal regimes and understandings of civil rights feeding the anger between the two. We've seen how that can work out.

The Texas abortion law is terrible all on its own. Now imagine that kind of law, about all kinds of issues, being passed in states across the country.

I continue to suspect and hope that the law's provisions are so outrageous — for reasons that have nothing to do with abortion — that even a Supreme Court composed mostly of pro-life conservatives will strike it down. The future of abortion rights won't be resolved in Texas. And even if they agree with the ends, justices must understand that the means are too destructive. That would still be the case in the service of an ostensibly good cause like reducing gun violence.

Despite the anger that Newsom and so many pro-choice people feel right now, it's not a model that Democrats should want to replicate — especially as a form of revenge.