California Governor Gavin Newsom wants taxpayers to spend $19 million not on fixing the state’s problems, but on trying to improve the way the rest of the country sees them.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the Newsom administration is soliciting bids for a statewide “California Brand Campaign” aimed at dispelling what officials call “myths driven by misinformation and political rhetoric.”
The campaign would run through the closing months of Newsom’s term. The Times reported that the contract would be administered through the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development, and that roughly two-thirds of the money would go toward paid advertising and media placements.
It’s not uncommon for states to spend tax dollars promoting tourism or economic development. Such expenditures often have a positive return on investment, benefitting the overall economy. But Newsom’s initiative appears to be something different entirely in that it is explicitly aimed at countering “attacks from President Trump and conservative media outlets.”
In other words, rather than confront the failures of Democrat governance or take accountability for his own failures, Newsom wants taxpayers to cover them up through clever slogans and commercials.
Notably, the pro-California PR campaign comes as Newsom weighs a 2028 presidential bid. The latest RealClearPolitics average shows the 58-year-old trailing former Vice President Kamala Harris in early polling for the Democrat nomination.
If Newsom does indeed launch a bid for president, as is widely expected, his leadership of the country’s richest and most populous state will come under even more scrutiny than it already has. Since he took office in 2019, the Golden State has become a national symbol of disastrous progressive overreach and rampant mismanagement – something that may make Newsom unpalatable even to many Democrat primary voters.
The problem for Newsom, however, is that he appears to view California’s bad reputation as a superficial image problem rather than a deeper policy problem.
While Newsom can accuse President Trump and Republicans of unfairly bashing California all he wants, the numbers don’t lie. From 2020 to 2025, California saw the second-largest population decline of any state in the country, losing 200,000 residents. Only New York lost more, at 201,000. California also ranks in the bottom five states for tax competitiveness, has by far the most expensive gas prices, has the worst affordability of any state, and is in the bottom five states in housing affordability – and that’s just a start.
Newsom can try to spin that data, but the reality is that his own residents are fleeing his state in droves, while scores of companies relocate to more tax-friendly states. He also can’t escape major failures of his two terms, like spending more than $15 billion on a high-speed rail project that is years behind schedule and hasn’t laid a single mile of track, or spending more than $25 billion on homelessness, only to see the state’s homeless population increase.
In a healthy political system, bad press should be a signal to political leaders that they need to revisit a policy, improve performance, or respond to legitimate public frustration. Under Newsom, the impulse appears to be the opposite. If voters think California is unaffordable, disorderly, overregulated, or poorly governed, the administration’s answer is to spend public money “setting the record straight,” as Newsom spokesperson Tara Gallegos put it.
The timing makes the whole thing worse. The Times noted that the campaign would launch during a period of financial uncertainty, with Newsom’s January budget projecting a roughly $3 billion deficit in the next fiscal year. California’s own official budget summary likewise warns of projected structural operating deficits in the out-years and emphasizes the need to tighten spending – undoubtedly yet another failure that Newsom’s propaganda campaign will attempt to explain away.
Ultimately, the initiative could end up being yet another black eye for Newsom and perhaps even sink his presidential ambitions. As a recent clash on social media between Newsom and Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves showed, it is quite embarrassing to be called out on the facts publicly.
In response to a profanity-laced post from Newsom on X about his supposed dyslexia and educational achievement for black students, Reeves pointed out that “a black student in Mississippi is 2.5X more likely to read proficiently by 4th grade than if he or she lived in California.”
“We would be happy to send one of our reading coaches to assist you,” Reeves said, poking fun at Newsom. “Learning is a lifelong journey, and you might achieve some of the gains that our black fourth graders have.”
Newsom then responded with attacks on Mississippi’s crime rates, effectively conceding the point – no amount of spin could hide the embarrassing fact that Mississippi under conservative leadership has seen a dramatic surge in positive educational outcomes, while California students have performed worse and worse under Newsom.
When a government spends public money polishing its image instead of correcting visible failures, it is acting on the same logic seen in failing regimes everywhere: reality has become politically damaging, so construct a more flattering illusion.
California does not need a brand consultant. It needs competent governance. If Gavin Newsom wants the country to think better of California, the obvious solution is not to buy more ads, but to produce better results.
Sarah Katherine Sisk is a proud Hillsdale College alumna and a master’s student in economics at George Mason University. You can follow her on X @SKSisk76.
