The public is souring on Gov. Gavin Newsom and President Joe Biden. Here’s why | Opinion
There are ominous signs for both California Gov. Gavin Newsom and President Joe Biden that voters are rating them based on their personal pocketbooks and not the leaders’ policies and efforts. That spells trouble for both of their futures.
California is souring on Newsom: His approval rating has plummeted this year, from a 55% positive rating in February down to only 44% earlier this month.
Granted, the slip comes just after his spring campaigning in southern states and his recent trip to China, ventures that were controversial to some. But that’s just Gavin being Gavin. He was no cloistered hermit when he had the stamp of approval of most Californians at the beginning of the year.
What is worsening is California’s affordability crisis.
Numerically, there is no more important Democratic stronghold than Los Angeles County, home of nearly 10 million Californians. There, only 11% of families can afford a median-priced home.
Sacramento County is more affordable, but not by much. Only 23% of Sacramento County families can afford a median-priced home in this market. And locals are getting grouchier and grouchier.
According to a recent poll of likely Sacramento County voters, 59% said that the county is heading down the wrong track. In 2020, only 40% felt that way.
Gasoline, meanwhile, has been cheaper in Hawaii than in California. The governor has expressed outrage at the profits of oil companies and has supported litigation against them for allegedly hiding oil’s contribution to climate change. Yet his words have proven to be of little tonic to the paying public.
Biden is in the same boat. A recent New York Times survey showed the president now trailing Republican Donald Trump in several swing states. One reason cited by respondents was their belief that Trump is better at handling the economy than Biden.
A renowned numbers cruncher, Karen Petrou of Federal Financial Analytics, recently explained why in The Times: Wage growth by Americans grew faster than inflation for most of Trump’s years. The opposite began happening under Biden after the Ukraine war led to higher global energy prices.
The nation’s financial sentiment was positive under Trump, with surveys consistently finding a higher percentage saying they are better off than being worse off. That sentiment began to flip in 2022 and the trend is worsening. The bottom 50% of the nation owns only 2.5% of the wealth, and they are not happy about it.
There is plenty of data to support the fact that Biden and the Federal Reserve have done an admirable job taming inflation in a way that did not kill the economy, with a 4.9% gain in the gross domestic product last month as proof. But numbers matter only so much. What people feel in the gut matters more.
If voters in California and the nation look beyond their pocketbooks and rate their leaders based on policies and politics, whether it is climate change or international diplomacy, the growing unpopularity facing both Newsom and Biden could change. But for that to happen, the two leaders must overcome a public blaming its leaders for their economic anxiety.
This story was originally published November 27, 2023 at 5:00 AM with the headline "The public is souring on Gov. Gavin Newsom and President Joe Biden. Here’s why | Opinion."