The Brief

Gov. Gavin Newsom is in his populism era.

He started the year vowing to stop corporate investors from buying up large tracts of single-family homes, a desire shared by both socialists and President Donald Trump.

Last month, after he was unable to keep a proposal to tax California billionaires from appearing on voters’ ballots, he tried to get ahead of the debate by pitching nationwide higher taxes on the wealthy.

Last week, he spoke to a crowd of national Latino policymakers about the need to “democratize our economy” in the face of artificial intelligence-driven job losses.

Newsom’s populist appeals come as he prepares to leave office and looks toward an expected 2028 presidential campaign in which widespread anxiety about wealth inequality and the effects of AI on the economy will feature prominently.

“The old bargain is dead, and AI is going to finish it off,” he said last week in Los Angeles, of the concept that Americans could support families with working-class jobs. “We need to wake up to that foundational reality.”

The posture is new territory for Newsom, who is not a natural populist and who maintains his longstanding relationships with wealthy tech donors who have railed against the proposed billionaire tax, Proposition 40.

As governor, he’s kept his image as a liberal who favors progressive income taxes and expanding the social safety net without teetering too far into the overtly redistributive politics of democratic socialists. He eschewed most new tax proposals and stood by several state corporate tax benefits that progressives have longed to scrap.

By focusing on AI-driven inequality now, Newsom is choosing a popular issue to define his expected 2028 run. But it’s not yet clear whether voters will buy his solution.

“Newsom is balancing two pressures,” said Kevin Liao, a Democratic strategist who worked on billionaire Tom Steyer’s “tax the rich” gubernatorial campaign this year. “There’s a desire to meet the demands of his constituents and the current appetite to be against billionaires, and to address the massive wealth inequality in the state and the country, with the cold political reality that much of his career and presumably his future ambitions have also been built on the financial support from a lot of wealthy folks in Silicon Valley.”

Four tax measures on the California ballot

Even as he adopts a more progressive posture while appearing in other states, Newsom is walking a fine line back home, where his vocal opposition to California’s billionaire tax proposal could confuse voters staring at multiple tax measures on the November ballot.

Proposition 3, sponsored by the California Teachers Association, is also a tax on the rich: It would make permanent the state’s higher income tax rates for the top 2% of earners. That money goes into the state general fund, 40% of which pays for schools.

Voters approved those rates temporarily in 2012 at the behest of then-Gov. Jerry Brown, and extended them again in 2016. If they expire as planned in 2030, the state stands to lose between $5 and $15 billion a year in revenue.

Early polling shows that measure is popular, but CTA President David Goldberg acknowledged it will be tricky to campaign in favor of it with another tax on the ballot. The union opposes the billionaire tax because it would not send the same proportion of its revenues to schools, instead prioritizing healthcare.

A large banner hangs at a campaign event for a proposed billionaire tax in Los Angeles on Feb. 18, 2026.

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Jae C. Hong

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AP Photo

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Voters will also be asked to weigh in on three other tax-related ballot measures: two backed by tech billionaires designed to undercut the billionaire tax, and one by an anti-tax advocacy group that would make it harder for cities to raise local taxes.

“It’s always hard when you have a bunch of things” on the ballot, Goldberg said. “It is going to mean that we have to really go out there and make the case for this.”

Asked whether his opposition to Prop. 40 could hinder public support for Prop. 3, Newsom told reporters recently: “I hope that’s not the case. … It’s a legitimate question.”

How Newsom wants to be seen

For years, Newsom has defended California on Fox News and on social media against a national reputation that it is over taxed, often arguing that lower- and middle-income families pay more in taxes to live in states like Florida and Texas. The basis of his claim is a study from the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy that found Florida and Texas rely heavily on property and sales taxes, which effectively take a greater share of those households’ earnings than those of the wealthiest. The states do not tax personal income.

“He taxes low-income workers more than we tax millionaires and billionaires in the state of California,” Newsom said of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, during a 2023 debate hosted by Fox’s Sean Hannity.

Critics say those arguments don’t take into account the lower costs of goods and property in other states.

“California is a high-tax state,” said Jared Walczak, a senior fellow at the right-leaning Tax Foundation. “A state like California can get away with higher rates than some other states because the state has so much to offer. … It doesn’t mean there isn’t a tipping point.”

Now nearing the end of his term, Newsom is touting all the progressive programs California’s tax system has made possible, including universal school meals and subsidized child care.

At the same time, Newsom often chides more left-wing colleagues in the Legislature “not to be profligate” with public spending. He touts that he’s never raised taxes in his eight years as governor, though critics may quibble over limiting businesses’ tax deductions or a law he signed this month raising a tax on health insurance plans.

When Democratic lawmakers pushed to raise new revenue in the face of budget deficits the last three years, he quickly quashed the idea.

“We have among the highest tax rates in the United States of America for high-wage earners, we have among the highest tax rates … for corporate taxes,” he said in 2024. “I feel strongly that we have to live within our means.”

This year, some Democrats insisted on a proposal to tax corporations whose workers earn so little that they qualify for public healthcare; Newsom would agree only for the state to study the idea.

‘He’s never banged this drum’ 

He’s taken a similar stance with the state billionaire tax. Along with a cadre of Democratic allies like Planned Parenthood, he argues that billionaires could easily move their assets to another state — as some, like Google co-founder Sergey Brin, have done with their homes and businesses. Early polling shows a slim majority of Californians support the measure.

Newsom pressured SEIU United Healthcare Workers West to drop the measure in exchange for concessions, but when he didn’t succeed, he pivoted to proposing his own federal billionaire’s tax, taking a page from progressives like Elizabeth Warren.

He’s calling for a minimum tax rate on anyone making more than $100 million, undoing corporate tax cuts that President Trump and Congress approved in 2017, boosting inheritance taxes and closing loopholes used by the wealthy to borrow from unrealized capital gains without paying income taxes.

Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a news conference in Hayward on March 2, 2026.

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Manuel Orbegozo

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CalMatters

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Without getting into details, he also said he supports the idea of a public fund using AI-derived wealth to support displaced workers.

Rob Stutzman, a Sacramento Republican strategist, said Newsom risks being seen as inauthentic in a primary campaign.

“He’s never banged this drum … he’s a big spender but not a big taxer,” Stutzman said. “This whole jiu-jitsu he has to do to oppose the (billionaire) tax in his state and then support it federally, it doesn’t sound as authentic as others might sound on the soapbox at the Iowa State Fair.”

Voters are anxious about AI

The call for sharing wealth also opens doors for anti-tax attacks from the right, which is eager to link a wide swath of Democratic policies to communism.

“Most Democrats have the foresight to tie their tax hikes to a far-left policy, but Newsom just wants to take your money because he wants to take your money,” Republican National Committee spokesperson Nicholas Poche said in an emailed statement, criticizing Newsom for trying to “have it both ways with progressives and establishment Democrats.”

But political strategists agree that framing tax proposals as a response to AI anxiety is appealing across the ideological spectrum.

“A wealth tax is more simplistic and falling along ideological lines,” Liao said. “If we’re talking about broad societal change, it is much more than wealth redistribution. It is something that’s going to touch every single person.”

More than half of Americans worry the technology will leave someone in their household jobless; a growing sense of precarity has seized workers from customer service representatives to Silicon Valley’s own elites. Meanwhile, the upcoming public offerings of AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are expected to turbocharge the nation’s already unequal distribution of wealth. The top 10% of the country owns nearly 70% of its wealth, and the bottom half own just 2.5%.

Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, known as a moderate Democrat, is floating more aggressive regulations on the technology as he weighs a run for president and is open to basic income payments for displaced workers. Progressive standard-bearer U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders is proposing a national sovereign wealth fund paid for with a 50% tax on AI companies that would directly pay Americans, making the nation essentially a part owner of AI.

Even Vice President J.D. Vance is considering the issue, telling a podcaster last month that his biggest concern about AI is not mass unemployment but the breakup of “social harmony” that comes with increasing inequality.

“If you make rich people way richer, you are going to have significant problems,” he said. “That is one of the consequences that I see from AI.”

He added that Trump is generally supportive of Sanders’ idea, though the president also has developed cozy ties with many tech leaders during his second term.

But many progressives are holding their applause for Newsom for now. Lorena Gonzalez, leader of the California Labor Federation, said she’s pleased he is taking on AI-driven inequality, but unions still want the state to curb AI in workplaces and stop mass displacement of workers. Newsom has been reluctant to back aggressive regulation or bans on the technology.

Flanked by labor leaders in important presidential primary states earlier this year, Gonzalez warned the governor that unions could withhold their political support if Newsom does not rein in use of the technology.

“It’s not enough to say, ‘I feel your pain,’” Gonzalez said. “We don’t think that catastrophic job loss is inevitable.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Progressive Jane Kim, one of two Democratic candidates for California insurance commissioner, is betting that voters are as hungry for change as those who powered Zohran Mamdani into New York City's mayor's office and Abdul El-Sayed into Michigan's U.S. Senate race after the Democratic Party endorsed her rival, state Sen. Ben Allen.

How it plays out could rest on how engaged voters will be about an elected position they may not know much about; how much weight disillusioned voters give to the state party's endorsement; and how much they respond to ads and mailers that they’ll be bombarded with ahead of the November election.

Kim, a former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, is squaring off against Allen to become the regulator of the state’s massive insurance market. Kim wants to establish state-run natural disaster insurance for all and expand low-cost auto insurance to all California drivers, in line with well-known progressive ideas like Medicare for All. Allen wants to stabilize and improve the private insurance market after years of availability and affordability problems largely driven by increased wildfire risk and massive, deadly wildfires.

Kim’s message has struck a chord with many Californians: She got the most votes, more than 27%, among the 11 candidates on the ballot in the June primary. Allen came in second with more than 19%.

“(Kim and Allen are) a microcosm of the fracture going on in the Democratic Party across the country,” said Shauhin Talesh, a law professor at UC Irvine whose expertise includes insurance and consumer protection. “They both think insurance companies should be regulated. The question: How aggressively should California intervene and what role should the government claim?”

Allen recently secured the California Democratic Party’s endorsement, which Talesh said wasn’t surprising because the senator is seen as a more “traditional” candidate.

Kim, whose accomplishments include securing free community college for San Francisco residents and the state’s first $15 minimum wage, was the director of the California Working Families Party, a party within the Democratic umbrella that supports progressive policies including raising the minimum wage. She is backed by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, on whose presidential campaign she worked in 2020.

“Is this going to become another situation where people are speaking with their votes (and going against the establishment)?” Talesh asked. “At what point does Democratic Party recognize it?”

But Kim isn’t just lacking the state party’s endorsement. The insurance industry is, not surprisingly, leery of her plans to have the state play a greater role in insurance. So are some consumer advocacy groups such as Consumer Watchdog, whose founder wrote the ballot initiative that became the state’s insurance law.

Jamie Court, president of the group, warned that a state-run natural disaster insurance fund — which Kim says would be funded by portions of premiums policyholders pay to their insurance companies — would require tens of billions of dollars to start, which he said could be wiped out by one catastrophic fire.

Kim has said that while her proposal would require further study, her critics fail to address that there needs to be more discussion and “public engagement to reform the system.”

“I don’t think just allowing the insurance industry to raise rates is the solution,” she told CalMatters in an interview. “People will lose their homes or go uninsured. And that will wreck the economy.”

Allen told CalMatters that his opponent’s proposal “is effectively a massive subsidy for those who are rich” because their homes will cost more to replace after a fire.

Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, said Kim’s message is resonating with Californians because of “a populist wave, not a progressive wave” nationwide.

He noted that primary results showed Kim did well in historically conservative areas such as the Inland Empire and the Central Valley, as well as in Los Angeles County — which includes Allen’s district.

Considering those results, Jorge Contreras, California director of the Working Families Party, called the state Democratic Party’s endorsement of Allen “out of touch.”

Some delegates for Kim complained their votes did not seem to be counted; Kim called for a recount.

“The votes were counted,” said Robin Swanson, spokesperson for the party. “And recounted. The result was the same.”

Insurance Commissioner candidate Ben Allen delivers remarks during the California Democratic Party convention at Moscone Center in San Francisco on Feb. 21, 2026.

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Yalonda M. James

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San Francisco Chronicle via AP

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Contreras noted that the next day, the California Labor Federation endorsed Kim.

Not everyone buys the "moderate" label being pinned on Allen — including at least one of his own supporters.

“Ben is a progressive by any standard,” said RL Miller, former chair of the California Democratic Party’s Environmental Caucus who also runs a political action committee, Climate Hawks. The group doesn’t endorse in California races, but Miller said she personally endorsed Allen.

“He’s stood with us and authored landmark climate bills over the years,” Miller said, adding that the “tribal nature of Democratic politics these days” might be the reason Allen is being seen as the more moderate candidate.

Allen has a strong track record on the environment, including his work on Proposition 4, the $10 billion bond measure approved by voters in 2024, which includes funding for wildfire prevention. He also authored the law that decreases the use of single-use plastics.

Allen’s votes have also been more aligned with some of the same groups now supporting Kim, including the California Labor Federation. The senator’s record has generally not aligned with business interests, according to CalMatters’ Digital Democracy database.

Though both candidates have pledged not to take money from the insurance industry, Contreras said it’s important to follow the money in this race.

Business groups spent $1.5 million to oppose Kim’s primary campaign, mostly from JOBSPAC, a coalition of employers sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce, according to Digital Democracy.

Meanwhile, Contreras said “Ben Allen has taken crypto money, which came in big for him at the end.” Campaign finance records show billionaire Chris Larsen, co-founder of crypto company Ripple, in May gave $1 million to the PAC sponsored by California Environmental Voters, the biggest outside spender supporting Allen’s campaign.

Contreras said billionaires are going to spend a lot of money supporting moderates this election cycle: “Why? Because they want the status quo. Jane is now going to be the bogeyman.”

Jane Kim speaks to supporters during an election night party at El Rio in San Francisco on June 2, 2026.

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Beth LaBerge

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KQED

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The biggest contributors to Kim’s campaign are the California Working Families Party and the California Teachers Association, which gave about $365,000 and $150,000 each, respectively.

The main difference between this battle and other contests going on elsewhere is that many voters don’t know exactly what the insurance commissioner does, said Kevin Liao, a Democratic political consultant who briefly worked on Allen’s campaign before leaving to work on Tom Steyer’s gubernatorial campaign during the primary.

That could mean that voters will rely on shortcuts such as Sanders’ endorsement of Kim, or the California Democrats’ endorsement of Allen. The race could come down to whose brand will convince voters, he said.

“We’re at a moment when voters, certainly the base of the Democratic Party, are fed up with the party establishment,” Liao said.

But not all candidates with more progressive ideas have found success: In California, the progressive Steyer failed to advance to the general election. Recently, David Crowley, a moderate Democrat, beat Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist, in the Democratic primary for Wisconsin governor by less than a percentage point.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

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Regular reports out of immigrant detention facilities, some as recent as last month, indicate a pattern of complaints: bad water, untrained staff and slow response times to acute and chronic medical conditions.

Despite those complaints — echoed by disability rights groups, a federal judge and the California Justice Department — Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities have received high marks on their own internal scorecards.

An analysis by the Project on Government Oversight found that, under the Trump administration, the number of ICE detention facilities with the agency’s highest inspection grade, “superior,” has tripled since 2024. That coincided, the analysis found, with weakened detention standards and fewer inspections.

Those “superior” ratings have coincided with a rise in deaths in immigration detention custody — 2025 was the deadliest year in ICE custody since 2004.

Four people have died at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center since August 2025, according to the Project on Government Oversight, the most of any facility in the country during that span.

The ratings come from ICE’s Office of Detention Oversight, which also grades the facilities for “deficiencies,” or violations of ICE detention standards. Those failures are important: If a facility fails twice in a row, it can lose federal funding.

“Despite this provision — or perhaps because of it — detention facilities rarely received failing grades from inspectors between fiscal years 2022 and 2026,” the Project on Government Oversight investigators wrote.

ICE detention facilities are holding a record number of people, at least 65,000 on July 11. But even with that skyrocketing custody population, ICE has also found fewer violations among its facilities.

The analysis found that the number of violations at ICE facilities dropped by 68% between 2022 and 2025.

The Project on Government Oversight, which describes itself as a nonpartisan investigative nonprofit, said in its report that ICE did not respond to multiple interview attempts. The nonprofit released its findings this morning and CalMatters is seeking comment from ICE.

When news media organizations reach out to for-profit prison companies that run these detention centers, like GEO Group and CoreCivic, about complaints, they often point to these federal detention standards as a counterpoint to specific allegations.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.