The exodus from California continues to fix it, do this

California Dreamin’ … of Texas, Florida and Tennessee.That’s the state of play in 2026.The home of sun-drenched beaches, Yosemite and Silicon Valley is one of just five states that lost residents in 2025 compared with 2024, per an analysis by the financial technology company SmartAsset.The study, published this week, found that “California is declining while Texas is rising.”Scant surprise there.The Golden State is unaffordable, malgoverned and steered by stakeholders like unions, nonprofits and bureaucrats that put their own interests first –– and hand residents the bill.The steady exodus of those residents should ring alarm bells for California voters. The status quo is failing.In the five years since the 2020 Census, California lost about 1.1 million residents, in aggregate, to other states.Consequences include a brain, skills and jobs drain, diluted power for the state in Congress, and a loss of clout the state has long enjoyed nationally.

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3 ballot has already chased away some of the state’s top innovators –– and, if it passes, could all but kill the state’s startup culture, as Mark Cuban warned this week. That might eviscerate an entire segment of the state’s economy.Meanwhile, California suffers from haughty government that imposes sky-high taxes and a sweeping regime of costly and onerous regulations.In just the latest example, the state is rolling out a tire mandate that will inflate the cost of replacement rubber for motorists.More broadly, thanks to Democrats’ green pipe dreams, residents here pay more for gas, oil, water, utilities, housing, food, retail goods and virtually anything else transported by or connected to fue...