Gavin Newsom gets brutal exit report card as 62% of California voters are begging for a new direction: poll

Gavin Newsom is leaving Sacramento with a damning report card.A new poll finds 62% of California registered voters rate his tenure fair or poor, with voters panning his handling of homelessness, housing, taxes, state spending and AI — and nearly two-thirds wanting the next governor to take the state in a new direction.Just 36% gave Newsom’s overall performance an excellent or good rating in the survey conducted by TrueDot in collaboration with UC Berkeley’s Citrin Center and Politico.The biggest news, opinion and culture shaping California right now.

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Never miss a story The biggest group — 39% — rated his performance poor.Only 11% called it excellent.The verdict was especially harsh on homelessness, where 72% said Newsom had handled the issue not too well or not at all well.

Just 25% offered a positive assessment.Even voters in his own party gave him poor marks: Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters, 57% rated his handling of homelessness negatively.Some 69% of voters rated Newsom’s handling of housing negatively, compared with 28% who said he had handled it well.That included 52% of Democrats and Democratic leaners giving him low marks.Newsom spokesperson Izzy Gardon responded with a decidedly sunnier assessment, citing his electoral victories that included defeating a recall in 2021 and passing Proposition 50, last year’s congressional gerrymandering vote.“Gavin Newsom overwhelmingly won five elections in eight years and is the most popular outgoing governor in the history of PPIC polling the question,” Gardon wrote in a text message to The California Post.“It’s a shame America’s Favorite Governor can’t run for another term — he’d crush it!”Asked whether California’s next governor should generally continue Newsom’s policies or take the state in a different direction, ...