Gov. Newsom Spending $19 Million to Polish His and California’s Image

California Governor Gavin Newsom was heavily criticized in March for authorizing a $19 million taxpayer-funded advertising campaign designed to burnish his own image and improve California’s public image as he touts California’s largess on the presidential campaign trail.

“Newsom planning $19 million push to polish HIS national image,” the Globe reported. “Gov. Gavin Newsom is launching a $19 million marketing campaign March 2026 through December, approximately nine months until the end of his term, to rewrite the history of his two calamitous terms as Governor of California, solely because he is running for President,” we reported in March.

“California and its business climate have been falsely and maliciously maligned for years, and the state has a right to tell the true story — California is a great place to live, work, invest and visit,” Newsom spokesperson Tara Gallegos told the Los Angeles Times. “Setting the record straight will benefit every business, worker and resident of this state.”

I don’t think $19 million can accomplish that.

Even California’s mostly compliant and Newsom-friendly media questioned the veracity behind this campaign.

“Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to spend $19 million promoting California and dispelling ‘myths driven by misinformation and political rhetoric’ in a marketing campaign that would run through the final months of his administration as he weighs a potential run for president,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

On the $19 million marketing plan to freshen up Newsom’s image, Joel Pollak said, “This is an abuse of power and, by Democrats’ own past arguments, an impeachable offense…” from the Governor who claimed on NBC, “There’s nothing I dislike more than a politician who sits there and lies to you.”

“There’s nothing I dislike more than a politician that sits there and lies to you.”

– Gavin Newsom https://t.co/rWmL5q2Tq0

— 🇺🇸 Larry 🇺🇸 (@LarryJones) April 7, 2026

Newsom’s ad touts $523 million invested in California daily, 1,200 new businesses created daily, 1.2 million manufacturing employees, a $4.25 trillion economy, and says California is growing four times faster than Texas.

What’s not in the ad is as important.

California also has the nation’s highest poverty rate. Businesses continue to flee the state. Homeowners and property insurance markets are on life support. K-12 test scores are among the lowest in the country. Homelessness and high crime remain visible failures of state policy.

Newsom ignores out-migration – the millions of residents who left the state and thousands of business departures. He is the governor who has chased out hundreds to thousands of businesses, which fled to red states including Jelly Belly, Chevron, X/Twitter, Space X, Oracle, Hewlett Packard, Charles Schwab, and Toyota Motor North America are just a few of the mega-businesses which left California because of the state’s leftist/Marxist politics and overbearing regulatory environment. After 77 years in California, In-N-Out moved its headquarters to Tennessee. And, Valero closed its refinery.

California is losing more workers than it’s gaining, the Globe reported.

Newsom ignores the million manufacturing jobs lost since year 2000, while touting 1.2 million manufacturing workers.

Newsom ignores that California is home to more than half of the country’s homeless. Newsom has spent $37 billion on homelessness since 2019, and even allocated an additional $1 billion to support his homelessness housing programs, which have been a total failure. Under Newsom, California’s homeless population has ballooned to more than 337,000 homeless drug addicts, mentally-ill and convicted felons living, defecating and dying on the streets.

Governor Newsom ignores that he and Democrats have nearly destroyed the oil and gas industry. Newsom authorized proposed additional climate regulations which will cripple the survivability of the state’s remaining oil refineries. And Newsom has allowed additional state taxes, fees and regulations on gas and diesel, jet and marine fuels, bumping the price per gallon to the highest in the country.

Newsom ignores that he and his fellow Democrats devastated California’s agricultural industry by withholding water to farmers and ranchers. Where orchards once thrived, solar farms are growing now.

Newsom ignores that he is the governor who has facilitated California’s dead last ranking again in Chief Executive magazine’s “Best & Worst States For Business”– the 14th year in a row.

Newsom ignores that he signed a bill authorizing a new California law prohibiting schools from notifying parents if their child is transgender, attempting to turn California into a “trans-sanctuary state”.

Newsom ignores that he signed into law a bill to protect sex offenders who have homosexual sex with minors, the Globe reported. SB 145 allows a sex offender who lures a minor with the intent to commit a felony sex act, the ability to escape registering as a sex offender as long as the offender is within 10 years of age of the minor. Good job, Gavin. Why isn’t that in the ad?

Newsom ignored that he presided over California’s failing education system, once the leading public education system in the country, now the worst performing in the country.

Newsom ignores that he supports legislation to restrict public access to information about the sham High-Speed Rail Project, originally estimated to cost $33 billion in 2008. The California high speed rail system ballooned to over $100 billion. He then approved another $20 billion for High-Speed Rail last September, with no tracks and no trains.

This very expensive taxpayer-funded marketing plan is rich coming from the governor who let wildfires burn Pacific Palisades, Altadena and much of Malibu to the ground. The fires raged due to the incompetence of state and local officials, according to federal authorities, as well as LA firefighters.

California’s size and accumulatated investment cannot gloss over real challenges for the state’s residents and most businesses. Newsom’s office cherry-picked favorable metrics and omitted the very real problems.

Newsom’s image is already so tarnished, not even Tarn-X® could fix it. Listening to the governor’s ridiculous ad, constantly running throughout the day on radio, one can’t help but conclude that California taxpayers have unwittingly made a $19 million campaign contribution to Newsom’s presidential ambitions.