California’s Governor Gavin Newsom recently announced that he’d consider running as the Democratic candidate for a 2028 presidential bid. If he does, Newsom will have a lot of explaining to do about the lackluster California economy that he’s presided over.

Newsom became the governor in 2019, just before the COVID recession hit. No one can blame Newsom for that, even though the draconian state response to the pandemic, such as closing K-12 schools for an extensive period, has been widely and legitimately criticized.

More to the point in considering Newsom’s presidential candidacy is his economic record as governor. Over the 2022Q2 to 2025Q2 recovery since the pandemic ended, California’s job growth was only 2.0 percent, less than half the national average of 4.4 percent. In a ranking of

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