I’m somebody who proudly worked for Bill Clinton, who balanced the budget, reduced the debt and deficit, and reduced illegal immigration. That’s very different than a far left, progressive party where redistribution of wealth, higher taxes, and demonization of success is the norm. It’s not my party. It’s not America. It’s why their numbers are so bad.
Doug Schoen (Democratic strategist and pollster)
The current front runners for the Democrat Party’s presidential nomination are Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom (source: RCP polling average). Sad, because they’re the wing of the party that’s ruined “liberalism” by advancing unsustainable policies and positions. Under Newsom, California enacted a law (SB 1174) in 2024 prohibiting local governments from requiring Californians to present identification in order to vote. That’s the preamble to New York City under Zohran Mamdani, who’s driving businesses and high-earning residents away by threatening higher taxes on billionaires, stock transfers and businesses earning over $5 million.
No wonder Florida and Texas are attracting California businesses and New York tax-payers in droves. Ron DeSantis is advancing a constitutional amendment to abolish property taxes for full-time Florida residents on their primary homes, which is why his state has attracted the lion’s share of the staggering $76.7 billion net outflow of taxable income from New York that occurred from 2019 to 2023. Chevron, Oracle and Tesla now call Texas home because California’s tax rates are 8.84% on c-corporations and 12.3% on high-earners, while the rates in Texas are zero. Have the two largest blue states gone mad? YES.
California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office projects a 2026 budget deficit of $17.6 billion. San Francisco’s comptroller projects a two-year budget deficit of $936.6 million. New York’s comptroller projects a five-year budget deficit of $27.5 billion, and New York City’s comptroller projects a 2027 budget deficit of $10.4 billion. Call me old-fashioned, but driving high-earning businesses and residents away is no way to balance a budget. This dawned on New York Governor Hochul last month, when she admitted her state’s tax base had been “eroded” by wealthy taxpayers relocating to Florida.
If you want to p**s off a Democrat, cite two facts: (1) the former Confederate States have accounted for 75% of US population growth since 2020, and (2) applications to colleges in Dixie have surged by 50%, far outpacing rates for the rest of the nation. And, for good measure, cite the Census Bureau 2025 Report showing all of America’s fifteen fastest-growing cities were located in Republican-led states. This should not be news to any Democrats because the Wall Street Journal has reported extensively on the migration of Americans toward the South for years.
The Journal’s narrative is a “center of gravity” shift of the US economy, population, and political power; highlighting the rise of the “Research Triangle” (Chapel Hill-Durham-Raleigh) and “Texas Triangle” (Dallas-Houston-Austin) as rivals to Silicon Valley and the Northeast corridor, the “Big Three” pull of Florida, North Carolina, and Texas as the primary engines of Southern growth, and the “tax arbitrage” pull of high-earning individuals from high-tax states (New York, California, Illinois) to zero-income-tax states like Florida and Texas.
This is backed up by data through early 2026, which confirms that the South has become the country’s primary engine of growth; 50% of all residential building permits and 60% of all new home sales in 2024, Florida has led the nation in corporate headquarter relocations since 2020, 9 of the 10 fastest growing counties in 2025, and the only region in the US to post positive growth rate during Q1-2025
What’s widely missing in legacy media is criticism of the Democrat thinking trap voiced by Kathy Hochul; that taxes alone are the reason for an American to “wish I was in Dixie” and do something about it. The data proves “tax and spend” liberalism did not actually hurt “blue states” after Reagan’s 1980 warning, because California, Hawaii, Illinois and New York all added population over the next forty years (from Illinois at 12.3% to California at 67%). So…what made all four states’ populations decrease from 2020 through 2025 (source: USCB)?
It’s more than low taxes because, from 2020 to 2025, “red state” Idaho had the nation’s highest population gains (+10%) in spite of a flat income tax rate of 5.3%. So, when Idaho joins Florida, South Carolina, and Texas as the top destinations for the disgruntled residents of California, Hawaii, Illinois, and New York, it should alarm Democrats. And, when polling data shows 60% of Californians do NOT want to decrease funding for law enforcement, 70% of Illinois voters support deporting criminal illegal aliens, and 54% of New Yorkers support voter-ID laws, it’s not hard to guess why.
Matt Mahan is the Democrat mayor of San Jose and running for California governor. He just wrote an op-ed for Newsweek. His critique of his party is all the “why” any voter needs to read to steer clear of today’s Democrat Party – because California is the cutting edge of progressive governance.
“California has helped Donald Trump win two national elections – not because of our values – because of our failures. We are a state with Democratic supermajorities in both houses of the Legislature and in every statewide office for 15 consecutive years. So, while many of my fellow Democrats may argue that critiques of California lack nuance, the reality is that Americans aren’t listening to such excuses, nor are Californians. There is a pervasive belief that in California we’ve failed to make things better in our communities.”
“Wildfires that swallow up entire communities, recovery that takes too long, massive tent encampments, open-air drug markets, unchecked suffering on our streets, two decades of broken promises to build more homes, the nation’s highest gas and energy prices, public school kids [not] on grade level for literacy and math proficiency, and a government that reflexively asks for more tax revenue before figuring out how to do better with existing resources.”
Scathing – and so is his appeal to liberal voters: “The crowded Democratic field for California governor is a contest between those who will prioritize practical solutions over performative politics.” That is a direct shot at California’s current Democrat governor, Gavin Newsom, who’s led the state since January 2019. Suffice it to criticize his tenure for making the “California Dream” increasingly unattainable for the middle class, which is what Mayor Mahan is promising to correct.
Back to the fast-growing South, which can only gain electoral might over the next decade, because candidate Newsom is going to have to explain his wife’s (Jennifer Siebel) public comments about a 2023 family trip to Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida; she wanted her children to witness and understand “racism, misogyny, and bullying” firsthand. Ahem…California was home to 120,000 Japanese-Americans – two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens – forcibly incarcerated in concentration camps during World War II, movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, whom over 100 women have accused of misogyny, and college students bullying over 60 “conservatives” from speaking on campus since 2016, including Democrat Alan Dershowitz.
Look at the maps up top, which the Journal used to show where Americans are moving (spoiler alert: not to the “liberal” west coast and northeast). How long can Democrats afford to condescend like California’s First Lady, whose hypocrisy is so transparent? Not for long, which means San Jose’s mayor needs to become his party’s standard bearer, and it cannot happen too soon…
…because the current frontrunners for the Democrat Party’s 2028 presidential nomination are Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom. Yikes! She cannot conjugate the verb “to be” and he’s ___ (fill in the blank). It’s been twenty-six years since President Bill Clinton left office. Since then, all Obama and Biden did was ruin “liberalism” for everyday Americans; such as the centrist CEO that told my wife in 2016: “Hey! Give us a choice!”
Odds are that won’t happen.