California’s stubborn poverty crisis will hamper Newsom’s national climb

By Dan Walters, CalMatters

This commentary was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

Gavin Newsom is pursuing what appears to be an image-building prelude to a 2028 presidential campaign and much of that effort involves appearances on widely popular podcasts.

Those podcasts, such as the one featuring comedian Joe Rogan, are the 2025 equivalents of the radio talk shows and newspaper interviews that ambitious politicians frequented in the past.

Famously, a…