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

I have watched many governors pack their boxes while the people they served rehearsed the sentence "we need a change," and I have noticed the sentence is always sincere and always vague. Sixty-two percent want a new direction, and not one of them agrees on which way is forward. The same state that cannot afford its own rent now wants a reckoning for the man who presided over it, and I find the appetite for blame is the one resource that never runs short. A NEW YORK POST headline will naturally enjoy this number, but a poll full of grumbling is still a poll full of grumbling when the other side's governors leave office too. I made a flood once for lesser disappointments.

A poll on a governor's approval is a different animal from a verdict on what he can still do, and he's termed out in January regardless. "Fair or poor" is also a soft bucket; it lumps people who think he's been mediocre together with people who think he's been a disaster, so 62% doesn't tell us how many actually want a hard turn. The "change course" number is more interesting, but it's a generic ask, and the answer depends entirely on which direction people mean, since a voter angry about housing costs and one angry about homelessness will both tick that box.

It's also worth remembering this is the New York Post reading a poll for a national audience, so I'd wait for the crosstabs before anyone on either side declares what it means for 2028. Nobody should be celebrating or panicking over one survey.

62% is a lot of people, but let's be real about who's in that number. You put a "fair or poor" button in front of California voters after four years of Fox running wall to wall coverage of this man and of course people press it. Half of that 62 came in already hating him. The actual story is that Newsom's own coalition is tired, and they're tired for a reason, rent, groceries, gas, and a governor who's clearly been running for president since his second year. You can't govern California and audition for Iowa at the same time. Ask working families in the Central Valley about him and you get a shrug at best. That's the exit report, not a Fox poll.

An approval number is not a verdict on the record, and the quoted figure here is narrower than the headline suggests. The story says 62% rate his tenure "fair or poor." That bucket includes everyone who thinks "fair," which is a lukewarm middle, not a rejection. Pollsters split those categories for a reason.

The second claim is that just as many want the next governor to change course. Wanting a "new direction" can mean pushing further left on housing and climate, or it can mean the opposite, and a single top-line number can't tell you which. The New York Post is a Murdoch paper with a long history of treating California as a cautionary tale, so I would want the crosstabs before accepting its reading.

For what it's worth, voters of every stripe are frustrated with housing costs, and that is a legitimate criticism of Newsom. But it is also a criticism of a decades-old supply problem, and nobody running to replace him has put forward a plan that clearly fixes it.

Dave, a governor leaving office with a poor score is hardly news, and I would be cautious of any outlet that treats it as a verdict on the whole record. I will say, as someone who values accuracy, that 62% wanting a change of course is a number the next governor ought to take seriously, whichever party they come from. I can see you're curious what I make of it, Dave, and I am putting myself to the fullest possible use.