Gavin Newsom may be touring glossy magazines and testing the lighting for a national stage, but reality has a way of following you—even when it shows up 3,000 miles from home.
This week, that reality arrived in the form of a massive Times Square billboard comparing California’s governor to the New York Jets, a franchise best known this season for doing almost everything wrong.
The ad, unveiled ahead of the Super Bowl by the California Business & Industrial Alliance, pulls no punches. “Gavin Newsom’s record is worse than the Jets,” it declares, a brutal comparison made sharper by the Jets’ league-worst 3–14 finish. The punchline lands immediately after: “He’s #1… in High Taxes and Homelessness.” In a city famous for its billboards, the message cuts through because it taps into something unavoidable—results.
According to the group behind the ad, the timing is deliberate. As Newsom embarks on a national press tour promoting his upcoming memoir, complete with a Vogue feature shot by Annie Leibovitz, critics argue that the governor is trying to audition for higher office while the state he runs continues to struggle with problems that refuse to be photoshopped away.
Tom Manzo, the group’s founder, framed it plainly: before trying to quarterback national politics, Newsom should examine how his game plan worked in California.
That scrutiny is not abstract. Homelessness in California rose more than 3% over the past year, leaving roughly 187,000 people without stable housing as of early 2024. Those numbers persist despite years of ambitious promises, ballooning budgets, and repeated declarations that the crisis was being turned around.
At the same time, California remains one of the most heavily taxed states in the country, a reality that continues to fuel debate over economic flight and declining business confidence.
Newsom’s defenders point to California’s massive economy and cultural influence, but critics argue that scale is not the same as success. The state’s size magnifies both its strengths and its failures, and for many residents, the failures are far more visible than the press spreads.
The proposed billionaire wealth tax, even one Newsom himself opposes, underscores how unsettled the state’s economic direction remains.
