OPINION:
From attention-seeking posts on X to a redistricting power play, it’s clear that California Gov. Gavin Newsom has his eye on a 2028 presidential run. The state’s chief executive is an early contender in the polls, but high food prices connected to new California regulations hang heavily around his White House ambitions.
During his time as governor, the cost of basic food items has skyrocketed in California, leaving ordinary families scrambling to make ends meet. Why? Because of a food ban called Proposition 12 that restricts consumer access to affordable nutrition staples. More specifically, Mr. Newsom has rolled out the red carpet for a law that restricts the sale of normal eggs and pork in supermarkets and other retailers in California, allowing only high-priced specialty products to be sold.
Predictably, state residents are now paying 20% more for pork than when Prop 12 went into effect, and they are shelling out more than $10 for a dozen eggs.
The state food regulation has had a ripple effect beyond California’s borders. Some farmers in other states have been forced to bulldoze barns and rebuild to be California-compliant to sell to the state’s nearly 40 million residents.
Those costs get passed along to consumers at the grocery store.
American families in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan pay more because of California’s policy choices. According to recently released federal government data, national egg prices have nearly doubled since the California regulation took effect.
As a result of the fallout, Prop 12 has received criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike. President Biden’s agriculture secretary raised concerns that the measure could cause “chaos in the marketplace.” In a July lawsuit against California, President Trump’s Justice Department argued that the food ban imposes “unnecessary red tape on the production of eggs” in violation of the Constitution’s supremacy clause.
Even California’s electorate has soured on the law. Recent polling finds that only one-third of Californians would vote for Prop 12 if it were up for election today.
It’s no surprise that blue-collar Democratic politicians are attempting to dissociate themselves from Prop 12’s inflationary pressures. High food prices are a familiar albatross that plagued Democrats in the 2024 elections as high inflation under the Biden administration kneecapped candidates running for office.
Rather than distancing himself from the misguided policy or trying to walk it back, Mr. Newsom has repeatedly embraced it and dismissed Prop 12’s harmful consequences. In 2022, his administration defended the food ban against legal challenges.
With the new Justice Department litigation, the governor is once again going to the mat for Prop 12. Responding to the lawsuit, Mr. Newsom compared blaming his administration for the spike in food costs to faulting him for sending the asteroid that took out the dinosaurs or causing the fall of Rome.
Playing to purple-haired animal liberation activists in the California bubble who eat only kale and tofu is not a smart strategy for winning the White House in 2028 or even for grasping the Democratic nomination. Mr. Newsom’s position on this issue may win over PETA supporters, but it will fall flat with blue-collar workers in Michigan and farmers in Georgia.
Mr. Newsom is clearly out of touch with the concerns of average American families who can’t afford French Laundry-style food prices (the luxurious Michelin-starred restaurant where Mr. Newsom broke his own COVID-19 restrictions). His political rivals would be smart to prosecute this case against him.
• Jack Hubbard is an owner and partner at Berman and Co.
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