Dear California Democrat Voter…

Regardless of your political party – regardless of whether you are a Democrat, Republican, independent, moderate – California is struggling, and the people who live here are struggling. People cannot afford groceries. Young families cannot buy homes. Small businesses are drowning. People do not feel safe in parts of their own cities anymore. And thousands of Californians are leaving the state they love because they simply cannot make life work here.

But what if the problem isn’t just bad luck? What if California doesn’t have to be this way? What if the problem is the policies being passed by the leaders we elect?

Today I don’t just want to speak to the people who already agree with me. This episode is for Californians who may disagree with me on almost everything politically…but who also know, deep down, that something is very wrong in our state.

Hear me clearly: You do not have to become MAGA. You do not have to suddenly agree with conservatives on every issue. You do not have to abandon every value that led you to vote Democrat in the first place. But at some point, if the people in power continue failing the people they govern, you included, shouldn’t accountability matter more than party loyalty? And if California is becoming unaffordable, unsafe, and dysfunctional under one-party rule, then maybe the most reasonable thing in the world is to ask whether it’s time to try something different.

Intention vs. Outcome

I want to start by acknowledging something: I understand why people in our state vote Democrat. Because while I disagree with that choice, I don’t believe that every person who votes Democrat has malicious or ignorant intentions. Democratic candidates often make promises that sound deeply compassionate.

They promise to reduce homelessness by building affordable housing and moving people inside. They promise that because people can’t afford groceries or rent, they’ll fight for a higher minimum wage. They promise that no human is illegal, and they’ll protect every person’s right to stay here. These policies sound good. And in some cases, the intentions behind them are genuinely good.

But here’s the question I want you to ask yourself: what do we do when the intentions sound compassionate, but the outcomes are hurting people? At some point, we have to judge our elected officials not just by what they promise – but by the outcomes of those promises. This is where I think a lot of Californians, even lifelong Democrats, are starting to feel conflicted.

Take immigration as one example. Compassion says: be kind to people seeking a better life. But responsible governance also asks: what does an open-border policy actually mean for public safety, for state resources, and for the weight of citizenship in our country? Both sides of the compassion equation matter. As a conservative, I’m not asking you to be heartless by opposing sanctuary policies, I’m asking you to look at both sides of the moral equation.

Gavin Newsom may say that he has good intentions by not cooperating with ICE – and you may believe him. But California's sanctuary laws don't just shield people living here peacefully and seeking a better life, they also shield people with serious criminal records. Since January 2025, California jails released over 4,500 people with active ICE detainers back into communities rather than turning them over to federal authorities.[1] Among them were individuals with convictions for homicide, sexual offenses, assault, and robbery. That's not compassion for the vulnerable.

And then there's the children. When you incentivize illegal border crossings, when walking across the border unchecked becomes the path of least resistance, you inevitably create a market for human traffickers. A federal review of over 65,000 reports of unaccompanied minors who entered the country identified more than 4,000 instances involving trafficking, fraud, and abuse.[2] In July 2025, federal agents raided agricultural sites right here in California, in Carpinteria and Camarillo, and rescued at least 14 children who had been trafficked and forced to work.[3] Those children paid the price for a policy that refused to acknowledge both sides of the compassion equation.

A policy that protects one person at the expense of a child is not compassionate policy. The most vulnerable in the room must come first. Policy isn't written for one person's story – it's written for everyone affected by it, for the greater good. If we see that certain policies are resulting in outcomes that actually exploit the vulnerable, then we have moved off course and we need to correct.

California has moved off course in several areas of governance. Not everything that sounds compassionate is compassionate. We need to accept that reality and vote to actually change it.

Cost of Living

When looking at California’s policy failures, let’s start with the most basic question: can you afford to live here?

For most Californians, the honest answer is barely, or not at all. The median home price in California is projected to hit $905,000 in 2026.[4] To qualify for that mortgage, you’d need an income that only 23% of California households actually have.[5] That is 112% higher than the rest of the nation.[6] Groceries here run about 15% higher than the national average, and Californians already spend more per month on food than residents of any other state.[7] And when tax season comes around, California hits you with the highest state income tax rate in the country – up to 13.3%.[8]

Overall, the cost of living in California is 43% above the national average[9] – and that gap keeps widening.

Here’s what you need to consider: these outrageous prices are not the results of bad luck or natural disasters. They are the direct result of policy choices. Choices such as restrictive zoning laws that have prevented housing construction for decades, environmental regulations that add enormous costs to development, taxes and business fees that drive up the price of everything – these are all choices made by the people Californians elect, cycle after cycle, to run this state.

The result is that you are struggling, and people are leaving. According to the California Department of Finance, the state lost nearly 200,000 residents to domestic out-migration in 2024 alone.[10] The people leaving are often those younger, wealthier, and better educated than the population staying, meaning that’s the talent and tax base California depends on walking out the door because it is too unaffordable to live here. 

If you want to change that, if you want to fix the cost-of-living crisis, you have to vote for different policies than the ones currently in place.

Homelessness

Now let’s move to one of California’s most visible and heartbreaking failures. Our state has spent $37 billion on housing and homelessness programs since 2019.[11] Thirty-seven billion dollars! And yet, between 2019 and 2024, the homeless population in California grew by nearly 25% – roughly 36,000 additional people living on the streets.[12]

The state has made some recent progress – there was a roughly 9% drop in unsheltered homelessness in 2025,[13] but that is due to major cities like San Jose[14] and San Francisco[15] adopting more moderate, even conservative approaches to the homelessness crisis, as I have talked about several times before. So, we have billions of dollars spent, yet for most of the last decade, things have gotten worse.

The California State Auditor found that the state has failed to consistently track spending and outcomes across its 30-plus homelessness programs.[16] Thirty programs in place, and they can’t tell you what works!  This is the core problem with compassion untethered from accountability. You can pour money into a problem indefinitely, feel good about the intention, and never ask hard questions about whether any of it is actually working. Compassion without accountability stops being compassion. I believe every Californian, regardless of politics, wants fewer people sleeping on sidewalks. But wanting it isn’t enough. If the same approaches keep failing, at some point we must be willing to try something different. Are the current policies really helping anyone?

Crime and Public Safety

Or let’s take crime and public safety. In 2014, California passed Proposition 47, which reclassified most thefts under $950 as misdemeanors rather than felonies.[17] The intention was to reduce mass incarceration and keep people out of the criminal justice system for low-level crimes. That sounds like a reasonable, compassionate intention.

But what was the outcome of this policy? Shoplifting in California shot up by 47.5% compared to 2019.[18] Organized retail theft became so brazen and widespread that stores began locking merchandise behind glass cases, cutting store hours, and in some cases, closing down entirely.

The good news is that in November of 2024, California voters – by a margin of 70% – passed Proposition 36 to roll this back.[19] When seven in ten voters, in one of the bluest states in the country, vote to reverse a policy, that is not a partisan statement! That is a clear signal of a desire to move away from the bad outcomes brought on by liberal policies. We did it once with crime, we must do it again for our entire state.

Government and Trust

Here’s the last piece I want to lay out, and it may be the most important: we must consider whether we can trust the government running this state to be competent and accountable with our money and our future.

Democrats have held a majority in California’s state legislature since 1996.[20] They currently hold 75% of all legislative seats[21] – a supermajority that means there is, functionally, no check on power in Sacramento. And what has that produced? The state faces a projected deficit of $35 billion per year starting in 2028.[22] It’s currently looking at an $18 billion budget gap – the fourth consecutive deficit year, during a period of overall revenue growth.[23] Think about that! Taxes are going up, revenue is climbing, and they’re still spending more than they bring in.

This should be unacceptable mismanagement to us. The government must be competent. Decades of unchecked, one-party governance have produced a state that is simultaneously one of the wealthiest places on earth, and yet one of the least livable for anyone trying to build an ordinary life here.

When will enough be enough? How much failure will it take to convince you personally that change is necessary?

My Plea to You

Elections are not marriages. You are not pledging eternal loyalty to a specific party. You are hiring leadership. And right now, the current leadership is failing the people they were hired to serve. If you had a contractor who kept going over budget, kept missing deadlines, kept making promises they couldn’t keep – at some point you’d hire someone else. Not because the next person is guaranteed to be perfect, but because the current situation clearly isn’t working.

Voting differently in this election is not abandoning your values. It’s demanding results. California has been governed almost entirely by one party for decades. The problems Californians are suffering under are connected to specific policy choices. The promises keep being repeated every election cycle. The outcomes keep getting worse. In any healthy system, prolonged failure should trigger accountability.

Let me end where I want us to place our focus: with California itself. I love this state. There is no place on earth quite like it. The mountains and the coastline, the innovation and the creativity, the diversity of people and cultures that make this place unlike anywhere else. California has always represented something to the world – possibility, opportunity, the idea that you can come here with nothing and build something real. 

That California still exists. I believe in it! But it is being smothered by a government that can’t be held accountable because there’s no real competition, and no real consequence for failure. If you’ve voted Democrat your whole life, I’m not asking you to become someone you’re not. But if you know, deep down, that things are not working – that you’re struggling to pay your bills, that your neighborhood doesn’t feel as safe as it used to, that you’ve watched friends and family pack up and leave the state you all love – maybe the most courageous thing you can do is vote not out of habit, but out of hope for something better.

California doesn’t belong to Democrats or Republicans. It belongs to the people trying to build a life here. If the people here are suffering, and we all know they are, then voting differently is not betrayal of your party or values. It’s responsibility.

References:

[1] Department of Homeland Security, “SANCTUARY CALAMITY: DHS and ICE Urgently Call on Gavin Newsom and Sanctuary California to Not Release 33,179 Criminal Illegal Aliens Including Murderers, Sex Offenders, and Drug Traffickers From Jails Back Into California Communities,” February 6, 2026, https://www.dhs.gov/news/2026/02/06/sanctuary-calamity-dhs-and-ice-urgently-call-gavin-newsom-and-sanctuary-california.

[2] Department of Homeland Security, “DHS Leads Efforts to Rescue Child Victims of Sex and Labor Trafficking,” DHS.Gov, July 25, 2025, https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/07/25/dhs-leads-efforts-rescue-child-victims-sex-and-labor-trafficking.

[3] Department of Homeland Security, “ICE, CBP Arrest at Least 361 Illegal Aliens During Marijuana Grow Site Operation, Rescue at Least 14 Children,” July 13, 2025, https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/07/13/ice-cbp-arrest-least-361-illegal-aliens-during-marijuana-grow-site-operation-rescue.

[4] California Association of Realtors. “C.A.R. Releases Its 2026 California Housing Market Forecast,” September 17, 2025. https://www.car.org/aboutus/mediacenter/newsreleases/2025releases/2026forecast.

[5] Legislative Analyst’s Office. “California Housing Affordability Tracker (1st Quarter 2026) [EconTax Blog],” April 20, 2026. https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/793.

[6] Sigel, Zack. “Cost of Living in California: How Much It Really Costs to Live in the Golden State.” Insure.com, September 16, 2025. https://www.insure.com/home-insurance/cost-of-living-in-california/.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Tax Foundation. Taxes in California. October 30, 2025. Tax Foundation. https://taxfoundation.org/location/california/.

[9] Council for Community and Economic Research, "State- and County-Level Cost of Living Index," C2ER, 2025, https://www.c2er.org/cost-of-living-index/county-level-cost-of-living-index/.

[10] State of California Department of Finance. “Population Estimates and Components of Change by County — July 1, 2020-2025 | California Department of Finance,” February 2026. https://dof.ca.gov/forecasting/demographics/estimates/E-6/.

[11] California Legislative Analyst’s Office. “The 2025-26 Budget: Oversight of Encampment Resolution Funding,” March 5, 2025. https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5007.

[12] Mora, Lauren, and Shannon McConville. “Californians’ Concern About Homelessness Has Softened.” Public Policy Institute of California, November 14, 2025. https://www.ppic.org/blog/californians-concern-about-homelessness-has-softened/.

[13] Alin, Maaz. “California'S Homelessness Drops 9% in 2025, Largest Fall in 15 Years.” SMDP, January 15, 2026. https://www.smdp.com/california-reports-largest-drop-in-homelessness-in-15-years/.

[14] Har, Janie. “Silicon Valley City Makes Homeless People Eligible for Arrest if They Refuse 3 Offers of Shelter | AP News.” AP News, June 10, 2025. https://apnews.com/article/san-jose-homeless-shelter-arrests-dc558aa848621a8d4c8eb34c5a961cc4.

[15] Office of the Mayor. “Mayor Lurie Announces San Francisco Has Reached Lowest Level of Unsheltered Homelessness in 15 Years | SF.gov.” SF.gov, May 12, 2026. https://www.sf.gov/news-mayor-lurie-announces-san-francisco-has-reached-lowest-level-of-unsheltered-homelessness-in-15-years.

[16] Auditor of the State of California, “Homelessness in California,” April 9, 2024, https://information.auditor.ca.gov/reports/2023-102.1/index.html.

[17] Ballotpedia. “California Proposition 47, Reduced Penalties for Some Crimes Initiative (2014) - Ballotpedia,” n.d. https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_47,_Reduced_Penalties_for_Some_Crimes_Initiative_(2014).

[18] Lofstrom, Magnus. “Overall Crime in California Fell Last Year, but Shoplifting Continued to Rise.” The Public Policy Institute of California, July 22, 2025. https://www.ppic.org/blog/overall-crime-in-california-fell-last-year-but-shoplifting-continued-to-rise/.

[19] Duara, Nigel, and Joe Garcia. “Why Californians Got Tougher on Crime: Bleak Downtowns and Attention-getting Retail Thefts.” CalMatters, November 7, 2024. https://calmatters.org/justice/2024/11/retail-theft-proposition-36-election/.

[20] Ballotpedia. “Party Control of California State Government - Ballotpedia,” n.d. https://ballotpedia.org/Party_control_of_California_state_government.

[21] Sabalow, Ryan, and Sameea Kamal. “Big Turnover, but Democrats Keep Their Supermajority in the Legislature.” CalMatters, November 6, 2024. https://calmatters.org/digital-democracy/2024/11/california-senate-assembly-election-results/.

[22] California Legislative Analyst’s Office. “The 2026-27 Budget: California’s Fiscal Outlook,” November 19, 2025. https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5091.

[23] Ibid.