07-07-2025
Inside California Politics: July 5, 2025
(INSIDE CALIFORNIA POLITICS) — This week on Inside California Politics, host Nikki Laurenzo sat down with Democratic strategist Andrew Acosta and Republican strategist Rob Stutzman.
Newsom threatened the implementation of the recently passed state budget unless the legislature also passed several reforms to the California Environmental Quality Act aimed at speeding up the construction of housing.
'When the governor ran for office six years ago, he promised to deliver on new housing — hundreds of thousands of new housing units— and it hasn't happened. And the regulatory chokehold primary reason,' Stutzman said. 'Republicans say kudos to him for doing this, especially as he sees his legacy get closer to him as he goes down the tunnel but if he had done this six years ago, five years ago we would have so much more housing built.'
'The fact that he rolled the legislature for that reason on this issue at this time is an admission that this was an obstacle that's contributed to our housing crisis,' Stutzman continued. '… Lots of promises and lack of delivery. And now I think you see him shedding some of the progressive politics he would adhere to in the past to be much more practical on housing, on homelessness, not yet on criminal justice, but maybe, we'll see. There's some time for that.'
A new poll from Emerson College shows Pete Buttigieg with the most support to become the next Democratic Presidential nominee. Sixteen percent of respondents said they would support Buttigieg, 13% said they would support former Vice President Kamala Harris and 12% said they would support Newsom.
A poll, first reported on by Politico, shows former Vice President Kamala Harris as the leading choice for California's governor while other candidates struggle to get attention for their campaign.
'There's a lot of room that people have to figure out how to get into the mix for top two…How do you bust through in a primary?' Acosta said. 'She can kind of sit at 25, 28 percent in a primary and she hasn't done anything so she's still kind of where she was a few months ago… But the other candidates are like 'Hey I'm over here' and no one's really paying attention to them.'
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