Streets for All Hits Newsom Where It Hurts: His Presidential Ambitions
California transportation advocates are opening a third front in the battle to reverse the devastating cuts to transit caused by recent decisions of the California Air Resources Board. On one front, advocates are rallying (today!) in Sacramento to to urge the legislature to take action, on another Communities for a Better Environment are arguing in court that CARB’s actions were done illegally. The third front is the battle for the hearts and minds of early Democratic Presidential Primary Voters.
Streets For All is taking its campaign beyond California’s borders, purchasing newspaper advertisements in South Carolina and Nevada.
A full-page advertisement appeared Sunday in The State newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, with a second ad scheduled to run Wednesday, in Nevada’s Reno Gazette Journal.
Both ads feature a simple message:
“Dear <South Carolinians or Nevadans>,
California Governor Gavin Newsom just supported moving billions away from clean drinking water, public transit, and affordable housing into subsidies for refineries and industrial polluters.
Sincerely,
Struggling Californians.”
The campaign comes just days after Democratic Party officials selected South Carolina and Nevada as the first two states in the proposed 2028 Democratic presidential primary calendar. While Newsom has not announced plans to seek the presidency, he is widely viewed as a potential candidate and has consistently polled near the top of hypothetical Democratic primary fields. In recent years, the governor has also increasingly positioned himself as one of President Donald Trump’s highest-profile Democratic rivals, frequently sparring with the administration over climate policy, immigration, and other national issues.
But instead of a foil to the president, the ads present Newsom as his ideological ally when one looks beyond the rhetoric to actual policy. As Streetsblog California has previously reported, earlier this year, CARB changed the regulations governing the state’s cap-and-trade program. The change expands the number of free emissions allowances provided to refineries and other large industrial facilities while reducing the amount of auction revenue available for the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which finances public transit, affordable housing, active transportation, clean drinking water, community air quality projects, and other climate programs.
Although the California Air Resources Board is an independent state agency, every current voting member was appointed by Newsom, and the governor publicly praised the adopted package after the board’s vote. Transit agencies, environmental justice organizations, affordable housing advocates, and several state lawmakers warned that the changes could substantially reduce future climate investments. The Legislature’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office has estimated that annual auction proceeds could fall from roughly $4 billion to approximately $2 billion under the new framework.
“For years, Governor Newsom has put public transit funding on the chopping block—and Californians are tired of it,” said Marc Vukcevich, the organization’s director of state policy.
“Newsom wants the country to see him as the opposite of Donald Trump, but while Trump and Sean Duffy try to gut transit funding and restart oil pipelines, Newsom is doing the same: taking billions away from transit, affordable housing, clean water, and clean air to subsidize refineries and industrial polluters. You cannot posture as the resistance or caring about working-class affordability concerns when you take away their way to afford a California that, frankly, has gotten more expensive under Newsom.”
The ad campaign demonstrates the difficulties Newsom may have threading the political needle should he seek higher office. He has tried to position himself as a liberal firebrand online especially with his social media account’s constant mockery of President Trump. At the same time, he’s been an obstacle for the state’s progressive leadership on issues of homelessness solutions reform, a one-time billionaire’s tax, and transgender rights. And let’s not even talk about his exceptionally strange and fawning interview with Charlie Kirk.
The press release also draws a direct comparison between California’s cap-and-trade changes and recent actions by the Trump administration. Streets For All notes that U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has urged Congress to eliminate the federal Highway Trust Fund’s dedicated Mass Transit Account in favor of prioritizing highway spending.
Streets for All is an advocacy group with offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Like many advocacy groups including the Sierra Club, Streets for All has two separate federal designations a 501c(3) which is about education and advocacy and a 501c(4) which allows for unlimited political spending and campaign endorsements. Funds for the two designation must be kept separate.
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