Gavin Newsom Postpones ‘State of the State’ as Prop 1 Too Close to Call

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) announced Friday that he will postpone his annual “State of the State” address, which he had planned to deliver on Monday, March 18.

The apparent reason for the delay: the vote count for the passage of Proposition 1, a ballot measure to spend money on mental health resources, is too close to call.

According to the California Secretary of State’s office, Newsom’s proposition currently has 50.1% “yes” votes, and 49.9% “no votes.”

Only about 20,000 votes — out of over 7 million counted — separate “yes” from “no.” And the most shocking fact of all is that while Newsom spent heavily to promote the “yes” vote, opponents of Proposition 1 hardly spent any money at all.

Politico reported:

Prop 1’s disappointing showing — despite facing no funded opposition but happening during an exceedingly low-turnout election — comes at a tough stretch for the second-term governor, who is facing another recall and staring into the abyss of a huge budget deficit he must close by summer.

…

Giving the speech on Monday posed a challenge to Newsom on both a policy and a political level: Prop 1 is central to his broader agenda to make a dent in the twin crises of homelessness and housing, and its potential failure would blow a massive hole in those plans — a setback he seemingly was unprepared to address.

Then there’s the matter of speechmaking from prepared texts more broadly, a perennial issue for the governor. Newsom has spoken openly in the past about the impacts of his dyslexia, and the uncertainty around both Prop 1 and the state budget complicated how much time he had to prepare new material before Monday.

California’s elections take notoriously long to count, since the state has automatic vote-by-mail with a generous deadline: ballots must be postmarked by Election Day, but can be received up to seven days after the election.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.