SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Republican lawmakers are a super-minority in the California Legislature, but that didn’t stop them from providing full-throated criticism of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s final State of the State speech on Thursday, which they labeled an overly-optimistic and backslapping affair that glossed over budget deficits and economic challenges.

Newsom, who has served as a perennial villain for national conservative pundits and Republican politicians, is widely considered a likely presidential contender in 2028. Even ahead of his hour-long speech in the Capitol, Assembly Republicans charged that the governor’s eight-year term culminated in unfulfilled efforts to lower the cost of living for California families.

“Governor Newsom has made big promises and launched endless new initiatives,” Assembly Republican Leader Heath Flora said in a Wednesday morning statement. “But no matter what he says tomorrow, Californians are paying more and getting less, because his policies keep driving up the cost of everyday life.”

Newsom took the opposite tact Thursday, rattling off statistics and dollar figures as he cast the state he’s led as a leader in building a more equitable economy, and contrasting the state’s tax system as more progressive and easier on the middle class and low-income earners than that of large Republican states.

“Take Texas and Florida,” Newsom said, “with the most regressive taxes in the nation hammering low-income earners more than the rich. In California, we stand for fairness.” He also touted bills the Legislature passed during his tenure that raised the minimum wage for fast-food and health care workers.

At $20 and $25 an hour, Newsom noted, those wages are much higher than the $7.25 an hour minimum wage of states like Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee. For California workers outside health care and fast-food, the minimum wage went to $16.90 in 2026, with an automatic increase set by legislation signed by Newsom’s predecessor, former Gov. Jerry Brown. Newsom also cited statutory increases to sick leave and family leave that outstrips many other states.

But Republicans say those gains are diminished by regulatory policies that have raised gas prices, housing costs and energy bills and sent Californians fleeing to lower cost states.

“The governor made a very polished speech today,” GOP state Sen. Suzette Valladares said. “However, it was full of rhetoric and half-truths, and what the people of California are really looking for is honesty and results.” Housing and gas prices continue to affect Californians, she said, and the public education system is letting down children through poor performance.

In the chamber after the speech, Republicans leveled the same charges that politicians of both political parties have made with increasing frequency over the last several years — that the opposing party’s policies are responsible for the sense of economic unease Americans are increasingly feeling, and that party leaders are ignoring those concerns. During the 2024 presidential election, President Donald Trump attacked the economic policies of incumbent President Joe Biden. Since Trump’s election, Democrats have sought to paint Trump as an oligarch out of tune with the daily realities of Americans and pointed to his tariffs and other policies as driving economic woes.

On Thursday it was Newsom’s turn to be the target.

“It’s too expensive to live here,” Valladares said. “The rich can afford it. The middle class, the poor can’t afford to live in the communities that they were born and raised in... the real people of California don’t see the results and don’t have the rose-colored glasses that the governor does.”

Newsom and Democrat leaders of the Legislature made affordability a policy priority last year and have engaged with cost-of-life issues across many fronts. But they’ve faced criticism that those efforts aren’t targeting the root causes of California’s high cost of living.

“Affordability — it’s not a word we just discovered, and it’s certainly not a hoax,” Newsom said. “The way most of us think about is it’s not just one issue. It’s a stacking of many, many issues on top of each other.”

The governor vowed to continue pushing affordability measures in his last year in office, asking the Legislature to extend tax credits for businesses begun in California and impose new restrictions on investors buying up new homes and pricing families out from homeownership. Crime and homelessness are dropping as a result of policies put in place under his leadership, Newsom said.

But Californians’ lives aren’t improving, Republican lawmakers said.

“I actually admire optimism, but there’s a difference between optimism and mischaracterizing reality,” GOP Assemblymember Tom Lackey told The Sacramento Bee after Newsom’s speech. “If you talk to the average individual and the actual resident, they’re not feeling the same sentiment that was expressed today, because it’s not real. It’s part of the reason why people don’t trust the political atmosphere.”

Other Republicans said Newsom only returned to the state Capitol, where he has not delivered the State of the State since 2020, to burnish his record for his future political ambitions. “This was nothing more than one of his stops on his presidential campaign,” GOP Assemblymember Carl DeMaio said. “He wants people to thank him. He wants people to think that somehow they should be grateful for the damage he’s done.”

Newsom singled out DeMaio as he kicked off his speech, when he quipped about his deep unpopularity with Republicans. “I was looking for some response from some of the folks over here on the right when Speaker (Robert Rivas) said ‘this is his last State of the State,’ I was assuming DeMaio would look up and maybe applaud or something,” Newsom said.

DeMaio may not have applauded during Rivas’ introduction, but he didn’t mince words with a Bee reporter in the Capitol rotunda either.

“Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out,” he said of Newsom.

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