THE BUZZ: NO VICTORY LAP — This isn’t where Gov. Gavin Newsom was expected to be with just two years left in his term. Newsom had been scheduled to deliver his State of the State address today, but the governor’s office hastily postponed the speech Friday as the fate of his statewide mental health ballot measure remained too close to call. Proposition 1, the $6.4 billion mental health and housing bond the governor has championed, held a razor-thin lead Sunday evening as ballots continued to be counted — 50.1 to 49.9 percent. While it’s likely to pass by a thin margin, the strikingly close vote has been an embarrassment for Newsom, the face of the campaign. Prop 1’s limp to the finish line comes amid a series of headwinds for Newsom, who has increasingly focused on his national profile and leaned into the national stakes for Democrats in November as a top surrogate for President Joe Biden. Newsom’s approval ratings in a key public poll have sagged to their lowest level since 2010, with just 48 percent of likely voters approving of his performance. He faces a looming and massive budget deficit. And Republicans have launched yet another effort to recall him. The governor has faced some criticism over his national bully pulpit — especially from Republicans, who say he’s focused on his national profile at the expense of governing the state. Newsom’s allies counter that he has always maintained a robust state agenda, and that he isn’t sweating this moment. “The governor is working, not handwringing,” said Bob Salladay, Newsom’s senior adviser for communications. “Prop 1 is close but winnable. He's working with the Legislature right now to take a huge bite out of the budget shortfall with early action. He's taking the recall effort seriously but he knows it's another wasteful distraction that will be defeated.” But it’s hard to overstate the level of disappointment within Newsom’s orbit coming out of the primary election. The governor has made rebuilding the state’s mental-health treatment system and providing housing for homeless Californians one of the signature issues of his administration — and he’s chided past governors for leaving the housing shortage up to cities. For Newsom, the policy implications of a Prop 1 defeat would be greater than the political fallout. The ballot measure is central to his plans for confronting California’s most pressing quality-of-life challenge with the twin homelessness and addiction crises — all at a time when the state budget deficit is spiraling and finding more money for his agenda is becoming harder and harder. Newsom was Prop 1 biggest cheerleader and barnstormed the state in February promoting it, to the point that he lost his voice during the final weekend of campaign. But opposition to the complex measure only grew in the final stretch. A small but significant percentage of primary voters skipped the question entirely — more than 144,000 voters in deep-blue Los Angeles County alone didn’t weigh in on Prop. 1. “The governor really put himself out there on this in the final weeks. It didn’t have the intended effect,” said Mark Baldassare, a veteran pollster at the Public Policy Institute of California. PPIC’s poll of likely voters shows Newsom’s approval ratings among Democrats and Republicans are virtually unchanged from a year ago. But the governor has hemorrhaged support among independents. Last month, PPIC found only 41 percent of independent likely voters approved of Newsom, a steep drop from 53 percent approval at the same time last year. Newsom’s sagging approval rating is also nearly identical to Biden’s level of support in California. As Baldassare noted, voters see the governor and president’s brands as more connected than ever. GOOD MORNING. Happy Monday. Thanks for waking up with Playbook. We hope you’ve recovered from any St. Patrick’s Day festivities. Now you can text us at 916-562-0685 — save it as “CA Playbook” in your contacts now. Or drop us a line at lkorte@politico.com and dgardiner@politico.com, or on X — @DustinGardiner and @Lara_Korte. WHERE’S GAVIN? Nothing official announced following the cancellation of his State of the State address. It will be rescheduled, but a date has not been set.
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