California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a possible Democratic candidate for president in 2028, wants to significantly scale back his state’s effort to provide free health care to migrants in the country without documentation. It’s the latest move in Newsom’s shift right since the 2024 election.
Newsom persuaded state lawmakers to pay for migrant health care in 2024. Now, he is dealing with higher-than-expected demand and a multi-billion-dollar deficit in the overall state budget.
New budget plan
Newsom’s proposed spending plan for the fiscal year beginning July 1 calls for free care only for migrants without documentation younger than 19. Their families would have to meet the same income requirements as any other Californians seeking free care.
Health care
California was the first state to offer free health care to migrants living in the U.S. illegally. Colorado, Oregon and Washington also offer coverage to adults without legal status.
Adult migrants living in the country illegally currently enrolled in California’s Medicaid program, commonly known as Medi-Cal, would be charged a $100 monthly premium. The state would also not enroll additional people living in the U.S. illegally into Medi-Cal after Jan. 1, although they would be eligible to receive free emergency medical treatment and pregnancy care.
Newsom’s proposal is projected to save $5.4 billion through the 2028-29 fiscal year, according to the Los Angeles Times. Partly because covering the migrants proved more costly than expected. The Times reported the state had to borrow $3.4 billion to keep Medi-Cal afloat through June. That’s in addition to the $2.8 billion appropriated through the current year’s state budget.
Almost 15 million Californians are eligible for Medi-Cal coverage, according to the state’s Department of Health Care Services. An estimated 1.6 million of them are migrants.
Democratic opposition
As soon as Newsom released his budget proposal this week, Democratic lawmakers – who hold strong majorities in the state Assembly and Senate – responded critically.
“This is really stark,” Senate Majority Leader Lena Gonzalez told Cal Matters, a nonprofit news outlet. “I get it, we have to tighten our belts, but we should look for other ways.”
But Republican Sen. Roger Niello, vice chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said the cuts are necessary.
“We committed spending to something we can’t afford,” he told Cal Matters.
In remarks to reporters in Los Angeles this week, Newsom downplayed the significance of his budget proposal.
“We’re not cutting or rolling back those enrolled in our Medi-Cal system,” he said. “We’re just capping it. No state has done more than the state of California. No state will continue to do more than the state of California.”
‘Do things differently’
Newsom promised to pursue universal health care when he first won election in 2018. He quickly established himself to a national audience as a liberal icon from a liberal state and was often mentioned as a future presidential candidate.
Now, in the final half of his second term, Newsom shifted his political persona, suggesting he could run in 2028 as a centrist Democrat.
In Spring 2025, he broke from the majority of Democrats in the state legislature when he supported a bill imposing tougher penalties for soliciting sex from 16- and 17-year-olds. Republicans supported the measure, but many Democrats initially opposed it, suggesting it would treat older teens in consensual relationships the same as sex traffickers. The bill is still pending.
More recently, as Straight Arrow News reported, Newsom pressured California cities to outlaw encampments for homeless people. He said that only cities banning the encampments would be eligible for shares of $3.3 billion in funding for the treatment and housing of homeless people.
Newsom’s new podcast further highlights his current political posture. From the beginning, he said the podcast would be a forum for “honest discussions” with guests who “agree and disagree with us.”
Among the first to appear with Newsom were Steve Bannon, the far-right former adviser to former President Donald Trump, and Charlie Kirk, the founder of the conservative youth group Turning Point USA.
In conversation with Kirk, Newsom agreed that it is “deeply unfair” for transgender athletes to compete in girls and women’s sports, an opinion few Democratic officials have publicly expressed.
Newsom’s welcoming of far-right figures has infuriated Democrats in California and beyond, The Guardian reported. However, Newsom recently said talking across ideological lines is critical.
“The world’s changed,” Newsom said. “We need to change with it in terms of how we communicate. We’d be as dumb as we want to be if we continue down the old status quo and try to pave over the old cow path. We’ve got to do things differently.”
Could he be elected president?
Term limits prevent Newsom from running for governor again in 2026. He would be free to concentrate on a presidential campaign after leaving office.
And many Californians think he’s already doing that. In a recent poll by the University of California, Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, 54% of those surveyed said Newsom is more focused on running for the White House than on running the state. The poll put his approval rating at 46%.
National polls show him trailing other potential Democratic candidates, although none is a strong frontrunner.
Some national analysts say that, despite his recent shifts, Newsom would be unlikely to overcome his history in the bluest of blue states.
As an analysis in The Hill put it, “His overall persona – the classic affluent, tanned, liberal Californian – doesn’t exactly recommend him as the best candidate to carry the Rust Belt.”
