Gavin Newsom stays mum on Donald Trump conviction, uses the opportunity to fundraise

Andrew Sheeler
·4 min read
7

Good morning and welcome to the A.M. Alert!

NEWSOM, MUM ON TRUMP CONVICTION, USES OCCASION TO FUNDRAISE

Via Vik Jolly...

While Gavin Newsom’s office did not comment on former President Donald Trump’s conviction in the hush-money trial, the California governor used Trump’s nearly $35 million post verdicts campaign fundraising haul to urge voters to give to President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign.

In an email sent Friday morning by a political action committee affiliated with Newsom with a subject line that read “A dangerous moment for Joe Biden,” the governor reminded supporters about a federal fundraising deadline that day.

The Friday night deadline alone was reason to donate.

“I don’t need to tell you about Donald Trump’s conviction yesterday,” the governor said in the email. “But here is what you may not know: after the jury announced its verdict, Donald Trump raised $35 million from supporters who want to see him re-elected. All in less than 24 hours. And this on the heels of out-raising Joe Biden last month, as well.”

Calling it an “absolutely critical moment” for those who want to see Biden re-elected to get involved, the governor urged action.

“We are going to look back at this moment as a major inflection point in this race,” Newsom wrote.

Newsom’s Campaign for Democracy PAC showed a total of $10.1 million raised by the quarter ending March 31, with nearly $3.8 million received in individual contributions during that period.

The governor and his supporters are using three fundraising committees, including the Campaign for Democracy PAC, according to data from OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan campaign finance watchdog group, and the Federal Election Commission.

WHAT ARE THE HAPPIEST COUNTIES IN CALIFORNIA?

Via Nicole Nixon...

Two capital region counties are among the top five happiest in California, according to a researcher from the World Happiness Report who analyzed a decade’s worth of data on the topic.

Placer and Yolo counties rank third and fourth, respectively, in annual Gallup surveys that ask residents to rate their overall life satisfaction on a scale of one to 10. Alpine County ranked the highest, though it is considered an outlier due to its small population and a tiny sample size. Marin County ranked second and San Luis Obispo County was fifth.

“The main question, and there’s sort of an elegant simplicity to it, is literally ‘on a scale of 1 to 10, how satisfied are you with your life these days?’” said Jan De Neve, editor of the World Happiness report and Director of the Wellbeing Research Centre at Oxford University, who analyzed the data.

As a whole, California averaged a wellbeing index of 7.09, slightly higher than the national average of 7.07.

“Health policy, education policy, mobility, policing, you name it. All of it ultimately impacts quality of life experience,” De Neve said.

Gallup stopped collecting the data in 2018 but other, more recent datasets suggest Californians and Americans report lower levels of life satisfaction these days. That’s driven largely by high levels of youth unhappiness, De Neve said.

Happiness of America’s youth is “off a cliff and it’s driven down the overall ranking of the United States for wellbeing in a global context,” he said.

In other words, Americans aged 60 and older would rank tenth happiest compared to their peers in other countries. Those under 30 would rank 62nd, between the Dominican Republic and Peru.

De Neve presented his research at the second hearing of the Assembly’s Select Committee on Happiness and Public Policy Outcomes, created and chaired by former Speaker Anthony Rendon.

Rendon is termed out of the legislature at the end of the year and acknowledged he won’t be around to implement findings or recommendations from his committee.

“It’s about raising consciousness,” he said, noting that some colleagues “take it seriously and some people don’t think it’s as relevant.”

As for his own happiness, Rendon rated it a seven out of ten — a marked improvement since the committee’s first hearing in March, when he said it was a two.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“When Trump was first elected he changed the rules. If he didn’t agree with media = fake news, if he lost an election = election fraud, If he is on trial = sham trial. Blame, blame, he takes no responsibility. It is a sad day in America when people accept this.”

- Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva, D-Fullerton, via X.

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