Another year on Mr. Toad’s Wild ride is almost over for California. We came close to getting our third Golden State president, after Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Vice President Kamala Harris came within 1.4 percentage points of winning the popular vote against former President Donald Trump. Although the Electoral College made her loss more dramatic, 312 to 226.

At least some of the loss, though, was due to the state’s negative reputation across the country. Trump shouted at rallies, “We’re not going to let Kamala Harris do to America what she did to California.” Democratic consultant Andrew Acosta told the Wall Street Journal of his state, “That’s the rub. One would have a hard time as a national political consultant saying that someone from California could run and win the presidency after what we just saw happen.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom faces that problem ahead of an expected 2028 bid for the Oval Office. He’s advertising the state as a progressive utopia. He called a Special Session of the Legislature to grab $25 million of our tax dollars to thwart Trump actions here, such as deporting undocumented residents, saying, “California is a tent pole of the country – from the economy to innovation to protecting and investing in rights and freedoms for all people.”

Meanwhile, Silicon Valley, the engine of the state’s prosperity, has been defecting to Trump. Elon Musk, who decamped to Texas in 2021 but still runs businesses here, including a Tesla factory in Fremont, was one of the first and biggest to join the Trump Camp, becoming “First Buddy.” Also endorsing were Larry Ellison and Marc Andreessen.

After the election, other digerati traveled to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the president-elect’s ring, including Apple’s Tim Cook, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Alphabet/Google’s Sundar Pinchai. As I noted in my previous column, they were upset at the censorious ways of Newsom, Harris, President Joe Biden and other Democrats, especially with artificial intelligence. Newsom even pushed through two bills banning “deep fake” content – that is, free speech ridicule of candidates.

AI is developing so fast it’s helping bail Newsom out of another massive budget deficit hole. A Nov. 20 analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office found, “The recent run-up in the stock market, which appears tied to optimism surrounding artificial intelligence, is a primary driver of the rapid growth in pay to high-income workers.” Great if you’re a high-IQ tech worker. If not, then in this state everything still costs too much and taxes are way too high.

Yet the AI revolution is real, it’s going to change our lives immensely, largely for the better, and it’s happening fastest in California. Once again, the future is starting here.

Republicans saw a glimmer of light to become relevant again, flipping three Democratic seats in the Legislature. CalMatters reported that made the party “hopeful that California’s reputation as a liberal enclave state may be shifting.” In the Senate, the GOP “caucus is on pace to have at least 50% nonwhite members for the first time,” pending races for two open seats after voters sent Vince Fong to Washington and Janet Nguyen to the Orange County Board of Supervisors.

According to the 2020 U.S. Census, California was 39.4% Hispanic, 38.3% white, 17% Asian, 6.4% African-American and 0.7% Pacific Islander. It’s obvious any party needs to diversify to win.

The most recent “State of Diverse Small Businesses in California” was prepared for the state’s California Office of the Small Business Advocate by Beacon Economics. It found, “In total, minority-owned small businesses generate $192 billion in economic output across the state annually” and employed 2.5 million people.

An August study by the Mercatus Center found California by far the most regulated state, with 420,434 “regulatory restrictions,” compared to second-place New York’s 300,095 and least-regulated Idaho’s 31,497.

With the election over, 2025 looks to be one of more growth and innovation in a field of regulatory bureaucracy. How about letting AI run the state government?

John Seiler is on the SCNG Editorial Board and blogs at: johnseiler.substack.com