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  • Los Angeles Times

    California Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom faces high expectations and the peril of falling short

    by Melanie Mason, Taryn Luna and Phil Willon, Los Angeles Times Jan 06, 2019 8 minutes

    SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Within an hour of being elected California's 40th governor, Gavin Newsom cast the occasion as not just a win, but also a watershed.

    "As Californians, we've been granted the extraordinary opportunity to write history's next chapter," he told supporters on election night, with the ornate former Los Angeles Stock Exchange as a backdrop. "And the extraordinary obligation to help every Californian write their own California story - even from the darkest of circumstances."

    The soaring rhetoric was fitting for a man who had campaigned in all-caps and boldface, offering lofty promises to tackle health care, housing and other obstinate problems facing the state.

    Now, he'll have to deliver.

    When Newsom is sworn in as governor on Monday, he'll do so with the wind at his back: a robust state economy and flush budget, a forceful electoral victory and a Capitol brimming with Democratic allies. With that good fortune comes great expectations for success, brought on by Newsom's "something for everyone" campaign that left key constituencies hungry for follow-through.

    It can't get much better for Newsom, and it's almost certain to get worse. An economic contraction, a natural disaster, a rebellion among Democratic lawmakers - all threaten the incoming governor's footing.

    "All governors have to be somewhat fatalistic," said former Gov. Gray Davis, who started his term in 1998 riding the dot-com boom and ended it in

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