By nearly every metric, California is the worst-governed state in the country, as California Democrats continue to smother its residents with burdensome regulations and offer them nothing but incompetent governance.
The 2026 state ratings from US News & World Report put California at a mediocre 35th overall ranking, highlighted by the Golden State ranking dead last in “opportunity,” which is meant to measure “economic opportunity, affordability and equality within a state.” Of the eight categories the outlet uses to rank states, California is below average in six of them: economy (26th), natural environment (27th), infrastructure (32nd), crime and corrections (36th), fiscal stability (44th), and opportunity.
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Two of those are of particular note. The first is “economy,” driven by California ranking 46th in economic growth and 48th in employment. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) likes to brag about California’s gross domestic product, but he continually ignores that the number does little for Californians being crushed by the state’s self-inflicted affordability crisis.
The second is “natural environment,” where California has actively sabotaged its energy grid and agriculture industry on behalf of environmentalists who have done little to improve the state’s (or the country’s) climate.
There are only two areas where California is above average, and one of them barely counts. The state ranks seventh in healthcare and a middling 25th in education. (On the latter issue, Republican Ron DeSantis’s Florida, home of “book bans” and criticized by left-wing education “experts,” ranks third).
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You can quibble about how US News & World Report determines its rankings, but the numbers match what we know about the Golden State. California remains tied with Louisiana for the highest poverty rate in the country. Its education and test scores have consistently been mediocre compared to the rest of the country. The state’s infrastructure has been so poor that Democrats jacked up the gas tax to the highest in the country to fund road repairs, and admitted that climate policies have restricted construction so much that they are willing to revisit it. Whatever growth exists in California’s job market comes from government jobs, putting more Californians on the taxpayer’s dime.
California remains the most poorly-run state in the country, as Democrats turn it into a laughing stock despite having a wealth of geographic and natural environmental advantages over the rest of the country. California is hostile to businesses and its own residents, taxing them to the ground and offering them almost nothing in return. Under the Democratic monopoly on power for the past decade, it has become a failed state.