Newsom’s final year in office begins with an $18 billion deficit. How will he address it?

But how Newsom tackles the structural deficit will almost certainly have implications for his expected presidential bid. State Republicans, such as Assemblymember David Tangipa of Fresno, are already blaming the budget problem on Newsom’s mismanagement. “A Newsom presidency would be a fiscal and governance disaster of historic proportions,” Tangipa wrote in a December op-ed.