California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s viral comment about his poor SAT score and difficulty reading is drawing criticism from the chairwoman of the California Republican Party, who says it speaks to a broader issue of the way Democrats speak to Black voters in a condescending way.
“My first instinct was I couldn’t believe that the governor of California was saying something like this in 2026,” Corrin Rankin, the first Black chair of the California GOP in history, told Fox News Digital.
The controversy began on Sunday when the conservative influencer account End Wokeness posted a clip of Newsom, viewed more than 40 million times on X, showing him telling Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens “I’m like you” and explaining that he has trouble reading and did poorly on his SAT.
The clip was viewed by many conservatives as Newsom pandering to Black viewers, talking down to them, and some called the clip “racist.”
NEWSOM PUSHES THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY TO BE ‘MORE CULTURALLY NORMAL’ IF THEY WANT TO WIN
“I think he just tanked himself yesterday,” Rankin said of Newsom, who is widely believed to have White House ambitions in 2028, “You know, you can’t go around and say that a segment of your state is intellectually inferior and think you’re gonna represent Americans. It’s never gonna happen. This is gonna haunt him for the rest of his career and any potential career he thinks he’s going to have.”
Newsom defended himself in a post on X on Monday, making the case he was strictly talking about his dyslexia.
“First MAGA mocked his dyslexia, and now they’re calling him racist for talking about his low SAT scores,” Newsom spokesperson Izzy Gardon told Fox News Digital in response to criticism of the clip.
“This is MAGA-manufactured outrage. The Governor has said this publicly for years — including with Charlie Kirk and dozens of other audiences. The same people who excused or ignored Trump’s racist ape video can go f— themselves.”
Many have defended Newsom on social media, pointing to his dyslexia, and Mayor Dickens responded to the controversy in an Instagram post saying, “That wasn’t an attack on anyone. It was a moment of vulnerability about his own journey.”
“Trying to blame this on dyslexia is something that is completely separate from what he intended to say,” Rankin said. “He truly believes that Black people, black Americans, are intellectually inferior. That is where his comments were coming from.”
Democrats have faced criticism in recent weeks for opposing federal voter ID legislation, including Sen. Chuck Schumer, who has called the bill “Jim Crow 2.0,“ and Newsom, who suggested Black people have difficulty obtaining passports, a claim Rankin called out on social media last week.
“It should start ringing hollow, especially, you know what’s Jim Crow? Thinking that Black people are intellectually inferior, that’s the mindset that contributed to Jim Crow,” Rankin said. “It’s the mindset of thinking that Black people are inferior, they’re intellectually inferior, that they’re not smart and that was the reason to hold Black people down the reason being that Black people aren’t as smart as other people.”
“It’s a lie, we all know it’s lie, and the fact that anyone especially and including the governor of California to perpetuate that lie. And that false narrative, it’s beyond insulting. And honestly, he should be embarrassed. He should be embarrassed of himself. He should be embarrassed of his actions, his family, his children, his neighbors, everyone should be embarrassed from what he said.”
