California Dreamin’ … of Texas, Florida and Tennessee.

That’s the state of play in 2026.

The home of sun-drenched beaches, Yosemite and Silicon Valley is one of just five states that lost residents in 2025 compared with 2024, per an analysis by the financial technology company SmartAsset.

The study, published this week, found that “California is declining while Texas is rising.”

Scant surprise there. The Golden State is unaffordable, malgoverned and steered by stakeholders like unions, nonprofits and bureaucrats that put their own interests first –– and hand residents the bill.

The steady exodus of those residents should ring alarm bells for California voters. 

The status quo is failing.

In the five years since the 2020 Census, California lost about 1.1 million residents, in aggregate, to other states.

Consequences include a brain, skills and jobs drain, diluted power for the state in Congress, and a loss of clout the state has long enjoyed nationally.

What’s more, the “billionaire tax” on the Nov. 3 ballot has already chased away some of the state’s top innovators –– and, if it passes, could all but kill the state’s startup culture, as Mark Cuban warned this week. 

That might eviscerate an entire segment of the state’s economy.

Meanwhile, California suffers from haughty government that imposes sky-high taxes and a sweeping regime of costly and onerous regulations. In just the latest example, the state is rolling out a tire mandate that will inflate the cost of replacement rubber for motorists.

More broadly, thanks to Democrats’ green pipe dreams, residents here pay more for gas, oil, water, utilities, housing, food, retail goods and virtually anything else transported by or connected to fuel and energy.

While these policies don’t budge global temperatures, they do support political grandstanding and taxpayer-funded green pork for Dems’ cronies and supporters.

Who doesn’t want that?

And then there’s the gross mismanagement. Examples include state and Los Angeles homeless policies that entrench the problem by enriching those who never solve it; public schools that deliver graduates who can’t do fractions; and endless giveaways to unions that deplete public services along with the public wallet.

And that’s just a sampling of a state run by power players that take rather than give, that focus on everything but good results, and that seem to have lost the very concept of public service.

So. What will it take for the U-Hauls to make a U-turn?

For voters to choose differently. To focus beyond President Trump and the politicians constantly running against him, even though the prez has nothing to do with California’s many self-inflicted crises. 

Trump will be gone in two years. 

California’s woes will not.

And regardless of who’s in the White House, this state needs a reboot.

Voters can start by defeating Prop. 40, the so-called billionaire tax, in November. While they’re at it, they can pass Prop. 39, a modest Voter ID law that would start rebuilding trust in state election results.

And they can support candidates up and down the ballot with plans and visions and practical solutions for California problems –– including so many of politicians’ own making.

We all know the definition of insanity.

Those who are California Leavin’ have said “enough.” 

Can the rest of us stay here, yet say the same?