Good Thursday morning, I'm Anna Palmer and welcome to your Politico Playbook audio briefing, sponsored by AARP.

We're in Los Angeles, where we'll sit down with Gavin Newsom in a few hours.

Newsom is the Democratic candidate for governor and the heavy favorite to lead the nation's most populous state.

Every time we come to California on Politico business,

sometimes a half a dozen times a year, we are confronted with a vivid paradox. For all the

interconnectedness of modern life, in which geographical distance should be irrelevant, we sense

immediately in conversations the cultural and intellectual distance from Washington.

To say California is the heart of the resistance is an understatement.

The place is burning with anti-Trump sentiment from the tech hub of San Francisco and Silicon Valley to here in L.A.

You can't get into an Uber without a discussion of Trump.

California is one of the decisive arenas for American politics, the home of many of the most

important personalities and ideas dominating D.C. and our political culture.

Thematically, many of the themes in American politics here are playing out in miniature.

The debate over the Democratic Party's aged leaders, Feinstein and Pelosi, the question

about how far left Democrats should go.

Many Republicans say the Golden State is giving the nation a preview of where the national

GOP is heading, absent a major course correction on on immigration policy. The state is battling over

gas tax repeal, high business taxes, and the role of the federal government in a massive

high-speed rail project. Consider this. Nancy Pelosi or Kevin McCarthy both have better than

even chances to be the next speaker of the House. They're both of the top of the food chain in Washington with incredible sway over their party.

Newsom is already being talked about as a 2020 candidate, as is Senator Kamala Harris,

who is in her first term representing California in the Senate.

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