How one California beach town became Gavin Newsom’s nemesis

Mr Newsom’s alleged tyranny stems from his administration’s insistence that cities should build more housing, which the state badly needs and which many cities with wealthy residents and scores of beach-front bungalows resent. That is not his only crime, in the eyes of Ms Van Der Mark. Huntington Beach is fighting the state on several fronts, from housing regulations to voting rules to the flying of the gay-pride flag. The city’s ill-advised battles against Mr Newsom are emblematic of the friction between California’s many Republican pockets and the liberal state government; and of the evolution of California’s Republican Party during the Trump era.