STATE CAPITOL -As debate raged this summer over whether President Joe Biden should abandon his re-election bid, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s stock soared.
The California Democrat became a fixture on the national political stage as hestood behind Biden to the bitter end— a boost in profile,long cultivated by Newsom, that made him a serious prospect in conversations about who Democrats couldselect as a replacement nominee.
That possibility was cut short when theparty quickly consolidatedbehindVice President Kamala Harrisafter Biden dropped out of the race in July. And though her loss to former President Donald Trump this week does reopen a path for Newsom to seek the presidency in 2028, he emerges from the wreckage in a considerably weakened state.
While deeper analysis remains to be done about why the national electoratebroadly shifted to the rightin this election, Democrats are likely to be skeptical that another culture warrior from California represents their best chance of rebuilding the party after voters rejected Harris, who came out of the same San Francisco political circles as Newsom.
Matt Rodriguez, a Democratic consultant who worked on presidential campaigns for Barack Obama, Dick Gephardt and Bill Bradley, said a Newsom campaign would be stuck with a challenging message: “If you didn’t love the first movie, you’re gonna love the sequel.”
“Being from California is a bit of a millstone around people’s necks and that will make Democrats skittish,” Rodriguez said.
Newsom, who steadfastly denies any interest in the White House even as heappears to lay the groundwork for a future campaign, released a statement this afternoon, right after Harris delivered her concession speech.
“Though this is not the outcome we wanted, our fight for freedom and opportunity endures,” he said. “California will seek to work with the incoming president — but let there be no mistake, we intend to stand with states across our nation to defend our Constitution and uphold the rule of law.”
Newsom won’t be leaving the spotlight anytime soon. With two years remaining in his governorship, he is poised toreturn to the resister-in-chiefthat he was during Trump’s first term — a move that could boost his appeal to loyal Democrats even beyond California’s borders.
“What else is there? If you’re a Democrat today, you’re wiping your tears away,” said Democratic consultant Andrew Acosta. “They’re not going to roll over and say, ‘Well, I guess I need to give Donald Trump a chance.’”
Whether the relevance that comes with being Trump’s foil translates into votes outside of the most devoted MSNBC viewers is far less certain.
Once the fog of this election lifts, Democrats face a reckoning over the message that will carry them forward, especially as they continue to lose ground with traditionally Democratic working class and nonwhite voters. The party found itself in this position in 1988, after a third straight presidential election loss, and ascended again with Bill Clinton by co-opting conservative messaging on crime and the economy.
If the argument to pivot to the center wins out, then a staunch liberal like Newsom — whose gubernatorial record includes amoratorium on the death penaltyand an executive orderphasing out the sale of gas-powered cars— could be seen as too big of a risk for Democratic primary voters.
“There will be a lot of soul searching,” Acosta said. “The California baggage does become problematic.”
Republicans would be only too happy to pounce in a general election. Trump routinelymade California a punching bagin his campaign, and his closing argument against Harris focused as much onpainting her as too extremeon issues such as transgender rights as it did on the economic concerns that were top of mind for voters.
Jennifer Jacobs, a Republican consultant who worked across the country this year to elect Trump and GOP candidates, said voters everywhere are tired of the politics and governance thatCalifornia has come to represent: high gas prices and housing costs, widespread homelessness and retail theft, mass illegal immigration.
ALos Angeles Times poll in Februaryfound that half of American adults believe California is in decline, and nearly half of Republicans said California was not American.
“We just had an entire nation say we don’t want to be like California,” said Jacobs, a San Diego native who like many other residents of the state is planning to move to Las Vegas in the coming months.
Newsom himself hasstruggled with declining job approvalamong California voters, who appeared to further repudiate the governor this week when theyoverwhelmingly passed a tough-on-crime measurethat he vocally opposed and maneuvered to remove from the ballot.
“He is California,” Jacobs said. “I hope he runs for president. It will be the biggest trouncing you’ve ever seen.”
Of course, the next election is four years away. There’s still plenty of time for the mood to change, especially if another messy Trump administration turns off voters and pushes them back toward Democrats, further upending assumptions about their priorities.
After Mitt Romney lost in 2012, unable to dent President Obama’s multiracial coalition, Republicans concluded that the party needed to be more inclusive to minority groups and take on comprehensive immigration reform to win the White House. Trump’s successtrashed that theory.
“We have to see where this plays out over the course of Trump’s presidency and what’s the space that the opposition party fills,” Rodriguez said.
For Newsom, however, destiny may be set. Completely reinventing himself over the next few years from anti-Trump hero to, say, economic populist is a tall order that would would require disappointing allies and slaughtering sacred cows of California politics.
It’s not impossible, but his chances of becoming president probably depend more on the frame of mind the electorate is in several years from now than anything Newsom says or does in the meantime.
“Voters are going to have to be open to him,” Rodriguez said. “There isn’t much he can do to change that.”
Alexei Koseff covers Gov. Gavin Newsom, the Legislature and California government from Sacramento.He joined CalMatters in January 2022 after previously reporting on the Capitol for The Sacramento Bee and the San Francisco Chronicle.Folsom Times and All Town Media LLC are authorized CalMatters media partners in an effort to keep our local community up to date on happenings in the State Capitol.
