In an indication of California’s rising standing as a serious hub of Democratic politics, Gov. Gavin Newsom mentioned Sunday he’s contemplating a run for president in 2028 — only a day after former U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris made the identical pronouncement.
Newsom, a Democrat who has received nationwide prominence this 12 months pitching himself a frontrunner of the resistance to President Trump, admitted for the primary time publicly that he’s significantly weighing a 2028 presidential run.
In an interview with “CBS Information Sunday Morning,” Newsom was requested whether or not he would give “severe thought” after the 2026 midterms to a White Home bid.
“Yeah, I’d be mendacity in any other case,” Newsom replied. “I’d simply be mendacity. And I’m not — I can’t try this.”
Harris mentioned this weekend in an interview with the BBC that she expects a girl can be president within the coming 12 months. “Probably,” she mentioned, it might be her.
“I’m not performed,” she mentioned. “I’ve lived my complete profession as a lifetime of service and it’s in my bones.”
It’s nonetheless greater than three years till the November 2028 election, and fully potential just one or neither of the 2 California politicians might throw their hat within the race.
However the early willingness of Newsom and Harris to publicly contemplate a White Home bid exhibits that the Golden State continues to be a serious hub of Democratic politics. It additionally units up a possible 2028 political showdown between two of California’s weightiest political figureheads.
For years, Newsom has denied presidential ambitions. However since Trump defeated Harris within the November 2024 election, the California governor has emerged as a vocal critic of the Trump administration’s agenda.
Underneath Newsom’s management, California has filed dozens of lawsuits towards Trump — most noticeably towards the Trump administration’ deployment of Nationwide Guard and Marines to Los Angeles. The governor has additionally develop into extra aggressive on social media, taking to X to taunt and troll Trump.
Nonetheless, Newsom, whose time period ends in January 2027 and who can not run once more for governor due to time period limits, cautioned that he’s not speeding right into a 2028 presidential marketing campaign.
“I do not know,” Newsom mentioned Sunday of whether or not he’ll truly resolve to run.
After Trump defeated Harris in November, Harris was considered as a potential candidate for California governor. However in July she introduced that, after “severe thought” she wouldn’t run for the highest California workplace.
“For now, my management — and public service — is not going to be in elected workplace,” Harris mentioned in a press release. “I sit up for getting again out and listening to the American folks, serving to elect Democrats throughout the nation who will battle fearlessly, and sharing extra particulars within the months forward about my very own plans.”
Newsom’s curiosity within the White Home raises the stakes for passing Proposition 50, a California poll measure he has pushed — in response to an analogous initiative in Texas — that may permit state Democrats to briefly change the boundaries of U.S. Home maps in order that they’re extra favorable to Democrats. California voters will vote on Prop 50 in a particular election subsequent week.
Newsom has forged his effort as a response to Trump’s push to redraw maps in Republican-controlled states to make them extra favorable to the GOP.
“I feel it’s about our democracy,” Newsom mentioned within the CBS interview. “It’s about the way forward for this republic. I feel it’s about, you already know, what the founding fathers lived and died for, this notion of the rule of regulation, and never the rule of Don.”
If Newsom is profitable and Proposition 50 passes, the transfer might doubtlessly assist future Democratic candidates for the White Home.
However both manner, each Newsom and Harris would face excessive hurdles in battleground states in the event that they ran for president.
Simply being a Californian is a legal responsibility, some argue, at a time when Republicans depict the state as a bastion of woke concepts, excessive taxes and crime.
Whereas California boasts the world’s fifth-largest financial system and is dwelling to the large tech powerhouse of Silicon Valley and the cultural epicenter of Hollywood, it has struggled lately with excessive housing prices and large earnings inequality. In September, a examine discovered California tied with Louisiana for the nation’s highest poverty price.
Newsom, 58, a former San Francisco mayor who was born to a rich and well-connected San Francisco household, urged within the CBS interview that he had already surmounted important obstacles. Early on, Newsom struggled in class and suffered from dyslexia.
“The concept that a man who obtained 960 on his SAT, that also struggles to learn scripts, that was at all times behind the classroom, the concept you’d even throw that out is, in and of itself, extraordinary,” Newsom mentioned. “Who the hell is aware of? I’m trying ahead to who presents themselves in 2028 and who meets that second. And that’s the query for the American folks.”
Harris, 61, who served as a U.S. senator and California lawyer normal earlier than she turned vp in 2020 after which the Democratic Celebration’s nominee within the 2024 presidential election, acquired criticism final 12 months after dropping to Trump by greater than 2.3 million votes, about 1.5% of the favored vote. Some Democrats accused her of being an elite, out of contact candidate who failed to attach with voters in battleground states who’ve struggled economically lately.
However talking in Los Angeles final month as she promoted her new memoir, “107 Days,” Harris appeared to take little duty for her 2024 loss.
“I wrote the guide for a lot of causes, however primarily to remind us how unprecedented that election was,” Harris mentioned.
“Give it some thought. A sitting president of america is operating for reelection and three and a half months earlier than the election decides to not run, after which a sitting vp takes up the mantle to run towards a former president of america who has been operating for 10 years, with 107 days to go.”
Newsom has already raised eyebrows this 12 months by touring to important battleground election states.
In July, Newsom traveled greater than 2,000 miles to South Carolina, a state that historically hosts the South’s first presidential main. He mentioned he was working to assist the celebration win again the U.S. Home of Representatives in 2026. However on the time there have been a dozen aggressive Home districts in California. South Carolina, a staunchly conservative state, didn’t have a single aggressive race.
After Newsom spoke in South Carolina, Rep. James Clyburn, the highest-ranking Black member of Congress and famend Democratic kingmaker who rescued former President Biden’s 2020 marketing campaign, informed The Occasions that Newsom could be “a hell of a candidate.”
“He’s demonstrated that over and over,” Clyburn mentioned, stopping wanting endorsing him. “I be ok with his probabilities.”
However different main South Carolina Democrats voiced doubts that Newsom might win over working class and swing voters in battleground states.
Richard Harpootlian, a South Carolina lawyer, former state senator and former chairman of the state Democratic Celebration, referred to as Newsom “a good-looking man with nice hair.”
“However the celebration is looking for a left-of-moderate candidate who can articulate blue-collar hopes and wishes,” Harpootlian informed The Occasions.
“If he had a monitor document of fixing enormous issues like homelessness, or the social security web, he’d be a extra palatable candidate,” he added. “I simply assume he’s going to have a troublesome time explaining why there’s so many failures in California.”
