In an indication of California’s rising standing as a significant hub of Democratic politics, Gov. Gavin Newsom stated Sunday he’s contemplating a run for president in 2028 — only a day after the information that former U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris made the identical pronouncement.
Newsom, a Democrat who has turn into a nationally famend determine this yr pitching himself a pacesetter of the resistance to President Trump, admitted for the primary time publicly that he’s rigorously weighing a 2028 presidential run.
In an interview with “CBS Information Sunday Morning,” Newsom was requested whether or not he would give “critical 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 do this.”
Harris stated in an interview with the BBC posted this weekend that she expects a girl can be president within the coming yr. “Probably,” she stated, it might be her.
“I’m not performed,” she stated. “I’ve lived my total profession as a lifetime of service, and it’s in my bones.”
With greater than three years till the November 2028 election, it’s totally attainable that just one or neither of the 2 California politicians might in the end throw their hat within the race.
However the early willingness of Newsom and Harris to publicly take into account a White Home bid exhibits that the Golden State stays a central energy base in Democratic politics. It additionally units up a possible 2028 political showdown between two of California’s most outstanding and nationally polarizing political figureheads.
For years, Newsom has denied presidential ambitions, at the same time as pundits have thought-about him a possible candidate. However since Trump defeated Harris within the November 2024 election, the California governor has emerged as a extra vocal combative critic of the Trump administration’s agenda.
Below Newsom’s management, California has filed dozens of lawsuits in opposition to Trump — most noticeably in opposition to the Republican administration’s deployment of Nationwide Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles. The governor has additionally turn 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 don’t know,” Newsom stated Sunday of whether or not he’ll really determine to run.
After Trump defeated Harris in November, she was seen as a attainable candidate for California governor. However in July she introduced that, after “critical thought,” she wouldn’t run for the highest California workplace.
“For now, my management — and public service — won’t be in elected workplace,” Harris stated in an announcement. “I sit up for getting again out and listening to the American folks, serving to elect Democrats throughout the nation who will struggle 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 the same initiative in Texas — that will permit state Democrats to quickly change the boundaries of U.S. Home maps in order that they’re extra favorable to Democrats. California voters will vote on Proposition 50 in a particular election subsequent week.
Newsom has promoted his effort as a response to Trump’s push to redraw maps in Republican-controlled states to make them profit the GOP. Some blue states have guidelines that stop political gerrymandering, however Virginia is now following California’s lead and some others, corresponding to Illinois and Maryland, are weighing related actions.
“I believe it’s about our democracy,” Newsom stated within the CBS interview. “It’s about the way forward for this republic. I believe it’s about, you realize, 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’ bid for the White Home.
However both method, 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 economic system and is dwelling to the large tech powerhouse of Silicon Valley and the cultural epicenter of Hollywood, it has struggled in recent times with excessive housing prices and large revenue inequality. In September, a research discovered California tied with Louisiana for the nation’s highest poverty charge.
Though Harris and Newsom each hail from the Bay Space and labored their method up the Democratic political system in San Francisco, they’ve but to publicly compete for a similar workplace.
“We’ve been kind of on this monitor, however it was all the time adjoining,” Newsom informed The Instances final summer season as Harris turned the Democratic presidential nominee. “The stress was a kind of manifestation of punditry.”
Newsom, 58, a former San Francisco mayor who was born to a well-connected San Francisco household, urged within the CBS interview that he had surmounted important obstacles to get so far. Early on, Newsom struggled at school and suffered from dyslexia.
“The concept that a man who received 960 on his SAT, that also struggles to learn scripts, that was all the time at the back of the classroom, the concept that you’d even throw that out is, in and of itself, extraordinary,” Newsom stated. “Who the hell is aware of? I’m wanting ahead to who presents themselves in 2028 and who meets that second. And that’s the query for the American folks.”
Harris, 61, who was born to immigrant dad and mom and raised in Compton, was a San Francisco Lawyer Common earlier than she served as California Lawyer Common, U.S Senator and have become she turned vice chairman in 2020 after which the Democratic Social gathering’s nominee within the 2024 presidential election.
She obtained criticism final yr 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 in recent times.
However talking in Los Angeles final month as she promoted her new memoir, “107 Days,” Harris didn’t appeared to mirror on any errors she made in 2024.
“I wrote the e book for a lot of causes, however primarily to remind us how unprecedented that election was,” Harris stated.
“Give it some thought. A sitting president of america is working for reelection and three and a half months earlier than the election decides to not run, after which a sitting vice chairman takes up the mantle to run in opposition to a former president of america who has been working for 10 years, with 107 days to go.”
Harris’ e book obtained some criticism for retaining rating and dishing dust on Democrats who didn’t instantly help her bid for Democratic nominee. When she known as Newsom, she wrote, he texted her that he was mountain climbing and would name her again. In keeping with Harris, he by no means did.
Already this yr, Newsom has raised eyebrows by touring to vital 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 major. He stated he was working to assist the occasion 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 at an occasion in Camden, S.C. Rep. James Clyburn, the highest-ranking Black member of Congress and famend Democratic kingmaker who performed a key function in salvagingformer President Biden’s 2020 marketing campaign, informed The Instances that Newsom can be “a hell of a candidate.”
“He’s demonstrated that over and over,” Clyburn stated, though he stopped wanting endorsing him. “I be ok with his possibilities.”
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 attorneyand former chairman of the state Democratic Social gathering, dubbed Newsom “a good-looking man with nice hair.”
However he stated the occasion was trying to find somebody fairly totally different: “a left-of-moderate candidate who can articulate blue-collar hopes and wishes.”
“If he had a monitor file of fixing large issues like homelessness, or the social security web, he’d be a extra palatable candidate,” Harpootlian stated. “I simply suppose he’s going to have a tricky time explaining why there’s so many failures in California.”
