To paraphrase Jan Brady of the Brady Bunch, it’s been “Newsom, Newsom, Newsom” all day lately.
He was in the Vatican for a climate summit and in Alpharetta, Georgia, for a televised debate with the governor of Florida Ron DeSantis. He’s all over TV, actually – on Fox News and MSNBC, and in ads airing in Tennessee.
And since Joe Biden’s disastrous performance during CNN’s first presidential debate, his name has surfaced on nearly every list of possible successors. With just four months to go until the presidential election, the odds of the president stepping aside now are slim to none — but that hasn’t stopped speculation. Online political bets on Newsom to top this year’s presidential ticket tripled last week to a one-in-four chance.
For the ambitious governor of America’s most populous state, this highlight has been a long time coming. For years, Newsom’s flair for a photo opportunity and constant quest for network news spots have fueled speculation about his presidential ambitions and stoked skepticism among voters who would rather he stick to his day job. Now, it appears that the man who has spent the past few years seeking a national stage has finally found himself at the center of one.
“I think it’s clear that he’s been waiting in the wings for a while,” said Emily Hoeven, an opinion columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle and political reporter who has closely followed Newsom’s career. “But I think there’s a much bigger opening for him now than there’s ever been.”
The governor was swarmed by the press as the debate ended. “It was like human piranhas descended on the governor at the end of this debate,” MSNBC host Alex Wagner marveled as she prepared to interview him after the debate.
Newsom, who is Biden’s lead surrogate for his 2024 campaign, has played down the buzz about whether he would replace Biden on the Democratic ticket. Asked about growing calls for Biden to resign, Wagner quickly called such talk “unhelpful and unnecessary” — before highlighting Biden’s record on the economy and abortion, and the threats his opponent poses to the survival of American democracy.
“I think what you’ve seen is, what Gavin Newsom has to say is actually not all that different from what Joe Biden has to say,” said Bill Whalen, a policy fellow at the Hoover Institution think tank in Palo Alto, California. “But he’s taking Joe Biden’s message and delivering it much more effectively.”
For Democrats in the U.S., Whalen said, Newsom is living out a dream scenario: He leads a blue state with a Democratic supermajority in the legislature, where he can easily pass liberal reforms that would be nearly impossible in other states or nationally. “A lot of what Democrats would like to do nationally, California is doing,” Whalen said.
It also helped that Newsom, as governor of California—who handily defeated a recall campaign in 2021—has amassed formidable political capital that he has used not only to support other Democratic candidates, including Biden, but also to advance his own political aspirations. Since his easy reelection in 2022, the governor has funneled millions in campaign funds into ads and appearances outside his home state.
Whether he can convert that momentum into a successful national campaign remains uncertain, Whalen and other political analysts said.
While he’s been busy wooing the national spotlight, his reputation at home has deteriorated. Just 47% of likely California voters approved of his job performance in a June survey by the Public Policy Institute of California, down from 57% in March 2023.
Newsom can’t help but notice that, amid recent budget deficits, the state is grappling with a growing homelessness crisis, an underperforming education system and growing economic inequality.
“I think his actions show that his priorities are increasingly outside of California,” Hoeven said. “And I think that’s frustrating for the people of California who clearly did not elect him as president.”
In recent months, he has appeared to back away from some of his more progressive political positions, including backing off his support for supervised injection sites, vetoing a bill to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms and occasionally siding with Republicans and opposing allies in the legislature. Some supporters see this as an appeal to swing voters.
But it remains unclear whether the liberal governor of a blue state will ever truly have what it takes to garner national support in an increasingly divided country. And while his powerful political connections have helped him rise in California, it’s unclear whether he’ll be able to shake off a certain elitist air that has plagued his campaigns here.
And then there is the permanent image that has dogged the governor’s political career for two decades: a photo of Newsom spread out on a plush carpet in Ann Getty’s penthouse with his ex-wife Kimberly Guilfoyle — now a right-wing TV personality and Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law.
Opponents could easily point to the governor’s infamously ill-timed visit to the Michelin-starred French Laundry restaurant amid a Covid-19 surge, or point to his family’s decision to relocate part-time from California’s capital in Sacramento to the wealthy Bay Area enclave of Marin to enroll their child in a private academy.
In a recent segment on Jimmy Kimmel Live , comedian Josh Meyers plays “your lovin’ Govin” in a mock political ad featuring Meyers-as-Newsom attempting a bench press in his signature startup-chic navy business jacket and half-buttoned white shirt while promoting “lunar power.” He puffs on a vape, and when someone asks for a hit, he says, “Sure, but I only vape merlot” without breaking his toothpaste-commercial smile.
“There’s such a thing as maybe being too attractive, or more importantly, looking like the person whose picture is on the new wallet you buy at the department store,” Whalen said. “That’s Gavin Newsom.”
Hoven recalled his 2023 inauguration, when he led what was billed as an “Anti January 6 March on the Capitol.” He and his supporters were supposed to march about a quarter-mile past the governor’s office. “But in reality, there were huge fences on both sides of the promenade, so the average person couldn’t participate or even watch the parade,” she recalled.
The governor walked only a short distance before getting into a car. “It was emblematic of the ways in which he has failed to connect, I think, with the average person,” she said.
