Gavin Newsom has for years denied having any desire to run for the presidency of the United States in the most adamant of terms.
“Yeah, I mean, I have sub-zero interest,” he said last year, before adding, “It’s not even on my radar.” And that’s just one denial among dozens.
Many political observers had long been baffled by Newsom’s decision to renounce any interest in the presidency when it is so obvious that he is in fact thoroughly devoted to winning the position. After all, had Newsom been more upfront, he could have swept in when Biden stepped aside. As it is, Newsom had pranced across every cable news show declaring Biden to be cognitively excellent and himself to have not the slightest iota of interest in the role. (RELATED: Gavin Newsom Breaks With Biden to Set Up Presidential Run)
But this week, Newsom has thrown his denials to the side. “I’m not thinking about running, but it’s a path that I could see unfold,” he told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published Tuesday. That message coincided with Newsom’s primetime address to the nation regarding President Donald Trump’s deployment of California National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles.
“A Path That I Could See Unfold”
Thus begins a new stage in Newsom’s lifelong mission to win the presidency. (In the ‘90s, Newsom said, “If you’re in politics and you want to make an impact, you should be as successful as possible and the most influential position is president.”)
In this new stage, Newsom will publicly direct his effort to be the preeminent Democratic voice toward his goal of winning the White House in 2028.
That was harder for him to do back in 2023 when he debated then-presidential candidate Ron DeSantis on national TV, toured red states to present his alternative vision for their governance, and put up billboards across the country advertising his actions on abortion — all while constantly denying that he had any designs on the White House.
From now on, all of his quintessentially Newsom actions — his made-for-TV governance, his dramatic public pronouncements that aim for a national audience, and his effort to push progressive governance ever-leftward — will be wholly directed toward this stated “path” that could “unfold.” (RELATED: Newsom Can’t Memory-Hole What He Did to California)
Already, this has given a new tone to his actions this week, in which he has played a dominant role on the national stage. In opposing Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles, he positioned himself as the leader of the Trump resistance. “This brazen abuse of power by a sitting president inflamed a combustible situation, putting our people, our officers, and even our National Guard at risk,” he said in his primetime speech. He went on to say, “California will keep fighting. We’ll keep fighting on behalf of our people, all of our people, including in the courts.”
Newsom used the situation to argue that Trump’s actions in California represented a broader threat to the whole nation. “Democracy is next,” he said. “Democracy is under assault before our eyes.” (RELATED: The Two Americas)
When a judge ruled Thursday night that control of the California National Guard should be given back to Newsom, the governor responded by casting it as a power struggle between himself and the president. He said, “The Guard will be back under my command — and Donald Trump will be relieved of his command at noon tomorrow.”
He also seized the opportunity to appear on an array of cable news shows to cast Trump as an authoritarian dictator. For instance, on the New York Times’s The Daily, he called the president a “stone-cold liar.”
There was also the scrabble between Trump and Newsom over electric vehicles. After Trump signed congressional resolutions overturning Newsom’s executive order banning the sale of gasoline-powered vehicles beginning in 2035, Newsom declared the action to be illegal, sued the administration over it, and signed a new executive order, in his administration’s words, “doubling down on the state’s efforts to transition away from fossil fuels.” The governor held no punches in portraying the situation as a one-on-one fight — with himself leading the side of justice: “Today’s action comes amidst a backdrop of President Trump’s war on California,” said a press release from his office.
Newsom’s term as governor will be up next year. After that, the governor will have two years left in the 2028 presidential race.
Ellie Gardey Holmes is the author of Newsom Unleashed: The Progressive Lust for Unbridled Power.
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