As Gavin Newsom’s governorship enters its final chapter, his eyes are no longer fixed on Sacramento.
They are fixed on Washington.
More specifically, on the White House.
Like Sauron’s obsession with the One Ring, Newsom’s political focus has narrowed to one overriding object of desire: the presidency.
That is the only way to understand Newsom’s latest economic manifesto, released Friday under the banner of a national billionaires’ tax.
Newsom does not want to be seen standing with California billionaires against the left.
This was not merely a policy paper.
It was positioning.
Newsom is pushing for a federal minimum tax targeting billionaires and anyone with a net worth exceeding $100 million. He wants to eliminate what the tax code currently permits: the ultra-wealthy borrowing against their stock portfolios, living off those loans tax-free, and then passing the underlying assets to their heirs with the embedded gains never taxed. He wants to overhaul inheritance law before what economists project will be the single largest generational transfer of wealth in American history — an estimated $124 trillion passing between generations over the next two decades. And he wants Washington to establish a national public equity fund, effectively giving every American a financial stake in the profits generated by artificial intelligence.
In plain English, he wants Washington to tax, redistribute, and socialize more of the American economy.
Under Newsom’s proposal, Washington would not merely regulate successful industries. It would claim an ownership interest in them. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs would build the companies, investors would risk the capital, and the federal government would arrive later demanding a share of the upside in the name of economic fairness.
Bernie Sanders should be thrilled. Elizabeth Warren should be smiling. And Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s newly elected mayor and national face of democratic socialism, should recognize a politician sprinting to catch up.
This is not accidental.
It is adaptation.
For the past year, Newsom’s national brand has been built around being the Anti-Trump. Democratic voters wanted a fighter, and Newsom eagerly auditioned — picking fights with red-state governors and becoming the party’s loudest prosecutor of the era.
But being Anti-Trump is no longer enough.
The energy inside the Democratic Party is moving left through deep-blue urban centers. New York City has elected Mamdani, and the same trend is visible across Seattle, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles: the activist left is no longer content to protest outside the Democratic establishment. It is trying to take it over from within.
Newsom sees this — the DSA-aligned candidates, the city hall victories, a party base animated by class warfare, wealth redistribution, and hostility toward capitalism, delivered power through low-turnout primaries.
So Newsom is doing what Newsom does. He is pivoting.
That has defined his political career. Not ideology. Trajectory. His positions move toward whatever lane offers the greatest opportunity for advancement.
In San Francisco, Newsom was the pro-growth mayor to business leaders and the bold champion of same-sex marriage to liberal activists — different pitches, same ambition. As governor, the pattern continued: more right when the audience required it, more left when the moment demanded it, always toward the next political opening.
He denounced gerrymandering as a threat to democracy while championing Proposition 50, a Legislature-driven congressional map designed to maximize Democratic seats. That is Newsom in one sentence: condemning the tactic nationally while marketing it at home.
I remember an earlier model. When Newsom was first running for lieutenant governor, he came down to Orange County to woo business-aligned Republicans and donors. I was with him at events when he made his pitch. He was going to be the Democrat who represented Republicans. The Democrat who understood business. The Democrat willing to challenge party orthodoxy. He spoke about competitiveness, economic growth and reform. He projected pragmatism, not ideology. That version disappeared almost immediately after election day.
Even his handling of California’s own wealth tax tells the story. Newsom opposes the state measure headed for the November ballot, but not because he objects to taxing wealth. His complaint is that California is the wrong venue because billionaires can flee. His answer is not less confiscatory taxation — it is a national version they cannot escape.
That distinction matters. Newsom does not want to be seen standing with California billionaires against the left. So within hours, he rolled out a federal alternative that lets him oppose the California initiative while still posing as a champion of wealth redistribution.
That is not courage.
That is triangulation.
Newsom has concluded that the road to the Democratic presidential nomination runs through the activist left, socialist economics, resentment politics, and voters who believe American capitalism needs to be redesigned — and he is positioning himself accordingly.
Gavin Newsom has spent two decades reinventing himself for the next office. Now he is betting that the next Democratic nominee will not be the candidate who resists the party’s socialist turn, but the one who executes it most convincingly.
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Jon Fleischman, a longtime strategist in California politics, writes at SoDoesItMatter.com
