American politics never rests. On November 5th, Donald Trump won the elections and Kamala Harris suffered a painful defeat. Shortly after, speculation on who the Democratic candidates would be was ablaze, with more than half a dozen favorites. It's an exhausting, inhumane, impossible game. A constant effort to gain support and the billions of dollars needed to launch and sustain a national campaign with chances. The cycle is perpetual, the press relentless, and all options are bad.
If you launch your name too late, as Harris did after Joe Biden's forced resignation, you don't have time to secure the funds, coverage, or necessary message. If you jump in too soon, the chances of burning out are exponential: saying something inappropriate, not knowing what to say when needed, giving your enemies - both within the party and outside - enough time to dig into your past and find the skeletons that could end your hopes. Ironically, this dead end is Gavin Newsom's best card, the ambitious Governor of California who is currently facing Trump and clearly aims to reach the White House in 2028.
In 2018, when his boss, the legendary Californian politician Jerry Brown, had only been in office for a few weeks after being reelected as governor of the largest, most populous, and highest electoral vote state in the country, Newsom officially announced his candidacy to succeed him. There were still four full years ahead; he had just been elected to the unglamorous position of lieutenant governor, with many responsibilities and little weight. But when he took the step, he explained that if he was forced to choose between flying under the radar or standing in the spotlight, he preferred to be upfront from the beginning. "You either hate me or love me, but at least you know what I think", he famously stated back then.
Newsom is a controversial, divisive figure. Tremendously ambitious, he was the Mayor of San Francisco, lieutenant governor, twice governor, and now, as he nears the end of his second and final term, he aspires to the presidency. He doesn't say it, but he doesn't hide it. He seeks glory, to make history. Some politicians say that everything passes and only aspire to leave office having slightly improved what they received. He is not one of them, and the clash against trumpism, as it was eight years ago, is his best card.
For many, starting with the Democrats, he is a loudmouth, prone to controversy, and in recent months, he has shaken the party base with an uncomfortable shift towards the center - or even the right. He claims it's not the case, that the United States is undergoing a wild change, that young people are radicalizing and, for the first time, are much more conservative than the previous generation. That it's necessary to understand why and listen, using the example of his own son, who, at 13, had become a huge fan of Charlie Kirk, a conservative influencer and spiritual leader of the MAGA youth. If this was happening in the home of the governor of the most progressive state, married to a famous feminist, it meant that his party was not understanding anything.
For Trump, and not just for that reason, he is a threat: a telegenic figure who doesn't shy away from confrontation, who says in prime time that he is willing to be arrested instead of migrant children in raids. That's why the White House is now trying to tear him down before he gains a national profile. Trump wants the U.S. to associate him with his message about a broken, decadent California, overrun by violence and chaos.
At 57, Newsom has many scandals in his history, including the fact that Kimberly Guilfoyle, his ex-wife, was recently engaged to Don Jr., Trump's most radical son, who appointed her ambassador to Greece. But his advantage is that he seems to have embraced them, turning them into a kind of personal brand. During his years in San Francisco, he challenged authorities and courts by issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, a risky move since the state would take another decade to legalize it.
He boldly advocated for universal healthcare for the city's residents, for programs for the homeless. He was also involved with 19-year-old models, had an affair with his secretary, who was the wife of one of his closest collaborators, and checked into a detox clinic for alcohol addiction. Later, during the pandemic, photos were published of him enjoying an expensive dinner at a three-Michelin-star restaurant with wealthy friends and lobbyists, without a mask, while simultaneously advocating for its use by 40 million people.
Analysts agree that Newsom is currently playing for his presidential future. Until recently, it seemed that his legacy as governor, from the homeless to the wildfires, would set the tone, but the past few weeks have changed everything. Newsom may not have a strong national presence, but he is being provided with the platform he needed.
He may not be very popular, but among the Democratic contenders, he is one of the most experienced in television and fights. In September and October, he was one of the delegates (surrogates) who, in the presidential and vice-presidential debates, was in the corridors defending Harris and attacking the Republicans. He was trying to show the party that he was not afraid of a fight with trumpism, in person or on camera. That he was a team player, despite the impatience he was known for. Leveraging what some forums consider a burden: his physical attractiveness and that almost Kennedy-esque image of a patrician aristocrat.
Accused a thousand times of being a hypocrite, posh, and elitist (his father was a judge and distantly related to Nancy Pelosi), of being a "Davos Democrat," he is also one of the most skilled with the grandiose narrative that has given Trump so much leverage. Time and time again, he has managed to rewrite his story: that of an underdog, a hidden gem, a man with dyslexia and learning problems, raised by divorced parents, with a mother who took in children to pay the bills with the income from social service checks. And who managed to become a millionaire through hard work, starting with a simple business and building a small hospitality empire.
Traditionally, presidential candidates always release a book, whether memoirs or not, during the campaign. Newsom, who had a radio and local television program in his previous positions, has opted for a podcast. And the best way to gain audience and publicity has been to invite his main rivals, the ideologues of the MAGA world: the aforementioned Kirk, Steve Bannon, and commentator Michael Savage, sparking outrage among progressives. "We must explore what makes us uncomfortable," he recently said. Without abandoning his strong ideas on healthcare, immigration, and abortion rights, he has moderated his positions on guns or the environment, and hardened his stance on homeless camps, to not alienate centrist voters.
This is his strategy (built on a certain fascination with Trump, his style, and his incredible ability to dominate and shape global debate) because he believes that the previous one, Harris's identity politics, doesn't work. In 2018, right after winning the elections, he proclaimed: "The sun is rising in the west, and the arc of history is bending in our direction." "The future belongs to California," he added shortly after, unofficially presenting himself not as the opposition leader, but as "the resistance" against national Republican dominance. Now he has discovered Stoicism and read Marcus Aurelius, the Paulo Coelho with steroids, of politicians, executives, and entrepreneurs, but his goal remains intact.
When he stood before the cameras to address the protests and disturbances in Los Angeles and Trump's maneuvers to create cases, Newsom emerged as governor. When he uttered his final sentence ("Democracy is under siege before our eyes, the moment we feared has arrived"), he was no longer speaking just for California, but for the entire country. Presenting himself, offering himself once again, in his first campaign act as leader of the resistance, evoking the words of his hero, Robert F. Kennedy, who in a famous speech in South Africa in 1966, said that what the world needs "are the qualities of youth: not age but a state of mind, the temperament of will, imagination, the dominance of courage over shyness."