by Alexis Simendinger & Kristina Karisch
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), seen a month ago with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing and set to debate GOP presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Fox News next week, is in the spotlight. He’s even hitting DeSantis with a TV ad airing in Florida and Washington focused on abortion. What’s Newsom up to?
Positioning himself to run for president in 2028, experts told Morning Report’s Kristina Karisch. The governor is taking a two-pronged approach, they said, acting as a surrogate for Biden’s reelection campaign while raising his own profile ahead of 2028. Newsom is not the only blue-state governor making these kinds of moves, but his are some of the most public.
“Does he look presidential? Does he have the bona fides? Should we take him seriously as a presidential contender? That’s the case that he’s making [right now],” said Thad Kousser, a political science professor at the University of California, San Diego. “Not that every voter in Iowa or in a battleground state [in 2028] will necessarily remember what he did five years ago, but it helps to cement his place in every media conversation.”
CASE IN POINT: Newsom’s October trip to China, where he helped thread the needle for Xi and Biden’s meeting at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) in San Francisco. Governors don’t often get the chance to flex their foreign policy credentials like Newsom did in China, Kousser said, making Newsom’s trip even more important ahead of a likely 2028 White House bid.
“It bolsters his credentials in international relations, which is a weak spot for any governor. The podium that California gives, not just in the nation, but in the ability to stand side by side with President Xi — it’s unparalleled,” Kousser said. “He’s effectively using APEC and the interest in APEC to put himself on the world stage in a way that no other governor can.”
Biden himself was so impressed by the Golden State governor’s diplomacy that he joked Newsom could have any job he wants, including president, telling a crowd in San Francisco that Newsom has been “one hell of a governor. Matter of fact, he could be anything he wants. He could have the job I’m looking for.”
Bob Shrum, a longtime Democratic strategist and Director of the Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California, said he thinks Newsom’s current strategy is to cover all his leadership bases.
He’s doing what’s available to him,” Shrum said. “One of his strengths is he’s a very good speaker. He’s a very effective communicator.”
NEWSOM’S NEXT MOVE: Those communication skills will be key in the Nov. 30 televised debate with DeSantis, which will be held without an audience. The long-teased event marks a climax in the ongoing feud between the governors. While DeSantis, a Republican presidential candidate, will have to use the time to get out his campaign message, Newsom isn’t running for anything. He can’t seek a third term in the governor’s mansion, but he can use the airwaves to bolster his visibility over the next four years.
“He’s been uniquely successful at injecting himself into the national debate,” Kousser noted. “He’s gone on the offense on the culture wars, through statements that he made and through his visits to red states, which are not about vote-getting, they’re about headlines.”
BEYOND THE HEADLINES, Newsom is making strategic money moves in key primary states. Both he and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) recently wrote checks for a candidate in this month’s mayoral election in Charleston, S.C. Campaign finance law expert Paul Ryan said these kinds of donations are an example of a politician playing the “inside game,” expanding “the list” — a network of supporters and donors outside of their state they can count on in the upcoming election cycle. The “outside game” — remaining in the public view — is harder to keep up “week after week, month after month,” Ryan said.
“A South Carolina politician who gets a maxed-out contribution from Gavin Newsom in late 2023, they’re not going to forget about that favor in three years, four years,” Ryan said. “Those are the types of favors [and] the type of network-building that someone like Gavin Newsom can do now, and it will reap benefits down the road.”