Dem
51
Ties
3
GOP
46
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) will be out of a job, thanks to term limits, in January of next year. Given his presidential aspirations, we can wonder if that's a good thing for him, or a bad thing. The good part is that he can focus on running for the White House full-time. The bad part is that he loses the bully pulpit and the megaphone of the California governorship, not to mention the potential to sign anti-Trump legislation into law.
In any event, the situation is what it is. Newsom doesn't want to wait until he's unemployed to get going, so he's already hitting the campaign trail. This weekend, he was in South Carolina to speak to Democratic voters there. The Governor admitted that part of the motivation was a 2028 presidential bid, but insisted that is "fourth" on the list of reasons for his trip. Somehow, he did not find time to explain what the top three were.
The Governor has decided that the biggest feather in his cap, and thus the basis for his pitch, is his leadership of the successful effort to gerrymander California's district maps, and thus to push back against Republican gerrymandering. By all indications, he is right about this, and the voters he spoke to over the weekend ate it up. Newsom would be best served if, on Election Day, the Democrats take the House, but only by a small margin—say, 220-215. Then he could claim that he single-handedly won the House for the blue team. He might end up being the only person in the country who, as the results are reported on November 3, is rooting for the Democrats to win, but not by too much.
Newsom has also decided that he really needs to connect with Black voters. This is certainly correct; South Carolina now has even greater importance than it used to, and half the Democrats there are Black. Plus, the road to the Democratic nomination runs through the South, and Black voters tend to dominate the Democratic Party in those states. Recall how Black voters saved Joe Biden in 2020, or doomed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in 2016.
Thus far, however, Newsom is not exactly connecting with that demographic. We read numerous reports about this weekend's campaign stops, and they all noted that the audiences were overwhelmingly white (there are a fair number of retirees from New York and New Jersey who have relocated to South Carolina). This problem does not figure to get better if and when Newsom's fellow Californian, Kamala Harris, gets in.
We are inclined to think, however, that Newsom's (implied) decision, that South Carolina is the best early state for him to target, is probably correct. Keep in mind that Maine was about to have a Senate contest between an oysterman and a person who prides themselves on being seen at the farmers market on Sundays, and will now have a contest between a lumberjack and the farmers market attendee. New Hampshire is right next door, and isn't that different, culturally. It's hard to imagine that a slick urban liberal like Newsom is going to find a lot of support there. Same goes for Iowa, where voters like candidates who go to the state fair to eat fried stuff, and who personally know how to castrate a pig.
There is Nevada, of course. However, it's fourth in line, and nobody ever saw their presidential hopes revived because they did well in the Silver State. Further, because the next-door Newsom is well known there, he probably doesn't need to devote time to Nevada quite yet. Of course, if a Latino candidate gets in, like Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), then all bets are off. In any event, trying to crack South Carolina, while he basically has the stage to himself, looks to be the best use of Newsom's time right now.
Meanwhile, Nevada Republicans are also test-piloting a Newsom presidential run, in a manner of speaking. Gov. Joe Lombardo (R-NV) has a problem similar to the one Donald Trump has (see above), namely that fuel costs are very high. This is particularly a problem in a driving-heavy state like Nevada. However, unlike Trump, Lombardo is up for reelection. He isn't going to take the blame for the gas prices himself, and he can hardly blame the sitting president of his own party, even if it's quite clearly that sitting president's fault. So, the (Nevada) Governor is trying to blame the (California) Governor. The pitch is that California's energy policies have driven up prices in Nevada, and that it will get worse if Aaron Ford (D) is elected as governor, because he's little more than a Newsom clone.
This seems pretty desperate to us. If it does work, however, it will suggest that voters (at least in Nevada) so dislike Newsom, they are willing to pin things on him even if it doesn't make sense. Should that be the case (and there have certainly been politicians in American history who were so hated that they did get the blame for nonsensical things), then it would not bode well for Newsom as a national candidate. (Z)