Newsom rose to prominence after the landslide victory of Prop. 50

from Jeanne KuangCalMatters

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Gov. Gavin Newsom has a message for Democrats across the country: Follow my lead.

Declaration a win for Proposition 50his Democratic redistricting measure, he named five other Democratic-led states and called on their governors to tilt their own congressional maps in the party’s favor and help it secure the U.S. House of Representatives in next year’s midterms.

“We need to see other countries, their remarkable leaders doing remarkable things, welcome this moment as well,” he said. “We can de facto end the presidency of Donald Trump as we know it the moment Speaker Jeffries is sworn in as Speaker of the House. Everything is on the line.”

He had the determined air of a politician claiming the national mantle. And though he gave a nod to the role of House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the subtext was clear: Newsom was the one which has just given the party the likelihood of five new seats in Congress.

With the overwhelming vote of Prop. 50, the governor has emerged — for now — as the Democratic front-runner in the 2028 presidential campaign. Newsom’s national ambitions have never been veiled, but this year, for the first time, he admitted that he was considering it. After amassing more than tens of thousands of new donors across the country to support his ballot measure, he also has a list of supporters to turn to in a potential campaign.

Cable news shows were lit up with mentions of the governor’s success in pulling off the redistricting gambit. MSNBC commentator and former Missouri senator Claire McCaskill declared that Newsom had “moved to the front of the pack” among potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates, such as Illinois Gov. J. B. Pritzker.

“He’s in the top tier,” said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster and strategist. “It was a really unconventional idea, executed well, executed quickly, brought the party together. And it also showed that he’s tough.”

Still, an off-year election victory driven by the nationwide mood of angry, staunchly anti-Trump Democrats does not necessarily predict a successful future campaign. Prop. 50 was purely anti-Trump, and Democratic strategist Matt Rodriguez said Democrats still need an independent vision to win back Congress or the White House.

But looking at possible contenders for 2028, “there’s no question (Newsom is) light years ahead of everyone else.”

“He’s the only one running his own news,” he said. “Anyone else is like a moth to a flame.”

“Iterate” on vision and message

Newsom’s prospects for national prominence weren’t always so bright. For years, he experimented with how to get attention by confronting Republicans on the national stage, challenging them to debates on Fox News and funding billboards in red states touting California’s reproductive rights. In 2023, he similarly urged other state lawmakers to follow his lead on a constitutional amendment on gun control. There is no other country joined the effort.

In the first few months of 2025, as Democrats grappled with how to recover from a loss to Trump in 2024, Newsom was podcasting with right-wing activists and reflecting on their successes. It was the latest in a series of his efforts to try new policy approaches, which the governor often described to reporters as “repetition.”

When Texas Democrats turned to Newsom for support in the summer as they sought to combat Trump-backed efforts to manipulate the Republican Party there, the California counterproposal was considered an extreme political risk for the governor.

It was unclear whether all Democrats in California’s congressional delegation or state legislature were included, let alone a majority of the state’s voters. But by the end of a 10-week campaign, so many people had donated in support of the measure that Newsom told them to hold off on sending money until two opposition campaigns could rally attention with a cohesive message.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen the entire political left in California come together like this in a campaign,” said Neil Sanappa, an organizer with the left-leaning California Working Families Party and chairman of the California Democratic Progressive Caucus.

Mastery of trolling

Newsom succeeded, strategists said, by taking a risk in an almost impromptu way that was timed with growing voter anxieties about Trump’s deployment The National Guard in American citiesaggressive immigration raids and diversion efforts to other states.

It didn’t hurt his own standing that he also engaged in a social media trolling campaign against Trump, adding to perceptions that he was ready to embrace the brash, unconventional politics that had elevated the president himself. The posts — often AI-generated, sometimes crude and always exclusively online — pleased Democrats in a way that even skeptical progressives like Sanappa praised.

“He’s been thrust into the spotlight as a result of this particular situation (with Texas), and I think he’s making the most of it,” said Brian Brokaw, a strategist who advises Newsom. “One of his greatest strengths is his ability to evolve with changing times and changing dynamics … This was reflected in last night’s positive results.”

Months ago, Newsom already admitted that one day the tweets would get old and he would need a new strategy.

“We repeat,” he said at an August event hosted by Politico. “This is the reason for my life.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.