We Can Beat Gavin Newsom

Liberals and leftists both have to stop acting as if he’s already the nominee

Gavin Newsom wants to be president. He has hired a comms team to troll Trump on social media and he has used his position as Governor of California to try to position himself as Trump’s natural and leading foil—most successfully by gerrymandering his blue state to counteract Trump’s red gerrymander in Texas.

Newsom fans treat him as the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination and talk about him as if he’s inevitable. Many of his opponents have also taken to contemplating his general election campaign as if it is a done deal—which, as one of those opponents, is, I think, a huge mistake.

More, the (extremely) unhelpful conversation around Newsom’s candidacy has highlighted and exacerbated splits between liberals and leftists in the Democratic coalition—or, to put it another way, to those in the broad progressive tent who identify strongly with the Democratic party and those who don’t. I think that both of these factions have a lot of reason to mistrust and oppose a Newsom candidacy and could find common ground on that issue with just a little willingness to reach out to one another.

So, because I do not want Gavin Newsom anywhere near the presidency, and because I think a left/liberal coalition is the best way to defeat Trump and fascism, I wanted to offer some guidance on how we can talk to each other more productively in the interest of electing some leaders who will actually fight MAGA rather than licking their shitty orange boots.

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Newsom sucks for leftists and liberals both

Newsom claims to be a strong fighter for Democratic and progressive values. As I said, his campaign for Prop 50 was something he can in fact be proud of. But in other respects, he looks a lot less like Chris Van Hollen or even Ruben Gallego, and a lot more like a Sinema or Fetterman in waiting.

Over the last years, Newsom has rushed to position himself as a centrist moderate who can appeal to MAGA voters. In a grotesque act of right wing propaganda, he filmed himself removing and destroying homeless people’s possessions, and he’s led an effort to raze homeless encampments and terrorize homeless people in his state. He’s compulsively vetoed progressive measures, including a cap on insulin prices; a measure to make it easier for women to access insurance treatments for menopause; and a whole range of pro-union and pro-employee bills. He’s also fighting to prevent a tax on billionaires in the state. And he’s blocked pro trans legislation in his state, targeting trans athletes with particular cruelty.

Newsom hasn’t just pushed reactionary policy. He’s also done his best to elevate, normalize, and attach himself to MAGA. He’s invited a series of far right figures on his podcast—Charlie Kirk, Steve Bannon, Ben Shapiro—so that he can praise them, agree with them, and get them to tell him what positions he should adopt on a range of issues.

On his first podcast, Newsom talked to Charlie Kirk about trans issues, and when Kirk demanded that he embrace bigotry, Newsom complied, telling Kirk that he thought it was “deeply unfair” for trans women to participate in sports. (This is bigoted, unscientific bullshit.) Similarly, when Ben Shapiro insisted that Newsom deny the genocide in Gaza, Newsom vacillated and then did just that—spitting on the consensus of genocide scholars, not to mention on Palestinian people, in the process.

If you are committed to progressive policy, Newsom is shit. If you want a Democratic leader who will relentlessly fight the right, then Gavin “I want to praise Charlie Kirk at every opportunity” Newsom is also shit. A Democratic leader who is looking to Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro for policy pointers is not a Democratic leader that anyone, left or liberal, should want in the Oval Office.

Newsom is not even winning

And indeed, Newsom’s popularity is much overstated. He is not even in the lead in the primary currently. According to most polls, Kamela Harris is the frontrunner; in the last national poll she had 38% support to Newsom’s 13%, a lead of 27 points. (Pete Buttigieg and Ocasio-Cortez are alternating for third in most results.)

Polling this far out has little predictive power, not least because we don’t know who’s actually going to end up making it to the primaries (Harris herself might or might not.) Still, candidates who can present themselves as inevitable or as clear frontrunners even this early can gain an advantage; part of the goal in a primary is to make yourself look like the natural party leader so that you get the benefit of partisanship. You want everyone to see you as the party’s candidate so that anyone criticizing you is seen as criticizing the party. So, if you do not want Newsom to win, it is in general a good idea to remind others, and yourself, that he is not in fact winning.

Leftists, don’t treat Newsom as if he’s won

Leftists (like me) loathe Newsom because he is bad on policy and because he seems eager to consult with far right figures in an effort to get even worse on policy. He would be a shitty president who would kneecap progressive goals and would try to get fascists to endorse him rather than crushing him. Do not elect this turd!

And yet, the way the left talks about Newsom online can seem designed to encourage people to see him as inevitable. Leftists who oppose Newsom often leap right over the primary and insist they will not vote for him in the general. This is framed as an electoral argument; leftists claim that a Newsom candidacy will divide the party, and that nominating him would therefore be a mistake.

Unfortunately, as Toby Buckle has noted in various contexts, liberals react incredibly badly to this argument. When you say to people who identify with Democrats that you are going to withhold your vote, they perceive that as blackmail and as an abandonment of the coalition against fascism. It doesn’t make them say, “Okay, this candidate can’t win and therefore I will vote for someone else.” It makes them say, “You aren’t on my side and I’m not going to listen to you.”

Moreover, jumping to emphasize a scenario in which Gavin Newsom is the general election candidate is exactly what Gavin Newsom wants you to do. His whole strategy is to start campaigning early so that he seems like the natural Democratic choice and gets the benefit of Democratic partisanship. Framing objections to him as “I won’t vote for him in the general election” makes people think of him as the general election candidate and activates partisanship and negative partisanship on his behalf. If you do not want Gavin Newsom for president, the absolute last thing you should do is threaten Democrats with a choice between him and J.D. Vance.

I’m not saying that leftists need to preemptively promise to vote for blue no matter who in the general election. (And see the next section for why liberals shouldn’t be asking them to do that.) What I am saying is that we should argue against Newsom as a primary candidate rather than helping him make the leap to general election inevitability.

We can point out that Newsom is not, in fact, in the lead. We can remind liberals that Newsom keeps elevating people like Steve Bannon and Ben Shapiro and that he seems to have a very Sinema/Machin/Fetterman-like lust for MAGA approval. We can point out that when Chris Van Hollen defied Trump on Kilmer Abrego Garcia, Newsom said we should just let him be shipped to El Salvador and tortured. We can add that he doesn’t want to tax billionaires. And yes, liberals of good faith should also care about the fact that he has targeted homeless people and trans people and fucked over people who need insulin.

Liberals want a fighter; Newsom has shown over and over that he is a quisling Schumer wannabe. We have other, better choices. Let’s point that out rather than fantasizing about Newsom’s victory and giving him, in various senses, an undeserved win.

Liberals, don’t treat Newsom as if he’s won

Obviously, there are some centrist assholes who like Newsom on the merits—because they don’t want to tax billionaires, because they are bigoted against trans people, because they want a Charlie Kirkified Democratic party. I am not addressing them; they can fuck off.

There are also a good number of liberal Democrats who do not like Newsom’s policies, but who nonetheless are treating him as an inevitability or as a partisan litmus test. As trans activist and scholar Julia Serano says on bluesky, “if you’re a trans person who speaks out about how horrible Newsom is on trans issues, you get *flooded* with ppl telling you to ‘vote blue no matter who’. to which I say: fuck you! would you vote for a politician who says he wants to roll back your rights?

Just to reiterate—Gavin Newsom is not the 2028 Democratic nominee. He is not even in the lead for the Democratic nomination at the moment. Trans people, and other people who criticize Newsom, are doing so in the context of the nomination. They are pointing out that his policies are bad, and that he is not someone who actually seems to want to fight Donald Trump on most substantive policies.

When you jump into the mentions of someone who is criticizing Newsom to demand they support him in the general, you may feel like you are fighting for the Democratic brand or fighting against MAGA. But what you are actually doing is demanding that people (often marginalized people) declare fealty to a candidate in the primary. It is the primary that is occurring now; you are demanding that trans people endorse a primary candidate who has targeted them and who thinks that Charlie Kirk is a good source to consult on trans policy. That’s not a way to persuade people that you see them as coalition partners. It’s a way to tell people you only care about their fealty, not their lives.

Liberals have convinced themselves that the left lost them the election in 2024—but that’s nonsense. Left voters who won’t vote D are never a huge group, and they weren’t in 2024 either—Trump lost because low-info voters without strong ideological commitments were upset about inflation, not because of Gaza. Running around the internet berating left voters isn’t going to alter election results much one way or another. But treating Gavin Newsom as the party’s one true champion can help to elevate an empty suit who pretty clearly does not want to crush fascism the way it needs to be crushed if we are ever going to save our democracy.

If you are a liberal who wants to fight fascism or a leftist who wants to fight fascism, Gavin Newsom is not your guy. So let’s everyone stop treating him as the guy. He hasn’t won. He’s not ahead. He has many skilled, talented, and popular opponents for the nomination. We do not need to act like he is already the nominee, and we should not act like he is the nominee. When we do race to imagine him as the nominee, the left does not benefit and liberals do not benefit. The only one who benefits is Gavin Newsom.