California Gov. Gavin Newsom moved himself into front-runner status for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028, emerging from a pack of contenders to clear leading status.
It was a strong year for Newsom, whose combative approach to taking on President Trump resonated with Democrats and won favorable headlines for his team.
“The headline on Newsom is that this year, he became the default answer of who Democrats are thinking about for 2028,” Democratic strategist Joel Payne said. “He became the stand-in at a time when the party was looking for leadership and a good spokesperson.”
“Newsom has been the officeholder who has been in the best position to counter Trump,” he said.
The question for Newsom and his operation going forward is whether he can keep the excitement level up and maintain front-runner status past the midterm elections, after which the presidential battle will really heat up.
Despite his strong 2025, some Democrats have openly wondered if it’s possible Newsom is peaking too soon.
“He fits the mood of the country and the party now, but things change quickly,” one Democratic consultant said. “Politics is all about timing, and it may be too soon. We’re still at least a year away from that cycle starting.”
Newsom’s lead in the Real Clear Politics average of polls for the Democratic nomination is narrow. He gets 23.6 percent compared with former Vice President Kamala Harris’s 21.4 percent in an average of polls taken between Aug. 25 and Dec. 19.
Newsom’s lead is wider in one recent poll. An Atlas Intel poll this month, for example, had him getting 35 percent support compared with 16 percent for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who is widely seen as a strong candidate from the left.
Two other recent polls included in the Real Clear Politics average, however, show him with just a percentage point lead over Harris in the case of an Echelon Insights poll, and trailing the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee by 11 points in a Big Data Poll.
Whether any of those polls mean anything is also a matter of debate.
“It’s insane to anoint anyone a front-runner or look at polls this far out,” said Democratic strategist Eddie Vale, who opined that Newsom “had a great year.”
“It’s a very open question to see if that success translates into Democratic primary voters thinking he can win the electoral college,” Vale added.
A CNN poll out this past week showed Newsom leading other would-be candidates on the Democratic side. But the same poll also said two-thirds of those surveyed said they didn’t have a specific candidate in mind for 2028.
That’s a reminder that while the Beltway class is heavily focused on 2028, most of the country is not.
Either way, Newsom has solidified his brand over the last year as the Trump battler-in-chief.
Just last week, for example, Newsom took to social platform X to hit Trump on his newly installed White House hall of presidents, where he used plaques to hit former Democratic presidents including Joe Biden and Barack Obama.
“Inflation is up. Unemployment is up. Grocery prices are up. Electricity costs are up. And Donald Trump is spending his time doing this,” Newsom wrote in his post on X.
On a more substantive level, Newsom led the effort on behalf of California’s Proposition 50, the ballot measure that voters overwhelmingly approved in November to redraw the state’s congressional districts to give Democrats an edge.
The effort was a direct response to a Trump-backed effort by Texas Republicans to help GOP House candidates in the Lone Star State. It was a national political fight given its implications on the 2026 battle for the House majority. If Democrats do win back control of the House, it will be a considerable curb on Trump’s power over the latter half of his term.
“I think it was brilliant and it was needed,” Democratic strategist Adam Parkhomenko said of the Newsom-led redistricting fight in California. “He showed that he’s not only talking the talk but walking the walking.”
“He has shown Democrats how to fight like it’s 2028. Not 1998,” Parkhomenko added. “And the key is that he didn’t necessarily invent a new playbook. He took Trump’s and made it better.”
A Democratic donor added that Newsom “helped carry the Democratic Party on his shoulders this year while most of the party was asleep.”
Trump has also helped to keep Newsom in the heart of the news cycle, frequently taking aim at the Democrat while helping to burnish his brand as a fighter, Democrats say.
Last month, in an interview with Fox News, Trump called Newsom a “horrible governor.”
“I knew Gavin for four years,” Trump said at the time. “I get along great with him. But he’s gone radical left.”
In the months ahead — particularly as he eyes 2028 — Democrats say Newsom will have to pivot from Trump-bashing to a purveyor of ideas, particularly on economic issues.
“He has tried a 1000-flowers-bloom approach and has done a little bit of everything and that’s OK for now, but he has to define what his path is going to be,” Payne said. “I imagine we will start to get a glimpse of what a post-gubernatorial Newsom sounds like in the coming months. The big question is what issue does he glom onto and make his hobby horse?”
But so far, Democrats say, the nomination fight is his to lose.
“I think the only one who could f‑‑‑ it up for Gavin Newsom is Gavin Newsom,” Parkhomenko said.
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