California’s Awkward Dance with the 2028 Presidential Stage
Why the Golden State’s Obvious Choices Might Not Be So Golden
Two days after President Trump’s victory, I got a text: “Gavin’s on a Zoom, are you on?”
I was sent the link; I joined. What followed was the unofficial launch of our California Governor’s 2028 Presidential campaign disguised as California resistance theater. Gavin Newsom talked about holding strong on California values, cooperating only where interests allowed, then asked people to sign up for his PAC. The subtext was clear: Presidential candidate Newsom coming soon.
Since then, both Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris have made their interest in 2028 more clear. Harris told the BBC she’s “not done” and could “possibly” run again. Newsom admitted on CBS that he’d be “lying” if he said he wasn’t considering it.
Meanwhile the California Democrat I’ve been most interested in hearing from, Rep. Ro Khanna, is staying strategically quiet about any Presidential ambitions while building coalitions and bringing substantive policy ideas to the conversation.
Newsom’s Pivot from Bridge-Builder to Troll
Newsom’s early 2028 strategy has veered from conciliator to troll. As the sitting Governor, he launched a podcast inviting Republicans (including, notably, the late Charlie Kirk) and Democrats to join him. I remember the episode when he sat while GOP pollster Frank Luntz blamed division on moms for not taking away their kids’ cell phones. Newsom just nodded along with this nonsense. It was clear Newsom wasn’t going to challenge people in this format. Instead he said he wanted to build bridges, speak to men and bridge divides.
People were scratching their heads. Then he seemed to pivot: if you can’t beat Trump, mimic him. Newsom started trolling President Trump on social media, copying Trump’s posting style with all caps, derogatory nicknames, and self-praise. Democrats laughed, people asked when he’d run for president, and Newsom seems to have found his stride as a resistance warrior.
One problem: I’m not sure being California’s answer to Trump’s Twitter feed should be a presidential qualification.
Harris’s Wrong Lessons and Khanna’s Right Ideas
Harris has been mostly quiet since her loss, then published a book about those 107 days. I read it. And frankly I found it laid out the reasons she lost: She seemed to trust the wrong people (she debates whether Sen. Mark Kelly, a veteran and astronaut whose wife was shot in the head, would have the perseverance to run while I would think that would be clear). She’s too conscious about protocol when she should be breaking through, and too often it seemed she thought vibes equaled voters.
Harris had 107 days to make her case while Trump campaigned for two years. The fight was uneven. Yet she’s drawing the wrong lessons. She wanted no primary competition and didn’t think the challenge was worth the reward. That’s bad for politics, worse for her readiness.
Someone I’m watching is Rep. Ro Khanna. He’s introduced a series of ideas. His “21st Century Jobs Package” includes a Federal Institute of Technology with up to 30 locations nationwide and $900 billion in R&D funding to spur high quality American jobs. His Marshall Plan for America would invest in “industries of the future that hire people who grew up locally” with thousands of new trade schools, AI academies, healthcare and factory jobs.
While he represents Silicon Valley, he talks about bringing high tech jobs to places like my hometown. And while he’s of California, he’s really not. He was born and raised in Pennsylvania. He can speak to both the innovation of tomorrow and the American values I grew up treasuring.
Khanna is building unlikely coalitions, working with Republican Reps. Thomas Massie, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Nancy Mace on releasing the Epstein files. While that’s not my top priority, it shows breakthrough coalition-building that could be more interesting when we’re negotiating healthcare or immigration.
What I want most for Democrats in 2028 is an ideas contest. Candidates actually proposing solutions rather than just resistance theater or nostalgic rematches. I do appreciate that Khanna is bringing that.
The California Problem
Can any California candidate actually win? As a midwesterner who now lives in and loves California, I have to say the state might be their biggest liability.
California ranks as the most unaffordable when it comes to housing costs, gas prices, and electricity costs are causing significant local backlash. A friend told me, “I’ve never met a Californian who thinks Gavin should be president.” I have, but point taken.
Newsom has baggage: he’s related to Nancy Pelosi, his ex-wife was engaged to Donald Trump Jr. and is now serving as Trump’s Ambassador to Greece. His story seems to change depending on the audience, making him seem inauthentic. There was a COVID recall election after he closed schools while sending his kids to private ones and got caught at the expensive French Laundry restaurant. My biggest problem: he turned a surplus into a deficit. His expansion of Medicaid to undocumented immigrants might play well here but could be poison in the Midwest.
When it comes to Harris, she would have won the California Gubernatorial election had she chosen to run. But I’m not sure folks want to rerun the same test for president.
Khanna would have to rise from House obscurity. The odds of someone going directly from the House to the White House? Exactly one President: James A. Garfield.
The irony is that California could produce a winning presidential candidate if we had the solution for our affordability crisis. We certainly have a leading economy. California has sent Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon to the White House, along with Hollywood stories and Silicon Valley innovations.
But for presidential timber in 2028? The question isn’t whether California can produce a president. It’s whether we’re looking at the right one, whether we’re focused on ideas instead of resistance and whether that candidate can connect beyond the Golden State. I think there might be one. It just might not be those who seem obvious right now.
Luntz's cell phone comment perfectly captures why political consultants can be so disconnected from actual problems. Blaming individual parental choices for systemic political polarization is exactly the kind of deflection that avoids any meaningfull analysis of how professional operatives like Luntz himself have profited from dividing people. It's particularly rich coming from someone who built a career on focus testing emotionaly charged language designed to make compromise impossible. The fact that Newsom didn't push back shows how weak the Democratic responce has been to this kind of bad faith framing.