Copyright Santa Rosa Press Democrat
This commentary was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. Heading into Tuesday’s election, the odds were astronomically high that California voters would ratify Proposition 50, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s scheme to grab five more congressional seats for his Democratic Party. However, passage may have little or no impact on next year’s congressional elections since it merely offsets the five-seat grab that Texas Republicans enacted earlier at President Donald Trump’s behest. What happens vis-à-vis redistricting in other states, particularly those controlled by Republicans, is more likely to determine the 2026 election’s parameters by either enhancing or reducing Republican chances of maintaining their very slim House majority. That said, Newsom’s audacious confrontation of Trump is a major step toward capturing his party’s presidential nomination in 2028 — a prize he still insists, with rapidly decreasing credibility, he has not decided to pursue. By framing Prop. 50 as a tool to block Trump’s authoritarian tendencies, Newsom emerges as the de facto leader of a political party that is trying to find a way forward after last year’s embarrassing loss. Moreover, his extensive fundraising for the Prop. 50 campaign gives him a list of thousands of potential supporters for a presidential campaign.“I haven’t decided,” Newsom insisted to Kristen Welker on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” which aired Sunday, before emitting a word salad of criteria for a 2028 candidate that seemed to embrace himself, to wit: “I think whoever runs, and this is just my objective belief, subjective, but I hope it’s objective for a lot of Americans, it reminds me a little of Isaiah. You need to be a repairer of the breach, spiritually and physically. But it’s not just about restoration, the forces of restoration. It’s also forces of transformation. And what I mean by that is what are the trend lines that define the future? You know, I’m here. We’re in the future business. I’m here in California. Future happens here first. We’re America’s coming attraction… “I worry about the future of work,” Newsom continued. “I worry about the announcement from Amazon. I worry about earnings going up, profits skyrocketing and headcount going down, meaning less and less people having access and opportunities. I think whoever runs has to paint a vision for the future, a journey that we can be on together that’s not just about growth but about inclusion, issues of debt and entitlement, issues around energy. And I still believe in climate issues. All those issues need to be front and center eventually for whoever’s the nominee of our party.” So if one makes the completely logical assumption that Newsom is conducting a shadow campaign, despite his insistence to the contrary, how does he build on the Prop. 50 campaign that portrayed Trump as the devil incarnate and himself as the resister in chief? During his “Meet the Press” interview, Newsom hinted that he will continue to troll Trump on social media and engage in other unconventional maneuvers to bolster opposition, because Trump has used those tools himself. “The rules of the game have changed,” Newsom told Welker. “Now, we have to rewrite the new rules. I’m trying to iterate. I’m in that process of doing that.” His tactics, Newsom implied, are justified by Trump’s authoritarianism. “This can’t continue forever, all of us living in this state of fear and anxiety, on edge,” he said. “And so of course we want to go back to some semblance of normalcy. But you have to deal with the crisis at hand. It’s just been 10, 11 months of this presidency. We have three more years. Time to batten down the hatches. And it’s time for us to change if we want things to change. And that’s why our communications strategy has shifted.” It sure sounds like Newsom wants to be the catalyst for that change. Dan Walters is a columnist for CalMatters.
