Are you the kind of person who thinks that all those loan officers filling up your voicemail with friendly terms are totally real people who are definitely not trying to scam you? Are you expecting that million-dollar check any day now from that wealthy Nigerian prince who said he would send his inheritance via FedEx? Does getting scammed just scratch a certain itch in your brain you can never satisfy? If so, then Gavin Newsom is the 2028 Democratic candidate for you.
The outgoing California governor and the thirstiest politician in America for national power (non-JD Vance edition) is clearly running for president in 2028, and the inevitable fights around the Democrats’ least inspiring candidate have begun. The scolds who lack any political imagination see a disappointing white guy and demand that we all line up behind his supposed inevitable victory, while a litany of other members of the Democratic coalition, like the trans community under constant attack these days, correctly see him as another wolf dressed in (D) sheep’s clothing. The only thing that Newsom has ever truly believed in is Gavin Newsom. Everything else is negotiable depending on how much it can serve his ultimate goal of filling that deep void in his soul by sitting in the Oval Office.
The reason Newsom is under fire right now is because he went into a negotiation with one of America’s preeminent failsons, and came out of it this week without his shirt. David freaking Ellison out-maneuvered the California governor and Attorney General Rob Bonta, with the latter saying this settlement that explicitly clears the way for Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Brothers “is not a vote of support for this merger.” Sounds like he’s happy with this deal!
This right here is enough to prove he is not up to the job of wielding the power of the presidential office. Gavin Newsom is an expert at sensing the nearest TV camera and putting on a performance to try to show how tough he is, and not much else. But here, with Paramount threatening to impose gargantuan relocation costs on a company Ellison took out $80 billion in debt to acquire, Newsom caved to their claims that they would move movies out of California. Now he’s negotiated a deal with David Ellison to keep Paramount in California and make 30 theatrical films for two years, then 32 annually the following three years. This also established a toothless, pointless, and easily coopted editorial board for their impending ownership of both CNN and CBS. There is no easy answer to this age of oligarchic assault on the very concept of civilized society, but in two years when Newsom tries to tell you this was the best deal he could get, know that is an admission of his own liabilities as a change-maker. If this deal becomes radioactive and he tries to pretend he had nothing to do with it, you can point to an Axios report saying he “played a key role in brokering settlement talks.”
But wait, there’s more. He went on Charlie Kirk’s podcast in March 2025 to say he agrees with the right’s bad faith argument that trans athletes don’t belong in girls’ sports. He has already proven that he is earnest about trying to win over Republicans, walking down the same failed path that led Democrats to their lowest approval rating ever, thinking that they can throw their own base under the bus and net gain votes with a base who thinks Democrats subsist on infants’ blood. He is a mark at best, and even a willing collaborator at times in this genocidal push to eliminate trans people from American life, given how many bills he has vetoed that would make trans people and trans children’s lives a bit easier. A lot of people waiting on their Nigerian prince checks will tell you Newsom is just saying this stuff to get elected, but he has put his legislative pen where his bigoted mouth is and made life more difficult for trans Californians so he can gain talking points with Republicans.
“Gov Gavin Newsom over the weekend vetoed legislation aimed at protecting providers of gender-affirming care from being extradited to face charges for doing so by another state.”
He was “worried about constraints on the governor’s power to approve extraditions”.
www.ebar.com/story/170505…
— Frances Larina (@franceslarina.bsky.social) September 21, 2026 at 4:55 PM
In 2025, Newsom proposed freezing Medicaid enrollment for undocumented adults, demonstrating the same misreading of the 2024 election that has befallen so many Democrats getting voted out of office like Seth Moulton. He also vetoed a bill to give campus jobs to undocumented students–twice–and in 2024, he vetoed the Dream for All house down-payment program for undocumented buyers. This is braindead Democratic consultant-led triangulation in action, hurting vulnerable people so a glorified hairpiece can build a list of talking points to try to run for president. Newsom represents the worst about our unfathomably cynical politics.
During the 2023 Hollywood strikes, he vetoed a bill providing unemployment pay for striking workers. He vetoed another Teamster-backed bill that required a human in autonomous trucks in 2023, and the following year he vetoed an AI safety bill backed by SAG-AFTRA. In 2025, he followed that up by vetoing the No Robo Bosses Act, demonstrating how willing he is yet again to side with big business over labor. He is far more of a friend to the oligarchs than to his unhinged supporters yelling at trans people on Bluesky in 2026 that they have no choice but to vote for him in 2028.
He opposes the billionaire tax proposed by Californians, but he also knows how bad it sounds to say he is opposed to making California’s wealthy pay their fair share in an era where inequality is worse than the Gilded Age, so he covered his ass by saying he backs a national version of this idea. What courage and conviction from California’s preeminent peacock. This man surely is who can right the sinking ship being brought down by all his big donors!
When Medicare for All looked like the path to the Democratic nomination, he promised in 2017 “my firm and absolute commitment” to pass a single payer healthcare bill in California. But again, the Nigerian prince just never dropped that check off at FedEx I guess, as single-payer bills died in the California legislature in 2022 and 2024. He pledged to build 3.5 million homes by 2025, a farcical number given the clusterfuck of building housing in California, and permits stayed at the same level around 100,000 per year when they would have had to rise to over 400,000 to fulfill his promise. He also went to COP30 to tout his supposed climate leadership, then went home and fast-tracked bills for drilling permits in Kern County. I would say he’s two-faced but that’s probably under-selling how many different ways he can disappoint his voters.
In 2022, he said he had “sub-zero” interest in running for president, perhaps the biggest lie he’s ever told, then he admitted last year that he’d be “lying otherwise” if he said he wasn’t considering running. Back in March of this year, he revealed a portion of his spine to the world, saying Israel “appropriately” is discussed as “sort of an apartheid state.” Two days later he walked it back, cowering behind a reference to a Tom Friedman column, then three weeks later he said he regretted this objectively true statement he made. That is the Gavin Newsom experience in a nutshell.
Newsom has worked tirelessly to project strength, and create an image of an inevitable politician willing to work across the aisle to get things done. His supporters start at the end of that statement, assuming it is one of fact and not PR spin, and many things he has done to position himself for 2028 benefit the elite political donor base choking the life out of our democracy. The problem with this story Newsom is trying to tell about himself is that it is not true, and personally, I think he has less than 0 chance of winning the nomination so long as Kamala Harris is running.
His national favorability rating is 8 points underwater. Decision Desk HQ analyzed his numbers earlier this year and found that he is less popular than RFK Jr. and that bastion of charisma, JD Vance. An April poll from Harvard, CAPS and Harris pitted him against Kamala Harris and a few other assumed Democratic candidates, and she squished him like a bug, 50% to 22%. Data for Progress released a great poll last year breaking down the favorability numbers for a bunch of major Democratic politicians and figures who may run in 2028, and other than Mark Cuban, Jon Stewart and Stephen A. Smith, no one had higher “not supportive” figures than Newsom (24% of Democrats). Newsom’s biggest problem is that his slick Patrick Bateman cosplay reinforces an image of the exact kind of untrustworthy politician he has proven to be.
So don’t let the scolds on the internet tell you that this white guy currently tepidly benefiting from name recognition in Democratic presidential polling is inevitable, or even a quality candidate you have to support. He’s not. He is a second-tier Democratic contender at best, and he may not even be able to defeat JD Vance in political combat. He’s the exact kind of mistake Democrats can’t afford to make. A Newsom administration is sure to continue all the trends that have made Americans look at Democrats as untrustworthy weenies. He is the candidate for suckers. The Democratic yin to Vance’s yang.
