Barabak: Is Newsom blazing a path to the White House? Running a fool's errand? Let's discuss

Entering his final year as California governor, Gavin Newsom is conspicuously eyeing the White House.

(Brandon Bell / Getty Images)

By 

Columnist

Dec. 14, 2025

3 AM PT

9

9 min

Click here to listen to this article

Share via

Close extra sharing options

Copy Link URL

Copied!

Print

0:00

0:00

1x

This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

Times columnist Mark Z. Barabak and veteran Democratic strategist Garry South debate the governor’s chances.

Have times changed enough to end California Democrats’ presidential

losing streak?

Gavin Newsom is off and running, eyeing the White House as he enters the far turn and his final year as California governor.

The track record for California Democrats and the presidency is not a good one. In the nearly 250 years of these United States, not one Left Coast Democrat has ever been elected president. Kamala Harris is just the latest to fail. (Twice.)

Can Newsom break that losing streak and make history in 2028?

Advertisement

Faithful readers of this column — both of you — certainly know how I feel.

Garry South disagrees.

The veteran Democratic campaign strategist, who has been described as possessing “a pile-driving personality and blast furnace of a mouth” — by me, actually — has never lacked for strong and colorful opinions. Here, in an email exchange, we hash out our differences.

Barabak: You once worked for Newsom, did you not?

South: Indeed I did. I was a senior strategist in his first campaign for governor. It lasted 15 months in 2008 and 2009. He exited the race when we couldn’t figure out how to beat Jerry Brown in a closed Democratic primary.

Advertisement

I happen to be the one who wrote the catchy punch line for Newsom’s speech to the state Democratic convention in 2009, that the race was a choice between “a stroll down memory lane vs. a sprint into the future.”

We ended up on memory lane.

California

Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that he is nervous about the public response to his upcoming book’s candid details about his life and those around him.

Dec. 12, 2025

Barabak: Do you still advise Newsom, or members of his political team?

South: No, though he and I are in regular contact and have been since his days as lieutenant governor. I know many of his staff and consultants, but don’t work with them in any paid capacity. Also, the governor’s sister and I are friends.

Barabak: You observed Newsom up close in that 2010 race. What are his strengths as a campaigner?

South: Newsom is a masterful communicator, has great stage presence, cuts a commanding figure and can hold an audience in the palm of his hand when he’s really on. He has a mind like a steel trap and never forgets anything he is told or reads.

I’ve always attributed his amazing recall to the struggle he has reading, due to his lifelong struggle with severe dyslexia. Because it’s such an arduous effort for Newsom to read, what he does read is emblazoned on his mind in seeming perpetuity.

Barabak: Demerits, or weaknesses?

South: Given his remarkable command of facts and data and mastery of the English language, he can sometimes run on too long. During that first gubernatorial campaign, when he was still mayor of San Francisco, he once gave a seven-hour State of the City address.

Barabak: Fidel Castro must have been impressed!

Advertisement

South: It wasn’t as bad as sounds: It was broken into 10 “Webisodes” on his YouTube channel. But still …

Barabak: So let’s get to it. I think Newsom’s chances of being elected president are somewhere between slim and none — and slim was last seen alongside I-5, in San Ysidro, thumbing a ride to Mexico.

You don’t agree.

South: I don’t agree at all. I think you’re underestimating the Trumpian changes wrought (rot?) upon our political system over the past 10 years.

The election of Trump, a convicted felon, not once but twice, has really blown to hell the conventional paradigms we’ve had for decades in terms of how we assess the viability of presidential candidates — what state they’re from, their age, if they have glitches in their personal or professional life.

Not to mention, oh, their criminal record, if they have one.

The American people actually elected for a second term a guy who fomented a rebellion against his own country when he was president the first time, including an armed assault on our own national capitol in which a woman was killed and for which he was rightly impeached. It’s foolish not to conclude that the old rules, the old conventional wisdom about what voters will accept and what they will not, are out the window for good.

Voices

Actions that once seemed untoward or shocking are no longer politically disqualifying. The instinct for embattled candidates now is to fight and not surrender. It’s certainly worked for Trump.

Nov. 30, 2025

It also doesn’t surprise me that you pooh-pooh Newsom’s prospects. It’s typical of the home-state reporting corps to guffaw when their own governor is touted as a presidential candidate.

Advertisement

One, familiarity breeds contempt. Two, a prophet is without honor in his own country.

Barabak: I’ll grant you a couple of points.

I’m old enough to remember when friends in the Arkansas political press corps scoffed at the notion their governor, the phenomenally gifted but wildly undisciplined Bill Clinton, could ever be elected president.

I also remember those old Clairol hair-color ads: “The closer he gets ... the better you look!” (Google it, kids). It’s precisely the opposite when it comes to presidential hopefuls and the reporters who cover them day-in, day-out.

And you’re certainly correct, the nature of what constitutes scandal, or disqualifies a presidential candidate, has drastically changed in the Trump era.

All of that said, certain fundamentals remain the same. Harking back to that 1992 Clinton campaign, it’s still the economy, stupid. Or, put another way, it’s about folks’ lived experience, their economic security, or lack thereof, and personal well-being.

Newsom is, for the moment, a favorite among the chattering political class and online activists because a) those are the folks who are already engaged in the 2028 race and b) many of them thrill to his Trumpian takedowns of the president on social media.

When the focus turns to matters affecting voters’ ability to pay for housing, healthcare, groceries, utility bills and to just get by, Newsom’s opponents will have a heyday trashing him and California’s steep prices, homelessness and shrinking middle class.

Advertisement

Kamala Harris twice bid unsuccessfully for the White House. Her losses kept alive an unbroken string of losses by Left Coast Democrats.

(Kent Nishimura / Getty Images)

South: It’s not just the chattering class.

Newsom’s now the leading candidate among rank-and-file Democrats. They had been pleading — begging — for years that some Democratic leader step out of the box, step up to the plate, and fight back, giving Trump a dose of his own medicine. Newsom has been meeting that demand with wit, skill and doggedness — not just on social media, but through passage of Proposition 50, the Democratic gerrymandering measure.

And Democrats recognize and appreciate it

Barabak: Hmmm. Perhaps I’m somewhat lacking in imagination, but I just can’t picture a world where Democrats say, “Hey, the solution to our soul-crushing defeat in 2024 is to nominate another well-coiffed, left-leaning product of that bastion of homespun Americana, San Francisco.”

South: Uh, Americans twice now have elected a president not just from New York City, but who lived in an ivory tower in Manhattan, in a penthouse with a 24-carat-gold front door (and, allegedly, gold-plated toilet seats). You think Manhattan is a soupçon more representative of middle America than San Francisco?

Like I said, state of origin is less important now after the Trump precedent.

Voices

The former vice president’s campaign diary takes aim at several of her fellow Democrats, including California’s governor. The two longtime frenemies are both in the mix of possible 2028 contestants.

Sept. 28, 2025

Barabak: Trump was a larger-than-life — or at least larger-than-Manhattan — celebrity. Geography wasn’t an impediment because he had — and has — a remarkable ability, far beyond my reckoning, to present himself as a tribune of the working class, the downtrodden and economically struggling Americans, even as he spreads gold leaf around himself like a kid with a can of Silly String.

Speaking of Kamala Harris, she hasn’t ruled out a third try at the White House in 2028. Where would you place your money in a Newsom-Harris throwdown for the Democratic nomination? How about Harris in the general election, against whomever Republicans choose?

South: Harris running again in 2028 would be like Michael Dukakis making a second try for president in 1992. My God, she not only lost every swing state, and the electoral college by nearly 100 votes, Harris also lost the popular vote — the first Democrat to do so in 20 years.

If she doesn’t want to embarrass herself, she should listen to her home-state voters, who in the latest CBS News/YouGov poll said she shouldn’t run again — by a margin of 69-31. (Even 52% of Democrats said no). She’s yesterday’s news.

Advertisement

Barabak: Seems as though you feel one walk down memory lane was quite enough. We’ll see if Harris — and, more pertinently, Democratic primary voters — agree.

More to Read

Voices

Nov. 16, 2025

Voices

Nov. 9, 2025

Voices

Nov. 9, 2025

Insights

L.A. Times Insights delivers AI-generated analysis on Voices content to offer all points of view. Insights does not appear on any news articles.

Viewpoint

This article generally aligns with a

Center

point of view.

Perspectives

The following AI-generated content is powered by Perplexity. The Los Angeles Times editorial staff does not create or edit the content.

Ideas expressed in the piece

Newsom’s path to the presidency faces significant historical headwinds, as no California Democrat has ever been elected president in nearly 250 years of American history[2][4], with Vice President Kamala Harris representing the latest failure in this pattern.

The traditional fundamentals of presidential politics remain relevant despite recent shifts in the political landscape, particularly concerning voters’ lived experiences and economic security related to housing, healthcare, groceries, and utility bills[3].

Newsom currently benefits from popularity among the chattering political class and online activists who are already engaged in 2028 race dynamics and gravitate toward his social media attacks on the Trump administration, but this base represents a narrow slice of the electorate.

When the focus shifts to substantive issues affecting daily voter concerns, Newsom’s opponents will exploit California’s well-documented challenges including steep prices, homelessness, and a shrinking middle class as vulnerabilities[5][7].

Nominating another San Francisco-based, left-leaning Democrat would represent a tone-deaf response to the party’s soul-crushing 2024 defeat, particularly given that such geography does not reflect middle American values or experience.

Different views on the topic

The Trump presidency has fundamentally dismantled conventional wisdom about presidential viability, rendering obsolete longstanding assumptions about what disqualifies candidates, including criminal records and personal scandals[1][3].

Newsom has emerged as the leading candidate among rank-and-file Democrats[1][9] who have spent years demanding their party leadership fight back against Trump with the wit, skill, and doggedness that the governor has demonstrated through his media presence and legislative victories like Proposition 50[6][8].

State of origin no longer constitutes a meaningful impediment to the presidency in the post-Trump era, particularly when considering that Americans have twice elected a president from Manhattan’s elite circles despite similar concerns about geographic representativeness[3].

Newsom possesses exceptional communication skills, commanding stage presence, and a remarkable ability to connect with audiences, complemented by a steel-trap memory and masterful command of facts and data that distinguish his candidacy[3].

California’s Democratic voters demonstrated their support for Newsom’s approach in the 2024 presidential election, decisively backing Vice President Harris statewide even as her national campaign faltered[4][5], suggesting a favorable home-state foundation for a Democratic nominee.

Source