Perhaps one of the worst-kept secrets in politics is that Gavin Newsom wants to be president. Speculation about his White House ambitions abounded as long ago as 2004, around the time he began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples as mayor of San Francisco. After he was elected governor of California in the 2018 blue-wave midterm, the chatter only grew.

Now, with Trump back in power for a second time, Newsom believes he’s in the perfect position to make his aspiration a reality. Over the last two weeks, the California Governor has led the Democratic response to Texas Republicans’ attempt at mid-decade gerrymandering, pushing for a referendum to allow California to redraw its own congressional maps to create more Democratic seats and calling for other Democratic-run states to follow suit. He has subsequently taunted Trump, promising to help deliver a victory for Democrats in next year’s midterms.

Since Trump returned to office, Newsom has crowned himself the unofficial leader of the Resistance 2.0. The first real signs of this came as Trump deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles, with the Governor proclaiming: “Democracy is under assault right before our eyes. The moment we’ve feared has arrived.”

Newsom’s antics have generated a host of friendly headlines and social media hits, and his confrontations with Trump have certainly boosted his standing within his party. An Emerson College poll this month found that 23% of California Democratic primary voters would support Newsom in a 2028 presidential contest, the most of any prospective candidate.

But Democrats should be cognisant of Newsom’s many vulnerabilities, and not allow their anger at Trump to unwisely lead them to crown the Californian in 2028.

For starters, while Newsom is currently in good standing with California Democrats thanks to his combativeness with Trump and the GOP, it wasn’t that long ago that he was struggling. According to a poll from UC Irvine’s School of Social Ecology, his fights with Trump, specifically, boosted his approval rating to 56% in July. But just one month earlier, without Trump serving as a foil, Newsom’s approval sat at a meagre 38%.

Other polling by the university in May found that Californians — including a sizeable majority of independents and even a small plurality of Democrats — believed Newsom was more focused on his presidential ambitions than on fixing the state. His approval rating at that point in his second term trailed that of his predecessor, Democrat Jerry Brown, at the same point in his tenure. And in his re-election campaign, he won a smaller margin in the state (18.4 points) than Joe Biden did (29.2 points) two years prior.

This leads to a second strike against Newsom. California has struggled mightily during his time as governor, which began in 2019. It is one of just seven states that has seen a net population loss since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, shedding 91,000 residents — more than any state except New York. One of the biggest reasons has been the state’s unaffordability. California has long been one of the most expensive states to live in, and this has only grown worse in the last five years.

Notably, Newsom has worked as governor to cut red tape and expedite the development of new housing to bring down prices. But rather than taking a cue from another progressive Democrat on the rise, Zohran Mamdani, who has adopted an almost monomaniacal focus on the cost of living in his mayoral campaign, Newsom’s work on these issues has taken a back seat to #Resist.

This is an alarming development, especially as Americans have identified inflation as the most important issue facing the country for the last three years, and many voters (including pivotal swing voters) voted with the cost of living at top of mind last year. Come 2028, with Trump out of the picture, how does Newsom plan to respond to critics of his management of the state?

All this calls into question Newsom’s political instincts. He is capitalising on near-term outrage against Trump among his party’s base at the expense of a longer-term vision for the country. Instead of honing a disciplined message about issues that most Americans care about, his team is spending its time doing its best impersonation of Trump on X, somehow forgetting that every past effort to mimic the President has failed spectacularly.

Democrats looking to reclaim the White House in 2028 must remember that there is no victory without winning voters in swing states who are sceptical of the party and who may modestly support Trump’s agenda. They are unlikely to be moved by yet another round of “threats to democracy” rhetoric, and they will surely be wary of anyone — especially a blue-state governor — who has failed to adequately handle the issues they care about most.

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Michael Baharaeen is chief political analyst at The Liberal Patriot substack.

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