San Anselmo, California – Governor Gavin Newsom, widely seen as a potential contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, had difficult words for his own party, “we are as dumb as we want to be,” he said, in an exclusive interview on Monday with NBC news in this suburb of Marin County to the north of San Francisco.
The Democrats have focused too much on the personality of the candidates at the top of the ticket, instead of building a platform that is larger than the nominee and addresses how the party will fight for what the voters want, he said.
“We just have to go beyond the type or girl of the white horse that will come to save the day, it is exhausting,” said second -term executive director of the most popular state in the nation. “This party needs to be rebuilt from the bottom up, not from top to bottom. We are as dumb as we want to be.”
In his incipient search to help revitalize the Democratic Party, Newsom has been criticized by some progressives to organize a couple of high profile allies of President Donald Trump, Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk, in his new podcast, “This is Gavin Newsom.” (The writer of this article sat for an interview in the podcast this week).
In his talk with Kirk, Newsom further enraged some allies in the LGBTQ community and the left by announcing that he opposes Trans athletes competing in sports of women and girls. In the 2024 elections, Trump assembled the trans problems, including Kamala Harris’s past support to the treatments that affirm the gender financed by taxpayers.
Newsom said he has been surprised by the ferocity of the reaction against his interviews with Maga’s figures, but seems to be committed to learning from Trump’s victories in two of the last three presidential elections. It was particularly surprised by Trump’s advantage with young men, which attributed to the attention that the current president paid them, which was partly demonstrated when appearing in podcasts and popular YouTube programs with that cohort.
“He didn’t have a policy to support young men, how to take care of these children,” said Newsom. “But at least he expressed that: I see you, matters to you, I care.”
Newsom’s approach on the shadow phase in the shadow of the next nomination fight is decidedly different from those of their possible rivals, some of which are already making visits to the states that have traditionally carried out early competitions. Newsom can have less urgency need because it has a solid fundraising network, a relatively high national profile for a governor and a functional control of the state party that sends the most delegates to the National Democratic Convention.
Democrats have been discussing internally how they could shake their main calendar, including the possibly holding some competitions already in the 2027 drop, according to a DNC official. Newsom doesn’t like that idea.
“It is ridiculous,” he said, sticking to his opinion that the Democrats have to focus on the substance and the message instead of personality and the process.
Newsom returned to the democratic past to find a model for the type of reconstruction you are looking for. In 1992, the then governor of Yarkansas, Bill Clinton, won the presidency on an agenda that Clinton helped build through the centrist democratic leadership council. But the DLC and his ideas were bigger than Clinton. Its influential members included then Sen. Joe Biden, who would continue to win the White House in 2020. The point, argued Newsom, is that the Democrats are too consumed with the idea of being rescued instead of saving.
“I’m not worried about [whether] We will find a great candidate, “he said.” But what do we represent? What are we? Why are we going to fight? “
He added that he has sometimes been part of the problem.
“Who are we? And if we are a lot of hanging verbs and policy statements, I also make this mistake often. I answer a question with 10 policy answers, instead of what to do [I] represent.”
