Gavin Newsom Is Dangerous

Y es, he has Pat Riley’s hair. Yes, he seems not to care about the propriety of doing a photo-op at somebody’s burning residence. Yes, enough signatures were collected to begin a recall campaign against him last year. Yes, the middle class is fleeing California. Yes, the state’s cities are becoming a Dickensian tableau of the ultra-rich and the poor.

But Gavin Newsom is still dangerous, and conservatives would be foolish to dismiss his prospects for (even) higher office just because we’re enamored with a promising governor of our own on the opposite coast.

When the draft of Justice Samuel Alito’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade leaked to the press, Newsom asked a question many Democrats were asking: “Where the hell is my party? Where’s the Democratic Party? . . . Why aren’t we calling this out? This is a concerted, coordinated effort. And, yes, they’re winning.”

President Biden was not named; he didn’t have to be. The Beltway began throbbing with speculation that Newsom might seek to lead his party, perhaps as soon as the 2024 election. Newsom then decided to throw more fuel on that speculative fire by purchasing ad time in Florida markets.

Newsom’s question — “Where the hell is my party?” — demonstrated sharp political instincts. Whether because the executive branch has grown too baggy to function lately or because its recent occupants have been unable to fully control it, there has been an overwhelming sense since 2017 that the party outside of the White House is the party that has the initiative and can put points on the board. What Republicans call “wokeness” flowered under Donald Trump’s administration in nearly every other center of formal and informal power in American life. But ever since Biden took the White House, conservative activists have been the ones claiming victories. Conservative governors have been mustering innovative responses to difficult political challenges, and now the Supreme Court has given the Right big wins on gun rights and abortion. Newsom expressed the feeling that many partisan Democrats share: the feeling that they are leaderless and besieged on all sides.

That rudderless feeling has been stalking Democrats for months now as Biden’s approval rating sinks. Reflecting precisely the kind of disaffection among younger, more progressive voters, lightning-rod House member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has even said that if Biden runs again as the Democratic nominee, she will have to take a fresh look at his candidacy before endorsing his reelection.

Enter Newsom, who, despite all the obvious flaws with the California model of governance, has a ready-made pitch: I’m young, I’m competent, and I’m actually a progressive.

For more than half a century, California has represented the American future. And Newsom can claim to lead what he frequently calls “the largest and most diverse state in the world’s most diverse democracy.” California’s economy is hot, and the state is seeing massive revenue surpluses. Newsom plans to use these revenues to send Californians checks ostensibly meant to help them deal with inflation, distributing $9.5 billion to 23 million residents. The scheme might actually exacerbate the problem it’s meant to mitigate, but that possibility clearly doesn’t bother him.

If California were its own sovereign nation, it would be economically competitive with Germany, a nation with more than twice its population. Newsom can argue that he’s already leading 12 percent of America’s people, and nearly 15 percent of its economy. He can argue that on his watch, California has managed to keep its economy hot without jettisoning its extensive, cumbersome environmental regulations.

That is, Newsom can pitch himself not as a compromise for Democrats but as the full package, someone building a green, progressive, diverse, and rich future — a future that Democrats desperately want for the whole country.

Newsom also has a kind of charisma that is hard to describe to conservatives who are genuinely repulsed by him but that generates a response from important blocs of voters. While it seems like Latino voters around the country are beginning to shift toward Republicans, in California they are becoming more attached to Newsom. One study showed that Biden won the state’s Latino voters by a three-to-one margin in 2020. But, in the recall election, Newsom won L.A.’s Latino voters by something closer to a four-to-one margin.

American politics is crying out for a generational change, for some kind of renewal. Ron DeSantis cannot answer that cry for now because he’s still fighting for reelection in Florida. Which means that until November, Newsom will have free rein to make his case. He’s brazen, he’s ambitious, and he will have access to unbelievable amounts of money if and when he runs nationally. Republicans will need to be ready.