California Gov. Gavin Newsom could be a 2024 contender. There’s only one problem: Kamala Harris
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom is well-positioned for a presidential run in 2024 or beyond.
Except, VP Kamala Harris is the Democrats’ heir apparent, and they’re from the same state.
For now, Newsom allies say there’s “no way in hell” they’d run against each other in a primary.
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California has given the US two presidents — Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan — and could give it a third in 2024. Vice President Kamala Harris, a former senator and state attorney general, is considered next in line for the Democratic nomination should her boss, President Joe Biden, choose not to run for a second term due to his age. But even if Biden runs again, the 2028 nomination would be Harris’ to lose.
But there’s another state official who could add to California’s tally: Gavin Newsom. The question is, will he try?
Newsom, the telegenic governor of California who beat back a surprisingly boisterous recall campaign last year and is on solid ground to win re-election in 2022, would normally be a strong presidential contender. The state teems with Democratic voters and cash, and its delegate-rich primary often solidifies a frontrunner’s status.
The governor has always shot down questions about whether he’d run for president.
When asked for comment, his campaign provided an interview Newsom gave to a San Francisco CBS affiliate where he vowed his presidential ambitions were, “None, never.” In a separate interview, Newsom said running for the White House has “100 percent never been on my radar.”
Then again, it’s common for high-profile politicians to promise they aren’t running, until one day, they do.
Harris and Newsom chat in front of the cameras during Harris’ tour of an Oakland, CA treatment plant in 2021 Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Newsom has made moves towards growing his national profile, recently garnering headlines for proposing a ban on assault weapons modeled after Texas’ controversial abortion law, which effectively outlawed the procedure in the state by letting private citizens sue anyone who aids or abets an abortion that takes place after a fetal heartbeat is detected. Newsom has also sought to portray his state as a leader in handling the coronavirus pandemic, though the recall effort against him was born from Republicans’ frustrations with the state’s restrictions and lockdowns. At 54 years old, he has years of career potential ahead of him after the governorship.
But with Harris as the nominee to beat should Biden step aside, Newsom would have to contend with another superstar from his own state, splitting party loyalties and forcing California voters to choose between two familiar hometown names.
“Kamala Harris being vice president not only complicates Gavin Newsom’s path, but the path of everybody if Biden doesn’t run in 2024,” said Bruce Cain, a professor of political science at Stanford University in California. “It’s even a greater complication for Gavin given that his base and her base is California. I think it’s fair to say that it has to be weighing on any calculation he might have about jumping into a 2024 race.”
“They occupy not only the same home base and same kind of mentors,” Cain said. “The reality is they are more similar than they are dissimilar. And I think that’s a problem for him, particularly when she has more visibility.”
Like Harris, Newsom is perceived nationally and at home as a liberal politician. He granted marriage licenses to gay couples as San Francisco’s mayor in 2004, declared in 2020 that California would begin phasing out vehicles that run on fossil fuels, and this week announced he wanted to expand Medicaid eligibility to undocumented immigrants. That record would make him a prime target for national Republicans, who are eager to paint him as an out-of-touch coastal liberal if he seeks the presidency.
“Newsom’s record is one no candidate should be proud of. Republicans can only hope he’s the nominee in 2024.” California Republican Party Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson told Insider in a statement. “He can point to record gas prices, surging crime, sky-high taxes, a homeless crisis, and the fact that no other governor has driven more people to leave their state than California.”
Newsom and Harris are public allies and still maintain overlapping networks at home. They’ve campaigned alongside each other during various campaigns throughout the years. In September, Harris appeared with Newsom at a rally during his Stop the Republican Recall campaign. The two shared a warm embrace on stage.
Harris and Newsom hug it out during an anti-recall rally in September 2021. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Two Democrats who have worked for Newsom dismissed speculation that the two Northern California politicians would ever face off in a presidential primary.
“There’s no way in hell those two are going to run against each other,” said one California operative who has worked for both Newsom and Harris. “They are old friends who go back decades.”
“If there’s any sort of quote-unquote rivalry between them historically, I would characterize it as a sibling rivalry,” the operative said. “The reality is they have been very big boosters of one another’s careers; they have each supported the other.”
Another strategist who worked for Newsom “can’t imagine a scenario where they go up against each other.”
“Newsom has been nothing but absolutely praising of the vice president,” said the strategist, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the two politicians’ relationship.
Further complicating matters are Harris and Newsom’s intertwined political circles. Several of California’s most prominent Democratic strategists, fundraisers, and communications experts have done time with both state power players. They also share donor networks in California.
So far, their careers have developed on parallel tracks. Newsom climbed from mayor of San Francisco to lieutenant governor, and finally governor all within a decade. At the same time, Harris completed a parallel ascent, from San Francisco district attorney to California attorney general, to US Senator, to making history as the first woman elected vice president of the United States.
Harris, whose latest approval ratings are at 35.8%, dismissed any speculation about her potential 2024 ambitions.
“I’m sorry, we are thinking about today,” she said in an interview for NBC’s “Today Show” that aired on January 13. Harris’ office declined to comment.
Though both Harris and Newsom have said they are not thinking about 2024, it’s a game that political spectators will continue to take bets on over the next two years in the lead-up to the presidential elections.
The Democratic operative told Insider Harris and Newsom’s careers have played out as “a friendly game of one-upmanships.”
Tomi Lahren on VP Harris’ latest interview: She thinks she can ‘just wing it’
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Fox News contributor Tomi Lahren on “Outnumbered” Thursday ripped Vice President Kamala Harris for her answers in a new NBC interview on the Biden administration’s COVID strategy.
KAMALA HARRIS CRUSHED FOR NON-ANSWER ON BIDEN’S COVID STRATEGY
TOMI LAHREN : I think we will need Joe Biden’s sign language interpreter to interpret that one, it did not make a lot of sense. I don’t think she was expecting to be grilled on anything. She really is someone who takes the test without reading the book of material and that’s what we are seeing time and time again with this vice president.
You think almost a year into this administration she would take the time to actually be knowledgeable on the issues, but she is so full of herself, so narcissistic that she believes she can just sit down and wing it. And that is a big problem when you are the Vice President of the United States with a president who is not also super coherent.
WATCH FULL “OUTNUMBERED” DISCUSSION BELOW:
The ‘replace Harris with Cheney’ NYT column is even worse than you think
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If you ever read a column that opens with the phrase, “one reason I pay very close attention to the Israeli-Palestinian arena is that a lot of trends get perfected there first and then go global,” you know it’s going to be an adventure.
On Tuesday, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman — famous for, as Vice once put it, his “vacuous prose” and prognostications gone horribly wrong — published a new think piece titled, “Biden-Cheney 2024?” in which he argues that President Joe Biden should replace Vice President Kamala Harris with Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney or another anti-Trump Republican.
“Before you leap into the comments section, hear me out,” he writes.
We heard him out. We wish we hadn’t.
The entire basis for Friedman’s belief that such a “national unit ticket” could work is because of the purported success of a coalition in Israel where conservative Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and center-left Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid “came together for a four-year national unity government.” We at SFGATE will not pretend to be experts on the inter-workings and nuances of Israeli politics (which hardly seems like a utopia where conditions are improving), but Friedman was nice enough to make the argument that Israel is a poor analogy for us.
“America does not have the flexibility of a parliamentary, proportional-representation system, like Israel’s,” Friedman concedes.
What Friedman is embarrassingly blind to is the fact that there’s little evidence his primary goal — “creating a broad national unity vehicle that enables more Republicans to leave the Trump cult” — is possible with a figure like Liz Cheney.
Aside from the fact that there are many reasons Democratic voters would have major issues with Cheney, poll after poll has shown that Trump remains highly popular among Republican voters. While there are polls that show that there’s a significant proportion of Republicans who do not want Trump for president again 2024, Friedman mistakes a desire to move on from Trump the person for a desire to move from “Trumpism” the ideology as loosely defined.
When pollsters have queried hypothetical 2024 Republican presidential primary contests, the candidate not named Trump who garners the most support is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a combative culture warrior who is perceived by Republican voters as someone who can actually follow through on promises to implement protectionist immigration policies, more restrictive voting laws and measures targeting large tech companies.
GOP voters seem to have little appetite to return to Cheney’s establishmentarian brand of conservatism that emphasizes foreign policy interventionism and laissez faire economics. Candidates who fit that mold hardly register in 2024 GOP primary polls.
“Never-Trump” Republican establishment types have always been over-represented in the elite media circles Friedman runs in, which makes his analysis somewhat unsurprising, albeit no less terrible.
Kamala Harris’ comms chief repeatedly called Bush 43 ‘illegitimate’ president
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Vice President Kamala Harris’ newly appointed communications director Jamal Simmons insisted more than once that George W. Bush’s first presidential election victory was “illegitimate,” according to resurfaced statements and tweets.
While Simmons repeatedly noted that he behaved respectfully toward Bush, his insistence that the 2000 election was stolen pairs awkwardly with the Biden administration’s furious response to former President Donald Trump’s insistence that widespread voter fraud cost him a second term — a claim the White House and many top Democrats have labeled the “Big Lie.”
The 2000 election, in which Bush narrowly defeated then-Vice President Al Gore, is best remembered for the controversial attempt by the Gore campaign to force ballot recounts in heavily Democratic areas of Florida. The Supreme Court eventually halted a partial recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court in the Bush v. Gore decision that December.
Bush was ultimately declared the winner of Florida’s 25 electoral votes by just 537 votes, which provided the Republican with the winning margin in the Electoral College.
George W. Bush narrowly defeated then-Vice President Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election. AP
In 2003, Simmons – who was working on then-Sen. Bob Graham’s failed presidential bid – alluded to the recount in a statement saying, “[Graham] knows firsthand what voting irregularities and disenfranchisement can mean for the electoral process.”
Nine years later, in June 2012, Simmons echoed that sentiment.
“I worked for Gore 2000 & believe W’s 1st term to have been illegitimate. Yet when in the room w/him I stood and gave ofc [office] respect,” he tweeted. Simmons had worked as the deputy communications director for the Democratic presidential campaign that year.
The 2000 presidential election was controversial, in part due to controversial attempt by the Gore campaign to force ballot recounts in heavily Democratic areas of Florida. AFP
In response to a private Twitter account that same year, Simmons said, “I said losing tickets. Gore Lieberman didn’t lose. (but same point).”
In response to members of Congress boycotting Trump’s inauguration in 2017, Simmons wrote, “I worked for Gore. Thought W was illegitimate. Still stood for him in respect for office. Members of Congress should go to inauguration.”
And as recently as January of last year, Simmons said he thought Bush “stole” the 2000 election.
“The Trump vs Biden equivalency is wrong. Trump was an anti-Democratic huckster grifting the country while unleashing our demons. Biden is the #Democratic version of McCain – a good man I disagreed with. I thought W stole the 2000 elex but I still stood when he entered a room,” Simmons wrote.
The administration has defended Simmons’ hiring and a White House official told Fox News that Simmons respects Gore’s decision to respect the electoral process.
The tweets resurfaced just days after Simmons publicly apologized for other old posts of his on Twitter in which he asked why illegal immigrants weren’t being apprehended.
“As a pundit for much of my career I have tweeted a lot and spoken out on public issues. Sometimes I have been sarcastic, unclear, or just plainly missed the mark,” Simmons said in a Friday statement.
“I sincerely apologize for offending those who care as much as I do about making America the best, multi-ethnic, diverse democracy it can be. I know the role I am taking on is to represent the Biden-Harris administration, and I will do so with humility, sincerity and respect.”
Kamala Harris Said Those Dying With COVID-19 Vaccinated? No, Video Is Edited
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A video of United States (US) Vice President Kamala Harris has been shared by several social media users with a claim that she said “all those hospitalised with COVID-19 or dying because of it were vaccinated with 2-3 doses”.
However, we found that the original video was edited to make the false claim. In the original video, Harris can be heard saying, “Virtually every person who is in the hospital, sick with COVID-19 right now, is unvaccinated.”
“Literally every person who has died from COVID-19 that we have recently been seeing was unvaccinated,” she added at a vaccine mobilisation event held in Detroit in July 2021.