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On Thursday, Gavin Newsom announced that he would ask the California legislature to vote to put an initiative to redraw the state’s congressional districts on the ballot in November.
This, of course, came in response to Texas Republicans, acting on behalf of Donald Trump, attempting to redraw their maps to give additional seats to the GOP in the House of Representatives. All the while, Newsom has roundly mocked Trump and, on social media, mimicked the president’s all-caps style of posting.
Newsom is clearly eyeing a run for president. But he’s also offering something unique: between his bombastic tone and his ability to grab headlines, he’s offering Democrats their own version of Trumpism.
When Trump first ran for president and then later stepped into the Oval Office, Republicans regularly would say, “At least he fights.” That refrain allowed them to accept Trump calling Mexicans rapists, impugning prisoners of war and his bragging about grabbing women without their consent.
“The guy’s a generational talent,” Mike Madrid, a Hispanic political consultant from California who worked for Republicans, told The Independent. “Most people rely on their own skillset. He’s able to adjust, see the political terrain and fight on that terrain and win.”
And Madrid saw Newsom’s skill up close in person when he worked on the campaign for Newsom’s 2018 opponent, former Los Angeles Democratic mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. That was the case in 2004, when Newsom presided over same-sex marriages during his time as mayor of San Francisco. In 2008, he famously said, “This door’s wide open now. It’s going to happen, whether you like it or not.”
“He is best in times of tension and conflict,” Madrid said.
It’s a major change of fortune for Newsom. After Trump’s victory in 2024, he faced severe criticism for his handling of the wildfires in Southern California.
When he launched his podcast at the beginning of 2025, he took heat from other Democrats when he agreed with conservative activist Charlie Kirk about transgender athletes in women’s sports. To this day, many Democrats and LGBT+ activists remain salty.
But many Democrats still find themselves pleased with his actions against Trump. In June, he sued the Trump administration for sending the National Guard into Los Angeles to quell protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.
Now, he’s taking Trump on directly, and it seems to have appeal.
Earlier this year, Shannon Watts, a Democratic activist who raised $11 million last year for Kamala Harris, had largely refrained from giving money to Democrats in disappointment at the party’s inability to stand up to Trump.
But this week, she contributed to Newsom’s campaign.
“I have been waiting for Democrats to meet the moment and to show some fight and to stand up to this administration that is so clearly wanting to be authoritarian,” she told The Independent.
“And this is less of me saying with my money, oh, this is the person that I think will be president. It’s more of a vote of a thank you so much for doing what is expected of elected officials and politicians in this moment.”
Newsom still has his weaknesses, of course. He famously faced a recall in 2021 after facing backlash for dining indoors at the French Laundry restaurant without a mask during the pandemic. And his policies of banning homeless encampments have also angered progressives. This is to say nothing of the fact that if he runs, he will have the “Liberal San Francisco mayor” label that might put off swing voters.
But Watts said her contribution was not an endorsement of him as the Democratic nominee in 2028.
“I had people in my thread say when I tweeted that I was donating, ‘You know, he’s not the one,’” Watts said. “That’s not the point. This is not about in 2025 who is going to be the Democratic nominee. This is about who is leading the pack in fighting in ways that are new and different, inventive and effective.”
Polling consistently shows that Democratic voters increasingly do not like their leaders and see them as rolling over for Trump. That has, in turn, led to Democrats yearning for someone to fill the gap, Lakshya Jain, a co-founder of the politics website Split Ticket, told The Independent.
“There’s not really any way for Democrats to fight against Trump right now,” he said. “Because what letters do they have? They don’t control any branch of government. They don’t control the Supreme Court, but what is true is they do control the state of California, and the state of California has nine Republicans and a lot of blue turf that’s kind of wasted on certain incumbents.”
That allows Newsom to step out in front and say he is the first one to stand against Texas’s actions. Specifically, the Texas Democrats who decamped to blue states said they would return to Texas because California would respond in kind if Texas passed their new maps.
2028 is a long way off and plenty could change. Other candidates might be able to prove Newsom is a paper tiger. But then again, plenty of Republicans waited for Trump to implode and he laid waste to them.
On Friday, as Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, Newsom’s office fired off another Trumpian all-caps tweet.
“MANY PEOPLE ARE SAYING THAT DONALD J. WOULD CONSIDER “GIVING AWAY” THE FREE STATE OF CALIFORNIA TO HIS ‘BEST FRIEND’ VLADIMIR PUTIN — ALL BECAUSE I, GAVIN C. NEWSOM, STOLE THE CAMERAS THIS WEEK WITH ‘THE MAPS,’ he posted.
