With hints of a Democratic revival, Newsom’s White House hopes rise

California Gov. Gavin Newsom smiles after signing legislation related to student literacy in Los Angeles on Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

In a week when the U.S. Democratic Party finally showed some signs of life after a year of flatlining, one man proved he was already the picture of political health: Gavin Newsom.

The telegenic governor of California took another big step towards cementing his place as de facto leader of America’s opposition -- and the presumed frontrunner in the race to be the party’s White House nominee in 2028.

California voted by a thumping majority to redraw congressional districts in Democrats’ favor, approving Newsom’s plan to counter similar gerrymandering that U.S. President Donald Trump ordered in Texas.

The move aimed to level the playing field for the 2026 midterm elections, when Democrats hope to wrestle control of the House of Representatives from a Republican majority they say has done nothing to check a burgeoning White House power grab.

Newsom wasted no time urging other Democratic-led states to follow suit.

“We need to see other states, their remarkable leaders that have been doing remarkable things, meet this moment head on as well,” he said moments after polls closed Tuesday, as the two-to-one margin of victory became clear.

“We can de facto end Donald Trump’s presidency as we know it” should Democrats reclaim the House next year, Newsom added. “It is all on the line.”

While there were big Democratic wins in New York’s mayoral contest and governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey, Newsom’s gambit -- and its potential national ramifications -- was balm to a party that has floundered since being trounced in last year’s election.

Getting the California redistricting vote off the ground in just a few months, then winning so handily -- albeit in a Democratic-leaning state -- left some party members impressed.

“It shows that he can get stuff done,” Christale Spain, chairwoman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, told The New York Times.

“Democrats want somebody to fight back. He’s pushing back and fighting back.”

‘Light years ahead’

Newsom, 58, is no party shoo-in for 2028, in part because he hails from a state Republicans love to knock as a bastion of progressive “wokeness.”

And several Democratic luminaries are believed to be in the presidential mix, including multiple fellow governors: Kentucky’s Andy Beshear, Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer and JB Pritzker of Illinois, who like Newsom has punched back fiercely against Trump’s immigration crackdowns.

But few politicians have undergone the kind of evolution that Newsom experienced in 2025.

Days after Trump was sworn into office in January, the governor welcomed him to California, where devastating wildfires had torched swathes of Los Angeles, killing dozens of people and leaving thousands more homeless.

While the two men’s enmity was never completely hidden, Newsom at least appeared to try a bipartisan hug that would keep the mercurial president involved in the costly recovery.

At the same time, Newsom was inviting MAGA movement figures like Steve Bannon onto his personal podcast, hoping to reach the hard-right voters that almost instinctively detest him.

But when Trump refused to engage and returned to bashing California, the governor switched methods and started hitting back.

His social media accounts began mimicking the president’s all-caps hyperbole, mocking Trump’s boastfulness and his peculiar writing style.

The turn delighted Democrats -- and got attention nationwide.

Then when immigration raids in Los Angeles sparked demonstrations that Trump met with a military deployment, Newsom doubled down.

“What we’re witnessing is not law enforcement -- it’s authoritarianism,” he said in June.

“What Donald Trump wants most is your fealty. Your silence. To be complicit in this moment. Do not give in to him.”

Newsom now routinely warns that Trump is a danger to Americans -- while continuing to mock the thin-skinned president; a governor’s release Friday on the defunding of food assistance showed Trump’s face superimposed on a portrait of Marie Antoinette.

Newsom is betting that kind of in-your-face pushback is just what Democrats want.

Strategist Matt Rodriguez told Cal Matters the governor was “light years ahead of everyone else” in the race for the 2028 Democratic Party nomination.

“He’s the only one driving his own news,” he said.

“Everyone else is like a moth to flame.”