In a sign of California's growing status as a major center of Democratic politics, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Sunday that he is considering running for president in 2028, just a day after former U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris made the same pronouncement.
Newsom, a Democrat who rose to national prominence this year by running as a leader of the resistance to President Trump, publicly admitted for the first time that he is seriously weighing a 2028 presidential run.
In an interview with “CBS Sunday Morning News,” Newsom was asked if he would “seriously think” after the 2026 midterms about a run for the White House.
“Yes, otherwise I would be lying,” Newsom responded. “I'd just be lying. And I'm not, I can't do that.”
Harris said this weekend in a interview with the BBC who hopes a woman will be president next year. “Possibly,” he said, it could be her.
“I'm not done,” he said. “I have lived my entire career as a life of service and it is in my bones.”
The November 2028 election is still more than three years away, and it's entirely possible that only one or neither of California's two politicians will be able to enter the race.
But Newsom and Harris' initial willingness to publicly consider a White House run shows that the Golden State remains a major center of Democratic politics. It also sets up a possible political showdown in 2028 between two of California's most important political figures.
For years, Newsom has denied his presidential ambitions. But since Trump defeated Harris in the November 2024 election, the California governor has become an outspoken critic of the Trump administration's agenda.
Under Newsom's leadership, California has filed dozens of lawsuits against Trump, most notably against the Trump administration's deployment of the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles. The governor has also become More aggressive on social media.turning to X to mock and troll Trump.
Still, Newsom, whose term ends in January 2027 and who cannot run for governor again due to term limits, cautioned that he is not rushing to launch a presidential campaign in 2028.
“I have no idea,” Newsom said Sunday about whether he will actually decide to run.
After Trump defeated Harris in November, Harris was seen as a possible candidate for governor of California. But in July he announced that, after “some serious thought,” he would not run for California's highest office.
“For now, my leadership – and public service – will not be in elected office,” Harris said in a statement. “I look forward to getting back out there and listening to the American people, helping elect Democrats across the country who will fight without fear, and sharing more details in the coming months about my own plans.”
Newsom's interest in the White House raises the stakes for passing Proposition 50, a California ballot measure he has pushed, in response to a similar initiative in Texas that would allow state Democrats to temporarily change the boundaries of U.S. House maps to make them more favorable to Democrats. California voters will vote on Proposition 50 in a special election next week.
Newsom has cast his effort as a response to Trump's push to redraw maps in Republican-controlled states to make them more favorable to the GOP.
“I think it's about our democracy,” Newsom said in the CBS interview. “It's about the future of this republic. I think it's about, you know, what the founding fathers lived and died for, this notion of the rule of law, and not the Don government.”
If Newsom is successful and Proposition 50 passes, the measure could help future Democratic White House candidates.
But either way, both Newsom and Harris would face major hurdles in battleground states if they ran for president.
Some argue that simply being a Californian is a responsibility at a time when Republicans describe the state as a bastion of woke ideas, high taxes and crime.
While California has the world's fifth-largest economy and is home to the massive technological powerhouse of Silicon Valley and the cultural epicenter of Hollywood, it has struggled in recent years with high housing costs and huge income inequality. In September, a study found California tied with Louisiana for the highest poverty rate in the country.
Newsom, 58, a former mayor of San Francisco who was born into a wealthy and well-connected San Francisco family, suggested in the CBS interview that he had already overcome significant obstacles. At first, Newsom struggled in school and suffered from dyslexia.
“The idea that a kid who got a 960 on his SAT, who still has trouble reading scripts, who was always in the back of the classroom, the idea that you would even dismiss him is, in itself, extraordinary,” Newsom said. “Who the hell knows? I'm looking forward to who's running in 2028 and who's running then. And that's the question for the American people.”
Harris, 61, who was a U.S. senator and California attorney general before becoming vice president in 2020 and then the Democratic Party's candidate in the 2024 presidential election, came under fire last year after losing to Trump by more than 2.3 million votes, about 1.5% of the popular vote. Some Democrats accused her of being an elite, out-of-touch candidate who failed to connect with voters in battleground states that have struggled economically in recent years.
But speaking in Los Angeles last month while promoting his new memoir, “107 Days,” Harris appeared to take little responsibility for her 2024 loss.
“I wrote the book for many reasons, but mainly to remind us how unprecedented that election was,” Harris said.
“Think about it. A sitting president of the United States is running for re-election and three and a half months before the election decides not to run, and then a sitting vice president takes over to run against a former president of the United States who has been running for 10 years, with 107 days left.”
Newsom has already attracted attention this year by traveling to critical election states.
In July, Newsom traveled more than 2,000 miles to South Carolinaa state that traditionally hosts the South's first presidential primaries. He said he was working to help the party win back the U.S. House of Representatives in 2026. But at the time there was a Dozen competitive House districts in California. South Carolina, a staunchly conservative state, did not have a single competitive race.
After Newsom spoke in South Carolina, Rep. James Clyburn, the highest-ranking Black member of Congress and a renowned Democratic operative who rescued former President Biden's 2020 campaign, told the Times that Newsom would be “a great candidate.”
“He's proven it time and time again,” Clyburn said, stopping short of endorsing it. “I feel good about his chances.”
But other prominent South Carolina Democrats expressed doubt that Newsom can win over working class and swing voters in battleground states.
Richard Harpootlian, a South Carolina attorney, former state senator and former chairman of the state Democratic Party, called Newsom “a handsome man with fantastic hair.”
“But the party is looking for a moderate left candidate who can articulate the hopes and desires of working people,” Harpootlian told The Times.
“If he had a track record of solving huge problems like homelessness or the social safety net, he would be a more acceptable candidate,” he added. “I just think you're going to have a hard time explaining why there are so many failures in California.”
