Let’s start with a confession: thanks to the convenience of online streaming and the need for mind-numbing “comfort food” in a year featuring far too much in the way of bad political cuisine, I found myself staying up late at night and watching cartoons from my youth: Looney Tunes from the 1950s that no longer pass the test of political correctness.
That would include the exploits of one Wile E. Coyote—forever famished, forever chasing a desert bird he’ll never catch, yet somehow landing on his feet despite plunging off cliffs, getting overrun by moving vehicles, and having his best-laid plans literally blow up in his face.
In America’s 2024 election, Wile E. Coyote might as well have been Gavin C. Newsom—California’s fortieth governor and, like the four-legged toon, someone who’s survived all sorts of ups and downs in the latest election cycle only to find himself where he started: namely, a prominent Democrat seen by some as the cure for what ails his party.
Prior to Election Day, Newsom wasn’t so much the coyote planning his next scheme as he was flat on his back on the desert landscape. Vice President Kamala Harris’s rapid ascent to the Democratic presidential nomination meant not only that Newsom couldn’t run for the White House in this cycle but was also locked out of the 2028 cycle as Harris presumably would have sought reelection.
And then Harris … well, it was her turn to take the plunge off the cliff. Nationally, the vice president lost all seven battleground states that decided the election’s outcome. Even in California, her performance was underwhelming. Though ballot counting continues in the Golden State, Harris likely will fall well short of Joe Biden’s record 11.1-million vote haul of four years ago.
As such, two very prominent California Democrats now stand at respective crossroads. What does the future hold for Harris? Consider the fate of the last three incumbent vice presidents denied the presidency. Al Gore, 2000’s also-ran, ventured into venture capital and climate change. Hubert Humphrey, the runner-up in 1968, returned to the US Senate and later mounted one last presidential run.
And then there’s Richard Nixon, who deadheaded back to California after losing 1960’s presidential election only to suffer a humiliating loss in a gubernatorial race that supposedly ended his political career—a path that’s available to Harris as California’s 2026 gubernatorial field is long on hopefuls but short on commanding figures.
Yet another possibility: Harris anointing herself the head of the so-called Democratic “resistance” to the upcoming Trump presidency. The problem with that scenario: Newsom is already well ahead of her in the Democrats’ game of thrones to see which 2028 hopeful can be the lead Trump antagonist.
That’s one way to interpret Newsom’s call for a special session of the state Legislature “to protect California values” in the aftermath of Trump’s win (the president-elect, naturally, taking the bait by saying the following about California’s governor via social media: “He is using the term ‘Trump-Proof’ as a way of stopping all of the GREAT things that can be done to ‘Make California Great Again,’ but I just overwhelmingly won the Election. People are being forced to leave due to his, & other’s, INSANE POLICY DECISIONS.”).
Newsom said he wants the Legislature to approve funding for the state’s Department of Justice to file lawsuits against the Trump administration, be it reproductive rights, climate change, or the potential deportation of undocumented Californians. Another policy that could play out in the courts: the possibility of the Trump administration challenging California’s ban on voter ID requirements.
Now the election is over, here’s one way to process what lies ahead for the Golden State: Does history repeat itself? As in 2017, there’s an open question as to how a Trump White House will engage in California policies and politics (this time, without the benefit of Californian Kevin McCarthy as House majority leader).
And for Newsom: Does he jump into the way-back machine (OK, I watch too many vintage cartoons) and return the California of 2025 to the California of 2019—a time when Newsom delivered an inaugural address that made clear he was hardly a Trump apprentice. ("We will offer an alternative to the corruption and incompetence in the White House,” Newsom declared. “Our government will be progressive, principled, and always on the side of the people.")
There are two problems with Newsom’s desire to return California to the politics of Trump’s first term (well, three problems, if one considers that Newsom’s call for a special session is tantamount to a political stunt—what he wants done in December could just as easily be addressed in January, when the new legislative session begins).
First, there’s a question of originality in the gubernatorial ranks. Illinois governor J. B. Pritzker is arguably more bellicose than Newsom in his anti-Trump rhetoric (“You come for my people, you come through me”, Pritzker told reporters two days after the election). Massachusetts governor Maura Healey, likewise a Democrat, said she won’t go with the Trump administration if it proceeds with mass deportations. On that front, New Jersey governor Phil Murphy told reporters the day after the election: "We will be very aggressive, both with bullhorn, with legal action, with any other action we deem to be necessary."
That’s three Democratic governors—not counting the ones in Maryland, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, like Newsom touted as possible 2028 candidates—who fashion themselves as the tip of an anti-Trump spear. To the question of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin: can the governors keep the focus on Trump and not let brewing rivalries and 2028 speculation get in the way?
Newsom’s second problem: The California of 2024 isn’t the same as the Golden State he inherited in 2019.
Here, let’s look at some election results, incomplete though they may be, in the San Francisco Bay Area. And I choose the Bay Area because that’s Newsom’s life-arc (the future governor was raised in Marin County; attended college in Santa Clara County; set up his business and political careers in San Francisco; and recently moved the family back to Marin so his children could attend a local private school).
Here's what we know about the Bay Area in this year’s election:
- San Francisco’s mayor (a job Newsom held two decades ago) was ousted in favor of a non-politician who’s not a product of the local Democratic machine—a rarity in San Francisco politics.
- In a historic first, Oakland’s mayor was recalled by voters (a fate Newsom avoided three years ago), as was the county’s district attorney (San Franciscans giving the same heave-ho to their DA two summers ago).
- The anti-crime Proposition 36, which Newsom opposed while claiming he lacked the “bandwidth” to campaign against it, received no less than 64 percent support in the Bay Area’s five adjacent counties (Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, and San Mateo).
- In a rare California-based race in which he personally became involved—an open seat for Congress in Silicon Valley featuring two Democrats—the Newsom-endorsed contender barely cleared 40 percent of the district’s vote.
In all, the results suggest that (a) Bay Area voters were not in a forgiving mood toward progressive incumbents; (b) the electorate was not happy about conditions on the ground (Proposition 36 was the counter to the controversial Proposition 47, which arguably abetted a crime wave across the Golden State by reducing the punishment for property theft); and (c) a governor touted as a national contender was pretty much a nonfactor in his backyard’s contests.
None of this may discourage Newsom from once again embracing the national spotlight for the same reason that a moth is drawn to a flame.
The question is: Will Newsom become the same distracted governor he was this past summer, when the speculation about President Biden’s future was reaching its peak?
History suggests California may be in store for a bumpy ride. Newsom’s second term as San Francisco’s mayor, which ended a year early when he was elected California’s lieutenant governor, likewise was characterized by political restlessness (an ill-fated six-month run for governor that ended a year before he settled for l.g.). As for his time as California’s governor-in-waiting (eight years as lieutenant governor), that too was characterized by lusting for a higher office (Newsom being the first candidate to declare for the 2018 governor’s race only a month after starting his second term as l.g.).
Meanwhile, as California prepares for a legislative special session, there’s a controversy brewing in the Bay Area that ties into one of Kamala Harris’s many failings as a presidential candidate and a challenge for Newsom should he seek the presidency as an unabashed progressive: her and her party’s inability to confront the question of whether to allow biological males to participate in women’s athletics. The matter in question: San Jose State University’s women’s volleyball team having seven matches cancelled as their opponents, fearing for their safety, refuse to compete against a transgender player.
Newsom hasn’t shied away from college sports in the past. Three years ago, he signed a first-in-the-nation law allowing college student-athletes to profit from their name, image, and likeness. And both Newsoms—the governor and first partner—were college athletes (the extent to which, in his case, is subject to debate).
As in the Silicon Valley congressional race that pitted Democrat versus Democrat, which side of the volleyball net would Newsom choose: San Jose State’s, or its forfeiting opponents (including one from swing-state Nevada)?
The answer: The ball is in the governor’s court—as is his willingness to focus on California matters with two more years left in Sacramento or instead govern while distracted by an anti-Trump “re-resistance” and ambitions he may harbor for the job Harris couldn’t land.
