Let’s begin this California-centric column with a detour to another state and the question of gubernatorial succession a year from now.
At issue: whether Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis will run as her husband’s heir apparent in 2026—what could shape up as a power struggle between governor Ron DeSantis and president Trump over who gets to play king (or queen) maker in Tallahassee.
As it turns out, there’s a precedent for such a let’s-keep-it-in-the family handoff.
In 1966, Lurleen Wallace ran to replace her term-limited spouse as governor of Alabama, campaigning as “Mrs. George C. Wallace” just in case there were any voters unaware of the matrimonial ties. She breezed to victory, only to lose a battle with cancer that ended her tenure less than 16 months after becoming the state’s first female governor. (A sidenote: Alabama’s current governor, Kay Ivey, got her first taste of politics as a Lurleen Wallace campaign worker.)
As for “Mr. Wallace”: George Wallace served as his wife’s special assistant, earning a dollar a year. In 1970, he ran for the office he and his late wife once held and was reelected four years later (Alabama having amended its state constitution to allow governors to serve consecutive terms).
So, here's a random thought: What’s stopping California Governor Gavin Newsom and his spouse, First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, from doing the same switcheroo in the Golden State next year?
Assuming he wants to stay on in Sacramento as California’s chief executive, all the term-limited Newsom would have to do is: (a) manage to get his wife elected governor; (b) himself run for lieutenant governor; then (c) succeed her soon after she takes office and promptly resigns (not unlike a scenario in which Donald Trump, trying to circumvent the 22nd Amendment, runs for vice president in 2028 and then returns to the Oval Office after his running mate resigns post-inauguration in early 2029).
In this case, the Newsom trial ballon doesn’t get off the ground thanks to Proposition 140—California’s term-limit law stipulating that a governor and other state constitutional officers are “limited to two terms” (as opposed to the MAGA-tempting loophole in the 22nd Amendment and these words: “no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice”).
Let’s return to our regularly scheduled California political programming.
That includes waiting for 2026’s gubernatorial field to gel (with former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa taking this swipe at possible candidate Kamala Harris: “If you want to be governor, any of the candidates, get in the race. The time is now. The challenges are too big. We had a 100-day campaign. So no, you can’t get in at the end of the rainbow”).
And this recurring daytime drama: What is Gavin Newsom thinking?
You might recall how that soap opera played out last summer, when Newsom ran the equivalent of a presidential “shadow campaign”—debating DeSantis on national television, working post-debate “spin rooms,” ostensibly on Joe Biden’s behalf.
Even when Biden’s fortunes cratered after his disastrous debate with Trump, California’s governor didn’t relent in his cheerleading. “You don’t turn your back because of one performance,” Newsom told an interviewer. “What kind of party does that? This president has delivered. We need to deliver for him at this moment.”
And after that: Newsom and other Democrats making a pilgrimage to the White House, with Newsom issuing this statement: "I heard three words from the President—he’s all in. And so am I.”
Three Sundays later, Biden was all out.
All of which had inveterate Newsom-watchers wondering: Was the governor’s exuberant defense of President Biden a matter of party loyalty or more a reflection of his own White House ambitions?
Last week marked eight months since Biden’s unceremonious withdrawal from the presidential election. Yet, as Newsom pursues a new side hustle as a podcaster who’s curious about what conservatives think, it’s the same question as in 2024: Is he in it out of party loyalty or personal gain?
We’ll know the answer to that question at some point in early 2027, presuming that’s when Newsom signals his 2028 intentions.
In the meantime, Newsom’s latest adventure in podcasting, This Is Gavin Newsom, has yielded two political headaches.
First, there’s the matter of bad reviews. That includes this takedown by The New Yorker (ironically, the source of a far more flattering profile during Newsom’s first gubernatorial campaign back in 2018): “It feels like a stretch to even describe these episodes as interviews, because Newsom sounds fairly uninterested in what his guests are saying.”
Slate magazine, another online watering hole for the Left, echoed that sentiment in describing Newsom’s podcast as “a bit like the audio equivalent of Kim Kardashian sexy-posing with a Tesla Cybertruck as Elon Musk dismantles the federal government and flings millions of Americans into insecurity and potential immiseration: soulless, self-interested, and shallow.”
Newsom’s other problem: there’s an iceberg ahead—the blue state he governs is awash in red ink.
A week ago, California health officials told lawmakers in Sacramento that the state can’t pay Medi-Cal providers through June (the end of California’s fiscal year) due to a $2.8 billion shortfall, on top of another $3.4 billion loan that the Newsom administration claimed was necessary to keep California’s low-income insurance program afloat.
At the same time, news out of Los Angeles showed California’s largest city with a $1 billion hole in its budget that could lead to layoffs and service cuts. That’s in the neighborhood of the combined budget shortfalls in San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose.
What this means: Newsom will have to spend the first half of his summer addressing the state’s fiscal woes and dealing with (and buying off) cantankerous legislators. Which is not to be confused with the escapism of sitting behind a microphone and feigning interest in the inner thoughts of Steve Bannon or Tim Walz.
Speaking of escapism, Newsom’s not the only titled Californian to take to the airwaves recently only to review bad reviews.
How brutal was the response the Netflix series With Love, Meghan, in which the Montecito-based Duchess of Sussex “invites friends and famous guests to a beautiful California estate, where she shares cooking, gardening and hosting tips”? An Irish priest (also a podcaster, by the way) labeled it “bloody awful” and urged his followers to “drink in the mediocrity and savor the narrow escape that one of the most distinguished royal lines in the world just had.”
But there’s more the duchess will have to say in 2025. A podcast is set to debut in April, the focus being on women in business. And Markle may be a step closer to signing a new deal with Netflix if, as reported, she and her husband agree to produce a documentary on the death of his mother.
All of which suggests that while her critics may drive Meghan Markle to tears, the duchess is laughing all the way to the bank.
Which may be the governor’s ultimate destination as well—podcasting’s financial easy street—if This Is Gavin Newsom isn’t the right vehicle for speeding along the road to the White House.
