Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom led Vice President JD Vance among young male voters who were asked which prospective candidate they preferred in a hypothetical 2028 presidential election, according to findings by a Republican pollster.
The poll — conducted in late October by TIPP Insight in collaboration with the League of American Workers, a GOP-affiliated organization founded by former President Donald Trump adviser Steve Cortes — asked 2,100 registered voters age 18-25, including a sample of 1,300 men, who they would prefer between Vance or Newsom.
Thirty-eight percent of the young men surveyed picked the California governor, while 33% say they would rather vote for Vance. Fifteen percent said someone else, and the remaining 15% said they were unsure.
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Notably, 67% of the men who voted for Trump in 2024 said they would vote for Vance, while 14% of that group favored Newsom.
The survey comes amid speculation that both politicians could run for president in 2028. Newsom told CBS’s Robert Costa in October he’d be lying if he said he didn’t put serious thought into it, while President Donald Trump told reporters on Air Force One that a ticket with Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio would be “unstoppable.”
Last year, The Associated Press found more than half of men under 30 supported Trump during the 2024 presidential election, partly due to his campaign reaching their demographic more effectively through nontraditional media such as podcasts.
Recent polling shows the president’s approval ratings at their lowest during his second term.
The California governor, who routinely uses social media to blast Trump and his MAGA allies in recent months, has fully embraced that approach in order to reach out to new supporters.
However, Newsom received backlash from members of his own party for sitting down with right-wing figures like Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon for his podcast, “This Is Gavin Newsom.”
“The reaction when I had Charlie Kirk and Bannon on was exactly to me Exhibit A of what I feel is wrong right now with my party: an unwillingness to even engage in platform, to listen,” Newsom told The Hill.