The French Laundry in the heart of California’s Napa Valley is one of the most exclusive restaurants in the world. The tasting menu is hundreds of dollars per person. Wine and caviar are extra. During Covid it tried to stay open but struggled. So it was good news for the restaurant when Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, turned up with a group of friends to celebrate the 50th birthday of a lobbyist pal.
But not good news for the governor when the San Francisco Chronicle was tipped off about the meal. It was November 2020 and advice had just been given restricting all California residents to travel only for “work and study, critical infrastructure support, economic services and supply chains, health, immediate medical care and safety and security”. That advice — instruction even — had come from Newsom.
The Covid restaurant outing damaged him because it confirmed what many already thought: in the era of authenticity, he was toast. The gap between his earnest public persona and his private well-heeled hedonism was just too big to work.
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His construction of his past had always been suspect. He claims that his upbringing was tough and only rescued by his sporting prowess. But as the New York Post put it, in one of many hit pieces about the governor, “His father was a massively successful lawyer who managed the finances of the billionaire Getty family, which has sponsored Newsom for his entire ‘business’ and political career”.
Even the achievements in sport seem exaggerated: the nonprofit news organisation CalMatters reported last year: “Governor Newsom has long touted his baseball career, including that he played at Santa Clara University. But he was never on the roster, among other misperceptions of his accomplishments. Newsom hasn’t corrected his record.”
This was the assessment of The Wall Street Journal in early 2024: “Politicians come in flavours that fade. Beto O’Rourke and Stacey Abrams were the Democratic Party’s flavours during the past decade. You will be forgiven for not recalling their names. Mr Newsom is the Democratic Party’s most recent flavour. His taste is rapidly fading.”
Wrong. Newsom is now the frontrunner in the race to be the Democratic Party nominee in the 2028 presidential election. He is the comeback kid.
How did he achieve this and what does it tell us about the message the party might take to Americans in 2028? First, he found an ingenious way of changing the subject. He began a podcast. But not any old podcast. A jolt of amazement (and some horror) went through the Democratic establishment when he announced one of his first guests — none other than Charlie Kirk, the right-wing influencer and organiser who had done so much to bring Donald Trump to power.
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It was one of the last big interviews Kirk sat down for before he was murdered. In a wide-ranging and amiable chat, Newsom admitted to Kirk that his young son was a fan, then without even being pressed, that allowing transgender women and girls to compete in female sports was “deeply unfair”.
Other guests included Steve Bannon, who repeated the Trump claim during the conversation that the 2020 election was stolen. Did Newsom have your attention now? As the columnist Anita Chabria put it for the Los Angeles Times: “Newsom expressed disdain for meetings where people identify their pronouns, didn’t argue with Bannon when he forcefully claimed the 2020 election was stolen from Trump and spent a long time telling Kirk how much his teenage son was a fan. Yuck.”
But she may have missed the point. What Newsom has done with the podcasts might well be yuck for many Democrats but in the Trump era it is positive yuck. Meaning: time spent fussing about Newsom, discussing his every move, analysing what he really thinks, is time spent not focusing on anyone else.
It is, folks, the Trump playbook — the modern political media playbook — and it works. Newsom forced his way into a national conversation on his terms.
And then he took a much bigger political risk and won. When Texas Republicans entered into a re-districting effort — subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court — that might net them extra Congressional seats, the Democrats cried foul. It was an attempt to subvert democracy, they claimed.
But only one of them took action to counter it. Newsom was clear: he would go to the people of California and ask to suspend a law banning this kind of electoral practice in the state so that he, Newsom, could arrange for similar gerrymandering to counter the new Texas Republican seats with new California Democrat seats in 2026.
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He had to argue for it. He had to raise money to get the issue noticed. And he had to win the vote that was put to the people in November. He did all these things and won and now, as a result, only four safe Republican seats remain in California, a state that returns 52 members to the House of Representatives. It does not feel fair but that is his entire point. Fight dirty. Before it is too late.
Shortly before Christmas, Newsom launched a website that he claims monitors the criminal behaviour of people who surround Donald Trump. The governor has become a one-man thorn in the president’s side.
He is punchy, effective, young-ish (not yet 60) and not too loyal to his party. The governor would need to offer a positive message about the future but that restaurant meal during Covid feels a lifetime ago now. Gavin Newsom is for real.
Justin Webb presents the Americast podcast on BBC Sounds
Gerard Baker is away