Dan Walters: Newsom’s California record won’t help a run for White House

Six years into his governorship and with two years to go, Gavin Newsom is at a political inflection point, choosing whether to finish his stint and resume his wine and restaurant business, or mount a campaign for the White House.

While deflecting questions and media speculation about the latter, Newsom’s recent political positions and official acts are perfectly consistent with a nascent presidential campaign.

For instance, Newsom on Monday made the sixth stop on his California Jobs First tour of rural counties. This one, held in Stanislaus County, was to plug regional economic plans he says are aimed at improving conditions in areas that characteristically have high unemployment and providing more opportunities for workers who lack college degrees.

It may just be coincidence, but Newsom’s much-belated recognition of California’s outback and its workers seems to respond to the losses his Democratic Party and its presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, suffered last year.

Critics both in and out of the party have lamented that Democrats have lost their mojo with blue-collar workers facing rising living costs and shaky job protections.

Pointedly, perhaps, Newsom’s event on Monday occurred just minutes after Congress certified Trump’s electoral college victory, with Harris presiding.

Newsom’s surprisingly passive role in President Joe Biden’s 11th-hour cancellation of his reelection campaign and the subsequent elevation of Harris into the Democratic nomination was another indication of presidential ambitions.

It was starkly apparent that Biden’s cognitive lapses would doom his bid for a second term and party leaders, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, were pressing him to stand aside. Newsom, however, was loudly proclaiming his support of Biden right up to the moment the president bowed out, declaring in a CBS interview that he was “all in, no daylight.”

From a purely political standpoint, Newsom might have hoped that Biden would remain in the race because, win or lose, the presidency would be open in 2028. However, with Harris being anointed as the party’s replacement candidate, 2028 was less predictable. Had she won, Newsom would likely have been frozen out as she sought a second term.

As it turned out, the door to the White House will be open. Newsom can, if he wishes, devote the remainder of his governorship to building a record for a presidential campaign. However, amassing such a record will not be easy. The major issues facing the state when he won the governorship in 2018 remain largely unresolved, and in some cases have worsened, despite his promises to attack them.

The state’s housing shortage has increased due to subpar construction, it still has the nation’s largest population of homeless people, academic achievement in public schools is lagging, conflicts over water are as sharp as ever, and Newsom’s pledge of a carbon-free future lacks a clear pathway.

Newsom has launched many new programs, such as compelling some mentally ill people to seek treatment, expanding Medi-Cal from health care into housing and social services, and converting some local schools into multi-service centers. However, whether these efforts succeed won’t be known for years, probably long after 2028.

Meanwhile, Newsom — and the state he governs — would be a target-rich environment for his potential rivals in both parties, just as Harris and California were last year. Videos of California’s squalid homeless encampments and smash-and-grab store robberies would be especially potent in the swing states, such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia, that Trump won last year.

Dan Walters has been a journalist for nearly 60 years, spending all but a few of those years working for California newspapers. His commentary comes via CalMatters.org, a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters. For more, go to calmatters.org/commentary.