Swing state Democratic strategists aren’t sold on Gavin Newsom

08/18/2025 internetconnectz.com Comments Off

California Gov. Gavin Newsom won over South Carolina’s political heavyweights on his buzzy tour of the state this month. But in swing states, his potential presidential candidacy could be more of a liability, Democratic strategists say.

“The thing that the electorate wants right now is authenticity, not necessarily agreement, and that’s what Gavin Newsom is missing,” said Fred Hicks, an Atlanta-based Democratic strategist. “He does not feel authentic.”

South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn praised Newsom on the stump in early July — in what strategists theorized was an early attempt at shaping the outcome of the 2028 Democratic nomination.

Clyburn’s praise, however, didn’t quell questions about Newsom’s so-called “California problem.” In swing states where only a few Democrats have mastered making inroads in small, right-leaning, rural communities, a West Coast background could put Newsom at a disadvantage, Democratic operatives in North Carolina and Wisconsin who are familiar with rural voters in those states told NOTUS.

All seven of the country’s battleground states swung toward President Donald Trump in 2024 to varying degrees, and Vice President Kamala Harris — also from California — did not win any of them.

“It’s just that (Newsom is) a big blue state governor, and you’re going to have to make the case to voters in the middle as to why they should give him a chance,” Doug Wilson, a North Carolina Democratic strategist, told NOTUS.

Post-mortems and the handful of Democratic successes since the presidential election have suggested that the Democrat best-suited to remake inroads across the country is one who speaks to affordability and other economic issues.

Nationally, the party is also testing new messaging on social issues in an attempt to regain voters’ trust, from being less forceful about transgender rights issues to platforming moderates on immigration.

All these factors could help Newsom, whose brand of Trump resistance has meshed with his centrist turn on some issues. His responses to national shifts in recent months have ranged from a forceful statement that he didn’t “give a damn” about the administration’s threats to arrest him and a flurry of lawsuits against the administration, to conceding on some issues, like transgender athletes.

But in California and elsewhere, Newsom’s foray into the world of right-wing podcasting has also invited criticism. Most recently, the governor attempted to distance himself from Democrats’ political liabilities during an appearance last week on the conservative podcast “Shawn Ryan Show,” in which he criticized former President Joe Biden for some of the policies he ran on in 2024, including the former president’s failure to move to the right on immigration and border control.

More broadly, the governor’s opposition to transgender athletes participating in women’s sports, his crackdown on homeless encampments and his proposal to limit healthcare access for migrants in California — attempts to distance himself from Democrats’ political liabilities — all raised eyebrows this year among progressives.

“Some voters may look at him with a little bit of a side eye because of the podcast he has, and having Steve Bannon on there, and other MAGA stars in the podcast arena or in the manosphere,” Wilson told NOTUS.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, in the swing states that saw the biggest rightward shifts, such as Arizona and Nevada, a candidate like Newsom — whose political career has been boosted by wealthy, well-connected California families — will have to work extra hard to connect with voters, said Adam Kinsey, an Arizona Democratic strategist.

Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego, who has also sparked 2028 rumors with plans to attend the Iowa State Fair next month, has managed to form strong connections with Arizona’s tribal communities and even appeal to some Trump voters since the 2024 election, Kinsey said.

Gallego “knows what Section 8 housing is,” Kinsey told NOTUS. “He knows how to live off of food stamps. He knows 12 ways to make a good packet of ramen. I think that’s a better sell for Arizona Democrats than this guy who turned his winery into a really established brand, and only needed the Gettys to help him fund it.”

As more and more politicians have followed Newsom to South Carolina, early competition within the party is also building.

In places like North Carolina, a red-state governor like Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who’s dropped multiple hints that he’ll try his hand at the nomination, will likely be more appealing to voters than Newsom, Wilson said.

Beshear is “able to speak in a way that voters on the left can understand and appreciate, and also voters on the right can understand and appreciate,” Wilson said. “That makes him a very formidable candidate going up against Newsom.”

For Newsom to be successful, Democrats said he should focus on what he does have in common with rural, battleground state voters.

In states like Wisconsin, that means a balance of national issues like immigration and topics that resonate locally like agriculture, said Joe Zepecki, a Democratic strategist from the state.

“As much as the assumption about everyone in California is they’re these big city liberals, we know that California is a massive agricultural state, and that dairy is actually a big part of their state’s economy,” Zepecki said.

In Arizona, connecting with voters over water rights and wildfires is the key, Kinsey said.

But Zepecki said early concerns about Newsom from battleground state voters aren’t all-encompassing. Voters are mostly just hungry for anyone who can stand up to Trump, he said — even if that person is a candidate they wouldn’t have been keen to line up behind in past election cycles.

Newsom’s big test, he continued, will be about how well he can do that authentically.

“The base of our party is spoiling for a fighter, if not an outright fight,” Zepecki told NOTUS. “That’s the line that he’s got to try to walk and figure out — how does he remain authentically himself while taking the fight to Trump and doing so in a way that doesn’t code West Coast wackadoo.”

This story was produced as part of a partnership between NOTUS — a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute — and NEWSWELL, home of Times of San Diego, Santa Barbara News-Press and Stocktonia.