NEW YORK — Gavin Newsom hosts President Donald Trump’s allies on his podcast. He’s pushing city officials to crack down on homeless encampments. And this week, he proposed limiting health care coverage for immigrants in the country illegally.
Make no mistake: California’s Democratic governor is appealing to the political center and trying to shed his national reputation as a San Francisco liberal as he contemplates his next career move.
With the earliest phase of the 2028 presidential election season already underway, the term-limited Newsom has become increasingly willing to break from some of the policies that have defined his brand and his deeply Democratic state. His moves could attract Democratic voters fearful that their next nominee might appear too liberal, but also threaten to alienate key parts of the party’s diverse coalition.
On Wednesday, Newsom was asked if he was moving to the center in anticipation of a presidential run.
“I’ve been, always, a hardheaded pragmatist,” the 57-year-old told reporters, pointing to his time as San Francisco mayor, when he expanded the city’s police department and backed an ordinance cracking down on panhandling.
He explained that his evolving policy platform was driven by a need to be fiscally responsible.
Already, some Democrats who will be influential in the next primary are skeptical.
“He’s trying to moderate some. Good for him for trying,” said Boyd Brown, a veteran Democratic operative in South Carolina. “But I think the die’s been cast on Gavin Newsom’s political positions.”
Norman Solomon, national director for the progressive group RootsAction, accused Newsom of being “willing to throw basic decency under the 2028 campaign bus.”
“Newsom is well on his way to self-satire as a former liberal who’s so obsessed with becoming president that he develops a reflex of punching down — at immigrants, the homeless, farmworkers, people living paycheck to paycheck,” Solomon said.
Pointing to the state’s $12 billion deficit, Newsom has come out with a plan to stop immigrants living in the country illegally from joining California’s taxpayer-funded health care program for the poor. Those already receiving benefits and children who qualify would not be affected.
Last year, California was one of the first states to extend free health care benefits to all poor adults regardless of their immigration status. It was an ambitious plan promoted by Newsom to help the nation’s most populous state inch closer to universal health care. He reiterated support for the program as recently as March.
But the cost ultimately ran $2.7 billion more than Newsom anticipated.
Despite the proposed change, the governor made clear he still broadly supports providing health care to immigrants lacking permanent legal status.
“No state has done more than the state of California, no state will continue to do more than the state of California by a long shot. And that’s a point of pride,” he said.
This week, Newsom offered California cities a blueprint to clear homeless encampments. It was an escalation in his effort to force local officials to address the makeshift tents that line underpasses, parks and streets across the state.
“No more excuses,” he said. “It is time to take back the streets.”
Newsom earlier this year stunned some members of his own party by agreeing with podcast guests on issues such as restricting transgender women and girls in sports. He said dismantling police departments was “lunacy” and kept silent when longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon falsely said Trump won the 2020 presidential election against Democrat Joe Biden.
About 7 in 10 Democrats oppose allowing transgender athletes to participate in women’s sports, according to a January New York Times/Ipsos poll, and Democratic leaders of cities have long faced concerns about homelessness and illegal immigration, issues that Trump highlighted frequently during his 2024 campaign.
Brown, the South Carolina operative, noted that the party’s last presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, was defeated in part because Trump’s campaign spent millions highlighting the policies she embraced as a California senator and in a previous run before she replaced Biden atop the 2024 ticket.
“We already tried the California thing,” Brown said.
In New Hampshire, former Democratic House Speaker Steve Shurtleff agreed that it may be too late for Newsom to change his brand.
“It’s almost oversteering. He’s trying too hard to come toward the middle,” Shurtleff said. “Before you can be true to the electorate, you’ve got to be true to yourself.”
Matt Bennett of the centrist Democratic group Third Way praised Newsom.
Bennett noted that Democratic primary voters may lean left, but they have a long track record of picking moderate presidential nominees based on the notion that that candidate is more electable in a general election.
“We will date a liberal, but we marry the moderate every time,” Bennett said, arguing that every Democratic nominee going back to Bill Clinton in 1992 was viewed as a moderate. “I think what Gavin Newsom is doing is moving into the center, and we think that’s smart.”
Third Way is chaired by Rachel Pritzker, a relative of another 2028 contender, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.
Newsom’s allies acknowledge that he faces significant challenges should he run in 2028.
He has just a year and a half to make progress on California’s most pressing issues — homelessness, crime, climate change and immigration, among them. Facing a major budget deficit, he may have limited options.
Some supporters believe that building out his national brand is critical, so they have launched a sustained effort to do just that.
As recently as this past weekend, Newsom’s political action committee ran ads on Fox News attacking Trump’s trade policies. Newsom put up billboards across seven states last fall condemning the GOP’s anti-abortion policies. Over the spring, he established a website to combat misinformation from Trump and his allies.
Newsom also has his podcast, which has recently featured major figures from Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement, including Bannon and Charlie Kirk.
Matt Wilhelm, who chairs the New Hampshire House Democratic caucus, took the middle ground on Newsom, saying he appreciated the governor “communicating early and often across a variety of platforms.”
“I hope Gov. Newsom makes his way back to New Hampshire in the coming months — not just to speak, but also to listen,” he said. “Granite Staters still have a lot to learn about Gov. Newsom and vice versa.”
