Gavin Newsom's Pivot to Nowhere

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

67% : It was during his first year as mayor in 2004 that Newsom accrued his first bit of national fame by veering far to the left of the Democratic Party consensus when he ordered the city to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in contravention of state law.
60% : The Trump TV ad saying "Trump's for you; she's for they/them," Newsom said, was "devastating.
59% : On the April 4 episode of his podcast, Newsom spoke positively of his February 5 meeting with Trump at the White House to discuss the wildfires.
56% : On his podcast last month, Newsom said his own father, an "old Irish-Catholic from the west side of San Francisco," thought he ended his career with his support for same-sex marriage.
53% : Newsom does sometimes take aim at Trump on his podcast, but even then, he often sounds like he's phoning it in.
48% : "Our unity against Trump is not increasing our trust.
47% : But Newsom ultimately felt vindicated when the U.S. Supreme Court declared a right to same-sex marriage in 2015 and the public came to overwhelmingly support same-sex marriage.
45% : And that's my point of view -- that I just couldn't figure out how to, quote, unquote, make this fair.
44% : If Newsom can't run as the courageous leader of the resistance, nor a successful good-government Democrat, nor a savvy centrist, perhaps he can claim the mantle of being a Joe Biden Democrat -- right when the party is looking to turn the page on the man who paved the way for the return of Donald Trump.
42% : "I think I was the first Democrat to sit down in the Oval with Donald Trump, and it was 90-plus minutes, and [White House aides] kept trying to extract us from one another.
35% : It's hard to see how Newsom would make it through a Democratic primary without saying whether as president he would revoke Trump's executive order on women's sports or sign the Equality Act, the sweeping LGBT rights legislation universally backed by Democrats in Congress that goes far beyond the issue of sports.
34% : At the end of his first year in office, Newsom released a video depicting himself and Donald Trump as cartoon characters in a Mario Kart-style race: While "Donald Trump continued on his horrifying course of attacking our institutions and our fellow Americans," Newsom said in the video, Newsom was beating Trump by enacting policies like free community college, a moratorium on the death penalty, and tighter gun-control laws.
33% : For example, Newsom ran for governor on implementing single-payer health-care (but was thwarted by cold, hard math).
22% : But in the opening months of Trump's second term, the former self-styled leader of the resistance has made headlines not by fighting Trump but by seeming to retreat from the excesses of progressive politics.
21% : It would be one thing for a Democrat with an eye on 2028 to break with his party's base on one or two politically toxic issues, while simultaneously making sharp contrasts with Trump and Republicans in other areas.
20% : At the start of 2024, a law signed by Newsom expanded Medicaid in California to all illegal immigrants.
19% : Perhaps he's trying to placate Trump while tens of billions of federal dollars to his state are at risk.
16% : When asked to explain Newsom's more conciliatory approach toward Trump, South, the former Newsom aide, pointed to concerns about federal funding.
8% : Rep. Sara Jacobs, who represents California's 51st Congressional District, accused Newsom of "abandoning" transgender kids for "political expediency."
3% : During the March 18 episode, shortly after President Trump defied a judicial order and sent more than 200 people to a brutal Salvadoran prison without due process under the Alien Enemies Act, Newsom offered a garbled critique: Perhaps Newsom simply thinks he hasn't found any solid ground on which to fight Trump.

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