Gavin Newsom admits he’s feeling out a 2028 White House run at campaign event

California Governor Gavin Newsom has finally confirmed that he’s considering a White House run in 2028 after more than a year of stoking speculation.

Newsom told CNN late last week at a campaign stop in South Carolina that he’d “be lying” if he said he wasn’t considering a run for president, but cautioned that it was low on his list of priorities for visiting the state.

South Carolina was named as the Democrats’ first-in-the-nation primary state in August. Previously it served as the second state primary, following caucuses in Iowa and Nevada, and the New Hampshire primary on the campaign calendar.

Newsom was campaigning for a number of Democratic candidates for state legislature as the party hopes to break a GOP supermajority in Charleston. He was introduced at events, according to CNN, by Christale Spain, the state party chair, who credited him with energetic fundraising efforts.

“If you’re a Democrat, you’ve got to come back to the South, you’ve got to connect with what’s going on in this country,” Newsom told CNN.

Such an alliance with key Democratic leaders in the state would be crucial not just for winning the primary — and giving Newsom’s campaign a massive, early game boost — but also for building ties with Black Democrats across the South.

The Californian’s visit to South Carolina was party of a four-day swing in the Carolinas as well as Alabama, though it did not include a stop for fellow potential 2028 opponent Jon Ossoff in Georgia. Senator Ossoff is facing his first re-election battle after he and fellow Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock flipped the state’s two Senate seats from red to blue in 2020. Warnock previously won re-election in 2022, after finishing a partial term.

Newsom has emerged as his party’s most public foil to President Donald Trump over the last year. He launched a Twitter account, “Governor Newsom Press Office”, that specializes in aggressive, Trump-style messaging against his Republican opponents and their allies in conservative media while also relentlessly boosting Newsom and California’s image.

As recently as last week the account attacked Trump for supposedly falling asleep during a televised White House meeting. The account also attacked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after he battled reports of poor conditions on the USS Abraham Lincoln, and demanded that the Cabinet secretary take a drug test.

Many have speculated that Newsom was preparing a presidential run but he has consistently denied that it is his focus ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. He has never denied considering a run, however.

“I’m not thinking about running, but it’s a path that I could see unfold,” he said cryptically in June.

The president has repeatedly attacked Newsom in turn. In March, he claimed that Newsom’s admission that he suffered from dyslexia was disqualifying, claiming that Americans with learning disabilities were not qualified to serve as president. He often refers to the governor as “Newscum.”

“Honestly, I’m all for people with learning disabilities, but not for my president. I don’t want, I think a president should not have learning disabilities, OK? And I know it’s highly controversial to say such a horrible thing,” Trump told reporters in March.

He added: “The President of the United States, Gavin Newscum, admitted that he has learning disabilities, dyslexia. Everything about him is dumb.”

In 2025, Newsom scored his biggest substantive victory against the Trump administration to date when California voters pushed through new congressional maps approved by the state legislature that redrew district lines with the explicit aim of eliminating or flipping several Republican-held seats.

The measure followed a similar effort by Texas Republicans aimed at disenfranchising Democrats, and elicited copycat moves around the country.

Newsom also moved in July to release several years’ worth of tax returns, an effort to blunt attacks on his wealth and finances ahead of a potential run for national office. Term-limited, Newsom cannot run again for governor.