The calculated move behind Gavin Newsom’s extraordinary Kamala Harris pledge … and the ‘sinister plot’ Democrats suspect: ‘He’s messing with her’

Gavin Newsom’s vow to sidestep a 2028 presidential run for Kamala Harris was delivered during a fly-fishing trip in mid-August.

‘That doesn’t even make sense to me,’ a bewildered Jake Tapper responded on CNN after Newsom’s head-shaking reveal aired earlier this week. ‘She had a shot, you’ve never run and she’s run twice.’ 

Newsom’s assertion struck like a thunderbolt among alarmed Democratic donors, but political strategists came away wondering if he was really serious. 

By the time the interview aired, the California governor had already worked a four-event swing in two days through South Carolina, the state Democrats have selected to kick off their primary. 

‘I think he’s messing with her, getting in her head,’ a former Harris adviser told the Daily Mail.

Another unaligned Democratic strategist also ascribed a more sinister notion to Newsom’s pledge, saying it appeared as if he was trying to ‘isolate’ Harris from potential donors by setting up a ‘him vs her’ dynamic.

If donors want Newsom to run, they have to convince Harris not to run first. 

Newsom expressed concern that if Harris entered the race, the two Californians would face ‘mutual assured destruction,’ in a fight over the same set of voters and funders.

Newsom has stepped aside for Harris before as the pair climbed politics in tandem. 

Both are protégés of California political kingpin and former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown.

When Newsom ran for mayor of San Francisco, Harris ran for district attorney of the city. When Newsom ran for lieutenant governor, she ran for attorney general, and when he signaled he was running for governor, she chose California’s open Senate seat in 2016. 

Harris then set her eyes on the presidency.

She ran twice and did not succeed, making the case for deference far weaker this time, prominent Democrats unaffiliated with Newsom told the Daily Mail.

Spokesmen for Newsom and Harris did not respond to requests for comment. 

Civil rights leader Al Sharpton read the pledge as pure positioning, posting on social media that Newsom wanted supporters to know ‘he wouldn’t interfere with a black woman having a second chance.’

Other Democrats saw the same eventual payoff. 

‘If she doesn’t run, he gets credit with black voters for being deferential AND her endorsement will be among the most coveted in the primary,’ a Democratic strategist told the Daily Mail.

The money, meanwhile, has already moved on. 

LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, a powerful Democratic donor, warned publicly that Harris faces ‘a very challenging path’ – and donors who spoke to the Daily Mail remain furious about the more than one billion dollars she burned through before losing to Trump in 2024. 

Newsom’s pledge only sharpens the pressure on her to make way for a fresh face, one strategist said.

Harris is not taking the hint.

Her case, laid out in her bestseller 107 Days, is that she was handed a fraction of a campaign and deserves a whole one with her own identity on the line. 

Her slogan – ‘don’t let anybody tell you no’ – resurfaced last week on a podcast with retired soccer star Megan Rapinoe, where she laughed off the question of why she is back in the arena with a line from the Godfather: ‘They pulled me back in.’ 

She added that ‘I don’t know a life’ outside politics.

That drew a flat response from one Democratic strategist, who told the Daily Mail they had ‘no idea’ who was supposed to be doing the pulling.

Harris has been working the South for months, betting everything on South Carolina where black voters dominate the primary electorate, and where Joe Biden resurrected a corpse of a campaign in 2020 after he struggled among the whiter and more progressive voter pools in Iowa and New Hampshire. 

Harris knows the money isn’t with her, one strategist said. She thinks the Southern state can fix that with one swift victory.

Harris enjoys national recognition, giving her an edge in the polls.  

A recent HarrisX poll showed that she leads the 2028 Democratic primary field with 42 percent. Newsom comes in second with 17 percent and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is in third place with 12 percent.

Harris enjoys 60 percent of the black vote while Newsom only has 14 percent support.

But she also enjoys nearly universal name recognition, having served as vice president and since becoming the surprise nominee in 2024.  

Democrats are braced for a crowded and bloody 2028 field, and operatives are preparing for the stampede to the first nominating state. 

‘People have to come here first. You gotta show up and prove that you care,’ South Carolina Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright told the Daily Mail.

‘But no one is going to hand her or any of the other potential candidates the nomination,’ Democratic strategist Joe Trippi added.

Now Democrats wait and see if Newsom will actually tamp down his ambition if Harris ramps up hers.

‘This is not his first time in the state,’ Seawright said of Newsom, ‘and his latest visit provided a shot of energy to his momentum.’