California Gov. Gavin Newsom says he will not seek the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination if Kamala Harris decides to run.
“I don’t know if she runs, but we’ll see,” Newsom told CNN’s Jake Tapper in an interview released Monday. “But I wouldn’t run if she ran.”
Tapper, who conducted the interview while fly-fishing with Newsom in Montana, seemed caught off guard by the answer. “If she runs, you will not,” Tapper said.
“Of course not. Why would I?” Newsom replied. “I wouldn’t do that to her … I wouldn’t do that to you. I wouldn’t waste everyone’s time. Who needs that?”
Newsom argued a primary fight between the two would amount to “mutual-assured destruction” that Democratic rivals and the press alike would happily watch play out.
“I don’t care. But counterargument would be, like, you know, she had her shot. And you’ve never run, and she’s run twice,” Tapper said.
Newsom conceded the point. “Yeah. I mean, that’d be the approach to the campaign, certainly. That’d be the case you’d make. Pretty good one, actually. That’s objectively true,” he said.
He went further, saying a run against Harris would split the same pool of supporters. “I know her base of supporters. I know her friends. The Venn diagram on that is just pure crossover. I wouldn’t do that,” Newsom said.
Newsom has been floated as a top-tier 2028 contender for months, but Harris, the 2024 Democratic nominee, still commands the stronger position among declared and undeclared hopefuls. She leads Newsom 24.5% to 13.5% in the RealClearPolitics polling average, with Pete Buttigieg, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, and Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia clustered within five points of Newsom.
Betting markets tell a different story. On Polymarket, Ocasio-Cortez leads with over 19%, followed by Ossoff at 16%. Newsom sits at 12.7%, with Harris trailing further behind at just 8%.
