‘I need healthcare’: Gov. Gavin Newsom ducks questions about 2028
Gov. Gavin Newsom once again ducked questions about his plans for life after state service as he terms out of office at the end of this year and cannot run again.
He did not answer and gave a sheepish grin when asked by reporters if he planned to run for president in 2028 after presenting his final May revised budget proposal on Thursday.
“I need healthcare. I worry about that,” Newsom said of his potential job prospects. Like his predecessor Gov. Jerry Brown, Newsom intends to leave Sacramento with a balanced budget; his is largely contingent upon revenues from artificial intelligence companies.
The outgoing governor has long been floated as a potential presidential candidate dating back to 2004, when he made his first national headlines as San Francisco mayor for flouting state law and then-President George W. Bush by issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The “Winter of Love” lasted for a month before the California Supreme Court intervened.
Newsom will leave public sector employment on Jan. 4, 2027 for the first time since 1996, when he entered San Francisco politics as president of the city Parking and Traffic Commission. In the last year, he has sought to reintroduce himself nationally by publishing a memoir, visiting battleground political states, and championing a partisan redistricting effort to break the GOP’s congressional majority.
He has refused to endorse a successor in the ongoing governor’s race. On Thursday, he alluded to behind-the-scenes conversations with state party leaders, saying “we’re going to do everything to make sure” two Republicans don’t advance out of the June 2 primary in which the top two vote-getters will advance to the general election.
California voters have not elected a Republican governor since Arnold Schwarzenegger won reelection in 2006. And Democrats have held a legislative supermajority for nearly a decade.
“I don’t anticipate this to be the case, but there is a break-the-glass scenario” in case a Republican victory seems likely, Newsom said. “There are many people that have a deep understanding of what it would look like if Democrats were locked out.”
