SACRAMENTO — When he was running for governor in 2017, Gavin Newsom tapped into the simmering rage of California liberals, at one point boasting on the campaign trail: “You want resistance to Donald Trump? Boy, bring it on, Donald.”
That swagger helped Newsom cruise to election in 2018 and crystallized his reputation as a national leader of the anti-Trump resistance.
Whether California’s next governor will follow Newsom’s lead is less clear.
The crowded field of Democrats running to succeed Newsom in 2026, and others weighing campaigns, are still triangulating how best to position themselves against President-elect Trump — and whether that’s a posture that California voters even want.
Some candidates have echoed Newsom with a strident tone. The week Trump was reelected, Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, who is considering a run for governor, stood in front of the Golden Gate Bridge and vowed use “the full force of the law” to defend Californians against the new administration.
“If Trump attacks your rights: I’ll be there,” Bonta said. “If Trump comes after your freedoms: I’ll be there. If Trump jeopardizes your safety and well-being: I’ll be there.”
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, who entered the governor’s race last year, said the state would fight any efforts by the Trump administration to undo LGBTQ+ student protections or dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. And Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis promised in a social media post that California will “never waver in our protection of the freedom to control our bodies, to marry who we love and to create opportunities for immigrants and ALL our families.”
The slight rightward shift of California’s voters this year has given other candidates pause. Preliminary election results suggest that several counties won by President Biden in 2020 tilted toward Trump this year, including San Bernardino County in Southern California, Butte County in Northern California, and a broad swath of the San Joaquin Valley through Merced, Fresno and Stanislaus counties, a Times analysis shows.
Voters also handed resounding losses to the criminal justice reform movement, voting Dist. Attys. George Gascón and Pamela Price out of office and approving a tough-on-crime ballot initiative with overwhelming support.
“Is firing up the Trump resistance really the right move given what has just happened?” said Sarah Anzia, a political scientist and public policy professor at UC Berkeley. “I would think this would call for some introspection and consideration of why Trump has grown in popularity in a state like this.”
Former state controller Betty Yee, who entered the gubernatorial race in March, has pointed in fundraising emails to the state’s “shift toward Trump.” As the statewide vote continues to be tallied, the shift appears to be just shy of 5 points; Biden won 63.5% of California voters in 2020. Harris currently has 58.6%.
“That’s a fairly significant slide right, and while it’s easy to chalk up the votes of millions of Californians to hate or falling for Trump’s deception, the fact is that more young people and more Black and Latino families voted for Trump than ever before,” Yee wrote.
In another message, she wrote that “Latinos of all ages, and young people — the literal future of California, two groups that politicians have leaned on for decades — turned away from the Democratic Party in a historically poor showing this election.”
Navigating those subtle shifts in the electorate may be tricky, however, and overcorrecting too far to the right may prove just as treacherous.
Although he performed better in California in 2024 than 2020, Trump remains very unpopular with most Golden State voters. Historically, the party not in the White House also makes big gains in the next general election — which will be 2026, when Californian’s will elect a new governor. So attacking Trump may be fruitful.
Toni Atkins, the former state senate leader who is among a half-dozen candidates who have launched their 2026 gubernatorial campaigns, described the focus on Trump as a sort of necessary evil.
Everyone is jumping on “the anti-Trump bandwagon,” she said, which is a distraction from major California issues such as the rising cost of living — but critical to the state’s ethos.
Atkins was the leader of the state Senate during the first Trump administration, and led the campaign for Proposition 1, which enshrined abortion rights in the state constitution after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
She said Trump’s reelection changes “the whole nature of this run for governor.”
“We need to be worried about what it means for California,” she said, “because he came at us the first time.”
State Sen. Toni Atkins, right, speaks during a governor’s candidate forum in San Francisco in September alongside Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, who is also running to replace Gavin Newsom.
(Josh Edelson / For The Times)
California sued the federal government more than 100 times during the first Trump administration, challenging the president’s authority on immigration, healthcare, education, gun control, consumer protection, the census, the U.S. Postal Service, civil rights issues and other topics.
On the campaign trail, Trump has recently derided Newsom as “Newscum” and called California and its Democratic leaders “radical left lunatics.” He’s also zeroed in on some of the state’s highest-profile leaders, including Senator-elect Adam Schiff and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, calling them “enemies from within.”
But California still needs the White House’s support in many areas, including health insurance for low-income residents that requires federal healthcare waivers, and emergency disaster funding during natural disasters like wildfires.
In a poll conducted by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times in late October, more than half of registered voters said they had no preference among the candidates who have already entered the race. Among those who do, their favorites haven’t yet announced their campaigns.
U.S. Rep. Katie Porter (D-Irvine), who has not said whether she will run, would be the first or second choice of 13% of voters, the poll found. Two Republicans said to be weighing campaigns, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and state Sen. Brian Dahle, who ran against Newsom in 2022, were the first or second choice of 12% and 11% of registered voters, respectively.
Kounalakis and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa each have 7% support, and so does Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, who has not said whether he will run. Republican commentator Steve Hilton, also said to be weighing a bid, would be the first or second choice of 6% of voters.
Thurmond, Atkins and Yee had support from fewer than 5% of registered voters.
While the political environment for the 2026 campaign appears to be in flux, there may be lessons from the last time Californians picked a governor while Trump was in the White House.
In 2018, Villaraigosa ran a campaign that hewed toward the middle, focusing on equal access to education, fiscal restraint and his strong record as mayor on supporting law enforcement and protecting the environment. Newsom campaigned on a bedrock liberal and expensive agenda, including proposals for a state-sponsored healthcare system, universal preschool and increased funding for higher education.
Villaraigosa failed to make it out of the primary. Newsom won back-to-back terms.