So what game is Gavin Newsom playing?
Ever since Democrats lost the White House to Donald Trump four months ago, California’s governor has been retooling his political image, shifting from advocating left-leaning policies, such as single-payer health care, to supporting quasi-conservative causes, such as suppressing street crime and cleaning up homeless encampments.
Newsom’s slow drift to the right became a jolt last week when, on the first segment of his new podcast, “This Is Gavin Newsom,” he declared opposition to transgender women competing in women’s sports.
“I think it’s an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that,” he told Charlie Kirk, a right-wing provocateur and Newsom’s first podcast guest. “It is an issue of fairness. It’s deeply unfair. I’m not wrestling with the fairness issue. I totally agree with you.”
Newsom cited his two daughters, his wife’s background as a college athlete and his own baseball career at Santa Clara University as shaping his position, saying “I revere sports. And so the issue of fairness is completely legit.”
Not surprisingly, Newsom’s startling statement drew fire from advocates for LGBTQ rights who had long counted the governor as a supporter, dating from 2004 when, as mayor of San Francisco, he defied state law to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
“We are profoundly disappointed and angered by Governor Newsom’s comments about transgender youth and their ability to participate in sports,” Tony Hoang, executive director of Equality California, said in a statement. “Transgender kids — like all kids — deserve the chance to play sports alongside their teammates and learn important values like leadership, teamwork, and sportsmanship. Transgender young people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.”
Despite the outrage of Hoang and other advocates, Newsom’s newly voiced position places him in the national political mainstream. In January a New York Times/ Ipsos poll found that almost 80% of Americans oppose allowing transgender women to compete in women’s sports and that included more than two-thirds of Democrats.
Something else Newsom said on the topic was a sharp dig at Kamala Harris, his sometime ally and sometime rival, for failing to counter a Donald Trump commercial that showed Harris endorsing sex-change operations for transgender prison inmates.
The ad has been widely hailed as the Trump campaign’s most effective assault on Harris, and Newsom termed it “a great ad” that Harris’ campaign neglected to answer.
During his political career in California, which has spanned half of his life, Newsom has often said and done things that attract national media attention, beginning with his decree supporting gay marriage as mayor. His remarks on transgender sports were only the latest of such zingers.
If he really believes that transgender women should be banned from women’s sports, he would publicly support the recently introduced legislation to repeal a 2013 law that allows such participation. If he doesn’t back his words with action, we’ll know it’s just a political ploy.
So what’s Newsom’s end game?
National political media assume that Newsom will finish the remaining 22 months of his governorship and then launch, officially or otherwise, a campaign for president. Trump apparently cannot run for another term in 2028, although he may try to circumvent the Constitution’s two-term limit. And at the moment, the Democrats don’t have any other standout potential candidates.
Therefore if Newsom does intend to pursue the presidency in 2028, or otherwise remain in the political spotlight, aligning himself with popular sentiment on such a hot-button issue is a smart tactical move.
Likewise, creating a personal podcast and inviting such obvious foils as Charlie Kirk would be a way to maintain national media exposure, the prerequisite for anyone who seeks the White House.
Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.