Let’s talk about Gavin Newsom 2024.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Why on Earth would anyone with a blue avatar find Newsom appealing?

Possibly one issue is that he implemented such strict Covid regulations and kept them much later than almost all other governors did. Now it's possible voters as a whole wouldn't care much at this point, they clearly did in 2021 but didn't seem to anymore in 2022...but it's bizarre that Republicans wouldn't considering how they were still raving about long gone Covid restrictions in 2022, especially Atlas blue avatars. And in Newsom's case they weren't even "long" gone.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Why on Earth would anyone with a blue avatar find Newsom appealing?

Possibly one issue is that he implemented such strict Covid regulations and kept them much later than almost all other governors did. Now it's possible voters as a whole wouldn't care much at this point, they clearly did in 2021 but didn't seem to anymore in 2022...but it's bizarre that Republicans wouldn't considering how they were still raving about long gone Covid restrictions in 2022, especially Atlas blue avatars. And in Newsom's case they weren't even "long" gone.

They always liked him but they don't contemplate voting for Newsom in a Post Voting Rights eea

[Ragnaroni]

Newsom is not going to be the backup nominee in 2024. Zero chance.

Can he be the nominee in 2028? Sure. But he'll lose the general election quite badly. California has a bad image in the rest of the country. Its somewhat unfair but California is known as a high tax and ultra woke state with lots of homeless people and expensive homes.

Gavin is the big bad to many Republicans and Independents, hell even some of my more moderate Democrat family members hate-dislike-don't want Newsom in office. His awkward pivot hurts him with Democrats and Republicans have already made up their minds on this guy...

[WalterWhite]

Gavin Newsom could not win a Democratic primary. He is too anti-union for Democratic voters.

[GM Team Member and Deputy PPT WB]

Newsom is so much of a scumbag I'd actually vote 3rd party with him as the nominee

[Ragnaroni]

Newsom is so much of a scumbag I'd actually vote 3rd party with him as the nominee

If Newsom was a Republican, I'd vote Democrat, thats how much I hate Newsom.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Gavin Newsom could not win a Democratic primary. He is too anti-union for Democratic voters.

Lol once Biden is gone and Harris looks weak Voters are gonna decide on Newsom on he will announce after 26 but we are about get a Filibuster proof Trifecta because DH 303 map a D S Brown andTester are overpolled

[Pres Mike]

Newsom is not going to be the backup nominee in 2024. Zero chance.

Can he be the nominee in 2028? Sure. But he'll lose the general election quite badly. California has a bad image in the rest of the country. Its somewhat unfair but California is known as a high tax and ultra woke state with lots of homeless people and expensive homes.

Gavin is the big bad to many Republicans and Independents, hell even some of my more moderate Democrat family members hate-dislike-don't want Newsom in office. His awkward pivot hurts him with Democrats and Republicans have already made up their minds on this guy...

One thing that helped Biden in 2020 was that most people didn't have a strong prior opinion of him. He was acceptable to Democrats and so-so to Republicans. Unlike Hillary that had such strong hatred.

Harris and Newsom are bad potential nominees for these reasons. I like someone like Whitmer

[heatcharger]

Where’s Kathy Hochul at?

https://twitter.com/gavinnewsom/status/1717221998756352228?s=46&t=J_equ31A3o...

Newsom is developing relationships with key Chinese leaders. He’s now a major player in foreign policy. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a meeting with Kim Jong-Un next.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

To the contrary of what my Democrat friends here think, Newsom would be an extremely difficult candidate for Republicans to beat.

He is objectively an electoral underperformer. Winning CA by 20% in 2022 while Whitmer won MI by 11% is not good.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

I endorsed Newsom not Harris already for 28 it's too risky to nominate Harris in 28

[Roll Roons]

To the contrary of what my Democrat friends here think, Newsom would be an extremely difficult candidate for Republicans to beat.

He is objectively an electoral underperformer. Winning CA by 20% in 2022 while Whitmer won MI by 11% is not good.

He actually won by 18, but who’s counting?

[heatcharger]

To the contrary of what my Democrat friends here think, Newsom would be an extremely difficult candidate for Republicans to beat.

He is objectively an electoral underperformer. Winning CA by 20% in 2022 while Whitmer won MI by 11% is not good.

The 2021 recall is much more significant to look at when looking at Newsom’s ability to campaign under pressure.

Whitmer is irrelevant and would never win a primary against Newsom.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

To the contrary of what my Democrat friends here think, Newsom would be an extremely difficult candidate for Republicans to beat.

He is objectively an electoral underperformer. Winning CA by 20% in 2022 while Whitmer won MI by 11% is not good.

The 2021 recall is much more significant to look at when looking at Newsom’s ability to campaign under pressure.

Whitmer is irrelevant and would never win a primary against Newsom.

His success there was much more a matter of his de facto opponent Larry Elder being a lunatic who ran an awful campaign.

[pikachu]

Yea I think this forum's underrating Gavin in a Dem primary and overrating Whitmer/Shapiro/purple or red state Dem politician of your choice. He's not running in 2024 unless Biden dies or almost dies in the month, but all of this stuff heatcharger's documenting is setting himself up well to be one of the three or four candidates running in 2028 with serious name rec and that'll matter a lot in what's gonna be an inevitably crowded field. Provided that Biden doesn't die before primary season starts and Kamala has incumbency, I think he starts off as one of the frontrunners and at least gets to Super Tuesday. I do agree with the consensus that he's not a great GE candidate in a vacuum (the swing/red state guys would be better), but I don't think he's bad enough to be disqualifying and realistically he'd be facing off against either Trump round 3, Trump's insane future VP, or one of the losers who can't even get 10% in a GOP primary rn.

Also I don't see the DeSantis comparison. DeSantis's biggest problem was his inability to deal with Trump, and there's Dem equivalent. In a world where Trump didn't bother running, I think Ron actually wins pretty solidly - even with the personality issues, he's still #2 in the polls! The strategy of being a big-state governor who uses his platform to get a lot of media attention isn't a bad one, it just doesn't work when you're facing off against Donald Trump.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

To the contrary of what my Democrat friends here think, Newsom would be an extremely difficult candidate for Republicans to beat.

He is objectively an electoral underperformer. Winning CA by 20% in 2022 while Whitmer won MI by 11% is not good.

Also, LOL at him beating a Green by only 6 points in 2003 even with the campaigning of Gore.

[heatcharger]

jfern bringing up stuff from 20 years ago is a positive signal for Newsom.

I do agree with the consensus that he's not a great GE candidate in a vacuum (the swing/red state guys would be better), but I don't think he's bad enough to be disqualifying and realistically he'd be facing off against either Trump round 3, Trump's insane future VP, or one of the losers who can't even get 10% in a GOP primary rn.

I’d go further and say he’d be a heavy favorite against DeSantis. The two are set to debate on TV next month — afterwards you’ll start hearing a lotta Democrats wonder out loud: why can’t we have this guy?

[politicallefty]

I say f-ck Gavin Newsom. He's who the media thinks the Democratic Party is. I will NEVER vote for him ever again. Even if he somehow won, he'd be worse for the Democratic Party than Obama was.

[Хahar 🤔]

To the contrary of what my Democrat friends here think, Newsom would be an extremely difficult candidate for Republicans to beat.

He is objectively an electoral underperformer. Winning CA by 20% in 2022 while Whitmer won MI by 11% is not good.

I do not endorse whatever point heatcharger is making in this thread, which would be concern trolling if it were coming from a red avatar and from a blue avatar is just regular trolling, but it's absurd for you to compare two unrelated elections in this way. I suspect that you know this but are doing it anyway, which is disingenuous. Just in case you're actually unfamiliar, I'll explain the differences here.

Everyone knew that Newsom was going to win and he was going before an electorate that was fatigued by constant elections and knew that there was nothing that mattered on the ballot, since the election was guaranteed to return a Democratic governor and enormous Democratic majorities in both houses of the legislature. Newsom's opponent attracted no meaningful media coverage of any kind at any point during the campaign and gave voters no reason to turn out to vote against him. Putting an abortion measure on the ballot was an attempt to mitigate this, but this did not inspire turnout because no California voters believed that there was any risk that abortion in the state would be restricted.

By contrast, Whitmer was running for election in a competitive state with a Republican legislature with a substantive abortion measure on the ballot to drive Democratic turnout. Her opponent made efforts to draw attention to herself in a way that further motivated voters to come out to vote against her. It doesn't mean anything to complain that Newsom won by only eight points more than Whitmer. What would have been the right margin to win an election about nothing by? If your contention is that the candidate who has consistently won by margins as large as that of any Democratic gubernatorial candidate in the history of the state is terrible at elections, maybe you should rethink your argument.

The 2021 recall is much more significant to look at when looking at Newsom’s ability to campaign under pressure.

Whitmer is irrelevant and would never win a primary against Newsom.

His success there was much more a matter of his de facto opponent Larry Elder being a lunatic who ran an awful campaign.

This is also false in several ways. For starters, to the extent that anyone would have been Newsom's de facto opponent during the recall campaign, it would have been Kevin Faulconer. Signatures for the recall were submitted in March, those signatures were certified in April (indicating that a recall election would take place), and the election was held in September. Elder did not consistently show a meaningful lead in polling until August. He was very far from an anointed candidate and his late surge in polling indicates that his campaign was good, not that it was awful.

In any case, it is just wrong to say that the recall vote was about Larry Elder, a name that I doubt my parents would recognize. I lived in California in 2021 and voted in the election and I do not recall any Democratic messaging that mentioned Larry Elder: the Democratic message was consistently to stop the Republican recall. The issue that seemed to be most important during the campaign was Newsom's handling of covid, and exit polling indicated that he won voters for whom that was the primary issue by enormous margins.

[MT Treasurer]

Newsom may lose, but not because he’s an "electoral underperformer." Bill Clinton underperformed badly in 1980 and still won twelve and sixteen years later with two of the most brazenly slick, womanizing, shallow campaigns America has ever seen. Granted, it would have been closer if not for Perot (sorry, Alben/Frank), but still, this stuff doesn’t matter as much as some think it does. (And sometimes it helps because you learn from your past mistakes.)

It might be hard for the average Atlas poster to relate to this, but Newsom has a lot of the qualities that actually matter in presidential elections — he’s good-looking, fit, can project strength/leadership, would probably give off alpha vibes on a debate stage, triggers the other side, combative, good at shifting the focus away from his record, etc. DeSantis would have benefited from this as well if he didn’t allow Trump to emasculate him. Too bad..

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Newsom may lose, but not because he’s an "electoral underperformer." Bill Clinton underperformed badly in 1980 and still won twelve and sixteen years later with two of the most brazenly slick, womanizing, shallow campaigns America has ever seen. Granted, it would have been closer if not for Perot (sorry, Alben/Frank), but still, this stuff doesn’t matter as much as some think it does. (And sometimes it helps because you learn from your past mistakes.)

It might be hard for the average Atlas poster to relate to this, but Newsom has a lot of the qualities that actually matter in presidential elections — he’s good-looking, fit, can project strength/leadership, would probably give off alpha vibes on a debate stage, triggers the other side, combative, good at shifting the focus away from his record, etc. DeSantis would have benefited from this as well if he didn’t allow Trump to emasculate him. Too bad..

Reminder:

I think Donald Trump wins Monmouth by a Ronald Reagan 1984 style margin in 2024, while Joe Biden will likely win Hunterdon County by a very narrow margin. In the end, I think Donald Trump wins New Jersey by a close margin at the same time as Bob Mendendez loses by a John James 2020 margin style to Mike Testa.

You are a treasure and the most underrated oracle this forum has. Your 2020 and 2022 predictions were spot on — if people get them.

Imagine the reception to someone who tried to argue that SnowLabrador was some sort of underrated genius and that we all just were too unenlightened to figure out his brilliance but didn't elaborate any further on why he was such.

[heatcharger]

Newsom may lose, but not because he’s an "electoral underperformer." Bill Clinton underperformed badly in 1980 and still won twelve and sixteen years later with two of the most brazenly slick, womanizing, shallow campaigns America has ever seen. Granted, it would have been closer if not for Perot (sorry, Alben/Frank), but still, this stuff doesn’t matter as much as some think it does. (And sometimes it helps because you learn from your past mistakes.)

It might be hard for the average Atlas poster to relate to this, but Newsom has a lot of the qualities that actually matter in presidential elections — he’s good-looking, fit, can project strength/leadership, would probably give off alpha vibes on a debate stage, triggers the other side, combative, good at shifting the focus away from his record, etc. DeSantis would have benefited from this as well if he didn’t allow Trump to emasculate him. Too bad..

It was funny to see BRTD in the other thread seriously say Newsom’s infidelity would hurt him.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Newsom may lose, but not because he’s an "electoral underperformer." Bill Clinton underperformed badly in 1980 and still won twelve and sixteen years later with two of the most brazenly slick, womanizing, shallow campaigns America has ever seen. Granted, it would have been closer if not for Perot (sorry, Alben/Frank), but still, this stuff doesn’t matter as much as some think it does. (And sometimes it helps because you learn from your past mistakes.)

It might be hard for the average Atlas poster to relate to this, but Newsom has a lot of the qualities that actually matter in presidential elections — he’s good-looking, fit, can project strength/leadership, would probably give off alpha vibes on a debate stage, triggers the other side, combative, good at shifting the focus away from his record, etc. DeSantis would have benefited from this as well if he didn’t allow Trump to emasculate him. Too bad..

It was funny to see BRTD in the other thread seriously say Newsom’s infidelity would hurt him.

And you seriously think his Covid restrictions wouldn't hurt him? They went well beyond any other governor in the country and thus were evidentially completely unnecessary.

[heatcharger]

It was funny to see BRTD in the other thread seriously say Newsom’s infidelity would hurt him.

And you seriously think his Covid restrictions wouldn't hurt him? They went well beyond any other governor in the country and thus were evidentially completely unnecessary.

Honestly the irony of you telling me this is great.

We've moved on from that whole thing. It is what it is.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It was funny to see BRTD in the other thread seriously say Newsom’s infidelity would hurt him.

And you seriously think his Covid restrictions wouldn't hurt him? They went well beyond any other governor in the country and thus were evidentially completely unnecessary.

Honestly the irony of you telling me this is great.

I never supported Newsom's late 2021 Covid restrictions. I was always pretty consistent in saying they should be lifted once the vaccine was widely available.