{"id":55466,"date":"2026-04-10T18:23:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T18:23:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/2026\/04\/10\/newsom-reluctant-to-endorse-a-successor-breaking-deadlock-in-governors-race\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T18:23:45","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T18:23:45","slug":"newsom-reluctant-to-endorse-a-successor-breaking-deadlock-in-governors-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/2026\/04\/10\/newsom-reluctant-to-endorse-a-successor-breaking-deadlock-in-governors-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Newsom reluctant to endorse a successor, breaking deadlock in governor’s race"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n<\/p>\n

\n

Sacramento – <\/span>Gov. Gavin Newsom has spent much of the past year deflecting questions about the race to succeed him in California.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know my position,\u201d he told reporters last month. \u201cI don’t talk about this governor’s race.\u201d<\/p>\n

But since his party risks losing the most powerful office in the state, Newsom acknowledged he may need to step up and endorse one of the Democratic candidates, whether he wants to or not.<\/p>\n

California Democrats have found themselves in an unnecessary dilemma in the 2026 gubernatorial election: Too many candidates, some with few policy differences, are running to replace Newsom. Opinion polls show no clear favorite and Democrats are largely splitting the vote. <\/p>\n

The lackluster support raises the possibility that the two Republicans in the race could finish first and second in the June primary and advance to the general election. Because of their own strategic blunder, Democrats may be out of the race in a state where they outnumber Republicans by nearly 2 to 1.<\/p>\n

This is a disaster that everyone saw coming and that no Democrat, except perhaps Newsom, has the power to stop it, said Thad Kooser, a political science professor at UC San Diego.<\/p>\n

“Gavin Newsom’s megaphone is loud enough to echo in this race, causing other prominent members of the party to support whoever he chooses and ultimately singling out someone from the crowd,” Couser said. “This could be the party’s last chance to avoid having its vote split in June and being eliminated in November.”<\/p>\n

Endorsing a successor before the primaries carries inherent risks and perhaps even more so for Newsom, who is positioning himself as a potential front-runner in the 2028 presidential election. Publicly endorsing a candidate for governor ties Newsom to the outcome of the race and the candidate. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf it doesn’t work, their support will broadcast his political weaknesses and connect him to his party’s weakness, exactly when he needs to show his personal strength,\u201d Cousar said. “But if his intervention saves the party and makes his chosen successor generally an overwhelming favorite, it will further raise his national profile while also winning him a close friend in Sacramento.”<\/p>\n

Newsom is taking a wait-and-see approach for now, monitoring surveys to determine whether his intervention is necessary. <\/p>\n

President Trump’s decision to endorse conservative commentator Steve Hilton over the weekend may ease the pressure on Newsom. <\/p>\n

Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, the top two Republicans in the race, were leading the field of candidates before the president joined, according to A recent survey by UC Berkeley’s Institute for Governmental Studies<\/a>. <\/p>\n

If support for Hilton increases and support for Bianco decreases due to Trump’s endorsement, it is more likely that a Democrat and a Republican will place in the top two in the primary. <\/p>\n

Trump’s endorsement left Couser and other California political observers scratching their heads. If a candidate from each party advances to November, the Democrats are expected to easily win the race due to their voter registration advantage. <\/p>\n

Until this week, Newsom had avoided responding to Bianco’s controversial investigation into voter fraud, in which the sheriff’s department seized thousands of ballots in Riverside County. State Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta led the court challenges. Bianco said he halted his investigation in late March, citing “politically motivated lawsuits and court filings.”<\/p>\n

But the governor publicly celebrated the California Supreme Court’s decision this week to halt the investigation into Bianco. <\/p>\n

“This rogue sheriff pursued conspiracy theories, tried to undermine our elections, and he got the verdict he deserved,” Newsom posted on the Elon Musk-owned social media platform X. “Trump and MAGA’s election denialism is a cancer, a threat to our democracy, and must be stopped.” <\/p>\n

Rob Stutzman, a Republican political consultant in California, compared Newsom’s post about Bianco to “trying to return a gift.” The Democratic governor’s attack could boost Bianco’s profile and support among voters who hate Newsom.<\/p>\n

Stutzman said, “Trump probably got the Democrats out of their dilemma by elevating Hilton and Newsom’s response to elevating Bianco and drawing attention to it makes no sense, and it’s everything that Bianco wanted to do with this whole ballot seizure thing to begin with.” <\/p>\n

Newsom’s reluctance to endorse a Democrat in the race is, in part, a reflection of his feelings about leaving the position he has held for eight years and his recognition of his own “sell-by date” in office. His responses to questions about the contest varied from refusing to comment to indicating that voters were not interested in the race. <\/p>\n

The focus on national politics, Trump’s attention span “24 hours a day,” and earlier speculation over whether former Vice President Kamala Harris or U.S. Senator Alex Padilla would run for governor distracted from the candidates in the field, he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut when I’m out in the community, people don’t talk to me about it, which is interesting this late, a few weeks before early voting,\u201d Newsom said in March. “And so, as a result, I’m just not as engaged as I probably should be.” <\/p>\n

His comments suggesting he is not paying attention to the race have not gone over well with some candidates. Some Democrats, including San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, were already running against Newsom’s record. <\/p>\n

For Newsom, inaction is riskier than electing a losing candidate, Couser said. Although California’s top-two system and poor leadership of the state party will be mostly to blame if Democrats lose, handing control of California to the GOP would encourage criticism of Newsom’s leadership. <\/p>\n

“A Republican victory in a state where Newsom is carrying would be read as a rejection of his legacy on the national stage,” Couser said. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sacramento – Gov. Gavin Newsom has spent much of the past year deflecting questions about the race to succeed him in California. \u201cYou know my position,\u201d he told reporters last month. \u201cI don’t talk about this governor’s race.\u201d But since his party risks losing the most powerful office in the state, Newsom acknowledged he may<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55468,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[2040,19380,6551,1196,1811,1197,19378,8996],"class_list":["post-55466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bible-verse","tag-breaking","tag-deadlock","tag-endorse","tag-governors","tag-newsom","tag-race","tag-reluctant","tag-successor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55466"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55470,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55466\/revisions\/55470"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}