California Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Sept. 14 that he would not run for president in 2028 if former Vice President Kamala Harris decides to make another presidential bid.
“I don’t know if she runs, but we’ll see,” Newsom, a Democrat, told CNN anchor Jake Tapper in an interview. “I wouldn’t run if she ran.”
Newsom said that running against Harris, who became the Democratic presidential candidate during the 2024 election after then-President Joe Biden withdrew his bid, would be an electoral gift for their political opponents and “waste everyone’s time.”
“First of all, electorally, it’s a gift from God for everybody else. They’d enjoy the hell out of it. Mutual assured destruction. It services no greater good,” the governor said.
When asked about the fact that Harris had launched presidential bids in 2019 and 2024, while Newsom had never run for president, Newsom said that could be an “approach to the campaign,” but that he would be competing for the same voters who supported Harris.
“That’s objectively true. But I know what that means. I know her base of supporters, I know her friends, the Venn diagram on that is just pure crossover. I wouldn’t do that to people,” he said.
Harris, who was vice president at the time, lost the 2024 election to Republican Donald Trump, who returned to the White House for a second term. She previously launched a presidential bid for the 2020 election but dropped out two months before the primary voting began.
Newsom said he was not ready to run for president in 2024.
“If I did, I would have gotten crushed because I didn’t have a why. You don’t have a big enough why, then you don’t belong there,” the governor said.
Harris has hinted that she may run for president again in 2028. During the National Action Network’s annual convention in New York City in April, Harris said that she was “thinking about” another presidential run.
Harris previously served as California’s attorney general before representing the state in the U.S. Senate from 2017 to 2021.
Newsom, who was elected governor in 2018 and won reelection in 2022, is term-limited and cannot seek a third consecutive term. He will leave office in January 2027.
Chase Smith contributed to this report.
