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Of the major Democratic candidates waiting in the wings, it seems clear that Newsom is the only viable candidate. And if you’re Newsom, why would you possibly replace Biden now?
This is likely the only shot at President the candidate that (theoretically) replaces Biden has. If Trump wins, the loss against such a villain will serve as the ultimate embarrassment and humiliation for the Dem nominee. Even if they argue that it was Biden’s fault, the base is unlikely to buy it and the attack that the candidate “let Trump win” will be difficult to shake off. This is particularly relevant as the white man quotient in the Dem party continues to decline, raising ever more questions about why the party for which only a (shrinking) minority of white men vote and which is predominantly PoC and female should again elect a white male candidate, especially a loser, over a woman and/or minority who doesn’t have the black mark of “letting trump win” on her resume.
The polls are not favorable to the Democratic Party for now. Even though the economy is arguably fine, people don’t believe it’s fine, housing costs are increasingly unaffordable for many people etc. Newsom would find himself running a campaign built around defending the unpopular record of a mediocre president, including possibly an ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah depending on how that pans out by November. If Newsom runs against a Republican President or a Republican candidate after a GOP presidency, he can sell a purely optimistic vision without having to defend Biden’s record (he might have to defend his record in California, but most voters won’t care).
Trump still hasn’t built Trumpism into an actual movement that extends far beyond the personality cult when it comes to generating political figures who can take over his legacy. There are people who believe strongly in MAGA, certainly, but there are no incredible GOP candidates waiting for 2028. The non-Trump primary candidates this year were poor. Carlson probably won’t want to run and in any case still has a certain East Coast boarding school effete intellectual vibe to him, even with the log cabin studio. DeSantis is uncharismatic and greasy. There are options, but none of them seem likely to be close to as popular as Trump - certainly they are unlikely to have his pre-existing celebrity, wealth and talent for self-promotion. It wouldn’t even surprise me to see a Rubio return wrapped in a MAGA package, and that would be pretty dire. Gavin is stupid, but with enough training he would be fine against most likely GOP options in 2028.
The public’s desire for continuity often expires at the 8 year mark (if it does not do so earlier). A Democratic nominee who pulls off an upset and wins this year is going to be campaigning on 12 years of blue government in 2028, a proposal that hasn’t won in 70 years. The glory of a two-term presidency is much more easily attainable after the opposition is in power.
Amusingly, the only scenario in which Newsom would be smart to take over Biden’s candidacy would be if he genuinely believed that Biden was going to win. In that case, the 2028 race would be much harder for a Democratic candidate; Kamala would likely be the default pick for it’s her turn reasons and because Trump would have been safely defeated and probably too old and beleaguered to run again (allowing ideology to take precedence over raw candidate strength) and 16 straight years of Democratic control of the presidency seems very unlikely. If Biden wins, Newsom’s next good opportunity might be 2032 or even 2036, in which case he’d be 77 upon leaving office after 2 terms, and that seems like a slog.
The only answer I can think of is "for the same reasons Biden isn't dropping out."
Newsom seems to view high political office as his manifest destiny. At that level of politics, maybe most of them view things that way; you'd almost have to, I think, to run in the first place. If Biden and his handlers were even halfway humane, he would have retired years ago (same goes for Trump). There is something deeply narcissistic about believing that you, and you alone, can effectively steer the community/state/nation at this particular time--but if you didn't believe that, why would you run for office? I'd love to hear "a keen sense of civic duty responding to the insistence of one's fellow-citizens regarding one's merits as a leader" but I know that kind of idealism just gets me laughed out of the room.
It's really something to imagine Newsom or DeSantis in place of Biden or Trump at the CNN fiasco. This year's presidential race is a textbook-crafted thought experiment on inadequate equilibria in political contexts, brought to painful life.
Some presidential candidates do run because people around them recommended they do it enough. Most of the truly unwilling are from farther back in American history, however. Including at least one former president!
The more practical answer is the desire and ambition to run for president needs to be there as a prerequisite, but actually doing it and also the crucial question of timing actually does depend a great deal on the advice and wishes of people around you, as well as sometimes popular appeal. Obama was one of these! He wanted to wait a few more years (remember, his time as Senator was actually pretty paltry, traditional wisdom definitely said to wait). But a few things pushed him to do so sooner. For one, actually a bunch of Senate leaders said he should run, and might win, even if they weren't willing to endorse him because they didn't want to cross the Clintons. He had done a few events and saw how enthusiastic people were about him. Even got feted on a trip to Nigeria. So popular support does enter into the conversation.
I could go on. There's a long list of people who wanted to run, but only actually did so because of the people in their orbit. Jeb Bush was one. Of course, manifest destiny thinking and raw ambition is still more common. But it isn't universal. And in some ways, the idea that it's either-or is inherently contradictory. How do you think some of these politicians gain such egos? It isn't all inherent. If you go to enough campaign events and enough of what (to you, selection bias!!) seem to be random people tell you how much they love you, that does something. So yeah, in a sense, fellow citizens do play a role. See for example Biden's decision to run in 2020 was shaped by ego and manifest destiny thinking, but you can also see the role of random advisors and event attendees saying their piece too. He mistakenly started taking credit for Obama's wins as well.
And to be fair, voters deserve some of the blame. After all, Biden did not end up committing to a single term in 2020! Bet the party bigwigs wish they had extracted this concession, somehow.
I’d never thought about it in precisely those terms before but this has to be true. Having crowds of strangers tell me that they love and admire me would break my brain. It’s the ultimate superstimulus for a social species.
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