by Frank Holmes, reporter
Gavin Newsom thinks he’s pretty great.
Everything about the California governor beams a message of pure egotism: his slicked-back hair, his custom-made suits, his decision to break his own COVID rules for gourmet dining with lobbyists, and the way he tries to pretend he grew up just like poor black children in the inner city hellholes his liberal policies helped create.
Gavin Newsom is a man of many loves, and he loves nothing more than Gavin Newsom.
The 2028 Democratic presidential hopeful loves himself so much he basked in the fact that his memoir, Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery hit number one on The New York Times’ bestseller list for non-fiction shortly after it came out in February.
But there’s more to the story… much more.
The number one purchaser of the number one “seller” was Gavin Newsom.
Newsom wanted a bestseller so badly that his PAC, the Campaign for Democracy Committee, spent more than $1.5 million dollars buying copies of his own campaign book.
The sales “rush” was just a campaign move.
Last November, “Newsom” (or a staffer acting in his name) made an offer to his campaign email list: “Make a contribution of ANY AMOUNT today and I will send you a copy.”
Then his PAC bought roughly 67,000 copies of his book.
It cost Newsom $1,561,875.
“The money was by far the biggest expenditure for the governor’s federal PAC in the first quarter of 2026,” wrote New York Times reporter Shane Goldmacher.
To make matters more embarrassing, that single, 67,000-book purchase accounts for about two-thirds of the estimated 97,400 copies sold, according to Circana BookScan, which tabulates the sales of individual copies of books.
Conservatives—who pointed out how the millionaire son-of-privilege tried to pretend he was a child of the streets—greeted the news of the plush PAC purchase as another Newsom hoax.
“Holy crap!” exclaimed conservative journalist Eric Daugherty.
Investigative journalist Nick Shirley, who exposed hospice fraud in Los Angeles, called the governor “Gavin Newscam.”
“At what point is this just money laundering?” asked Kevin Dalton.
Even the Times had to admit that “the scale of the book purchases by Mr. Newsom’s PAC is noteworthy.”
But the Times gave Newsom a chance to try to turn the negative into a positive in the most mind-bendingly ridiculous way possible.
Exclusive photo of Gavin Newsom meeting the number one fan of his book https://t.co/2UCCQCxxMS pic.twitter.com/DGN5fCv9UA
— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) April 17, 2026
Only an egomaniac like Newsom, or the kind of PR spinmeisters only he can afford, could find a way to turn the fact that Newsom bought most of the copies of his own book into a sign of surging political support.
“We were thrilled with the response” to the email, because the PAC took in more donations than the cost of the book, said Newsom’s spokesman, Nathan Click. “The tactic more than paid for itself.”
And Newsom didn’t collect one thin dime in royalties from those book sales, Click insisted.
But Newsom has a real problem that confronts many liars: He can’t keep his stories straight.
Newsom’s campaign sent another email bragging to reporters that his incredible book sales proved he had enormous popularity with the average people.
“With more than 91,000 copies sold through organic, in-person and online, non-bulk purchases in the United States, the memoir surged on bestseller lists within hours,” said a press release sent to the media in March, with a map showing how many “sales” had been made on a state-by-state basis.
“I’m humbled,” Newsom lied, “and grateful to everyone who picked up the book and engaged with this deeply personal story of discovery, grief, growth, and pain.”
Evidently, some media outlets got blinded by Newsom’s California snowstorm.
“I’ve read so many politicians’ books, so many of these memoirs … They’re pretty crappy. This is a real book,” gushed Politico reporter Jonathan Martin.
Conservatives begged to differ.
“Newsom’s book is as bad as ‘Battlefield Earth,’” wrote Amy Curtis at Townhall.com.
Of course, Newsom isn’t the only presidential candidate to buy his own book in bulk. Hillary Clinton has made a regular event of it through her career.
Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., did the same thing during the 2020-2021 season. The Sanders political machine was ordered to spend $843,000 buying his memoir—but Sanders had a genuine grassroots movement behind him, and made $2.5 million in book sales between 2011 and 2022.
Even one of Newsom’s like 2028 opponents has done the same thing. Kamala Harris’ “Fight for the People” PAC, bought $97,524 worth of her book in January and gave it to campaign donors. But “the offer came months after her book had already been a best seller,” noted the Times.
At least Newsom’s been a good sport about it: He’s provided California Highway Patrol officers, at taxpayers’ expense, to act as Kamala’s security detail while she travels the state on her book tour.
California Governor Gavin Newsom is refusing to release data on how much it’s costing taxpayers to pay for security for Kamala Harris so she can travel and do her “book tour”
Dozens of California Highway Patrol officers have been assigned to Kamala Harris' book tour since August… pic.twitter.com/V4vtNRoxzP
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) April 1, 2026
“What he did was perfectly legal, but it’s also revealing,” said Curtis. “It shows his campaign isn’t as organic and popular as Democrats want us to believe.”
But you may have gathered that by looking at the polls. Newsom hasn’t led a 2028 presidential primary poll since February.
In the most recent poll, released last week, Pete Buttigieg comes in first.
Another week-old poll shows Kamala Harris with a 12-point lead over Newsom, who ends up in a virtual three-way tie for second with Buttigieg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Harris beats Newsom by eight points in the RealClear Polling average of polls for the 2028 Democratic Party presidential nomination.
And scoring a second-place finish behind two of the weakest presidential candidates in memory is nothing to write home about.