by Frank Holmes, reporter
Gavin Newsom just threw around his millions to help elect Democrats in the South and went on a tour of red states testing the waters for a possible 2024 presidential race… and he found they were icy cold.
Newsom’s campaign speeches pushing voters to support liberal causes in the Deep South blew up in his face.
The only people feeling hot were his fellow Democrats, who openly complained Newsom’s self-righteous liberalism actually hurt their chances of getting elected.
The California governor took his West Coast style to Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida as the first tour of his new political action committee, the “Campaign for Democracy,” which he launched with $10 million of his campaign cash on March 30.
Newsom preached gun control, gender ideology, and extremist environmental policies, while he said gun ownership and voter ID laws hurt “democracy.”
The response was bad. So bad that even the liberal media can’t hide it anymore.
“The California governor’s presence is not always welcome — even among the people he’s supposedly there to help,” Politico reported. “The Newsom brand may not travel all that well.”
Newsom’s biggest critics were the Democrats he was supposed to elect. They appreciated the campaign donations he made — some of the biggest money they receive comes from out-of-state liberals — but they say his message could make them unelectable.
“Personally, I wouldn’t have said the things he has said and the way he has said it,” said Chris Jones, the Democrat who ran for governor of Arkansas against Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
In addition to hyping social issues that alienate voters, Newsom went to Florida to take on the man he sees as his top rival in 2024: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis… but his speeches there also backfired.
He kept telling audiences that he’d make America more like California, with its vast homelessness and rampant crime, instead of Florida with its bustling economy and popular policies.
The move was so bad the head of the state Democrats told him to back off.
“What would not be helpful is a comparison between the two states,” said Florida Democratic Party chair Nikki Fried, who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for governor last year.
People are so desperate to get out of the Golden State that, under Newsom’s leadership, California actually ran out of U-Hauls.
Even the left-wing “fact-check” site Snopes.com had to admit the U-Haul story was true.
“Go home. You’re not getting those U-Hauls back,” wrote former DeSantis spokeswoman Christina Pushaw to Newsom.
GO HOME
YOU AREN’T GETTING THOSE U-HAULS BACK https://t.co/OrhTReuzpH
— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) April 6, 2023
Things are so bad that Newsom’s in-laws moved to Florida… and donated money to the DeSantis campaign!
“The Siebel Family Revocable Trust — an entity named for Newsom’s mother-in-law Judith A. Siebel and father-in-law Kenneth F. Siebel Jr. — donated $5,000 to the Friends of Ron DeSantis PAC in April” of 2022, as The Horn reported.
Newsom’s campaign style didn’t exactly set the South on fire, as he clapped along, off-beat, with a Black church singing hymns at a Sunday School. Or when he went to the New College in Florida, where DeSantis cleaned out left-wing indoctrination, and promised he’d help students learn Critical Race Theory.
The media couldn’t sugarcoat how badly even Southern Democrats took Newsom banging on and on about letting underage children get abortions and permanent sex-change operations .
“The way Californians might want to be governed is not the way Floridians want to be governed,” said Chuck Todd of NBC’s Meet the Press. “Policies that are popular in California wouldn’t be popular in Florida even among Florida Democrats, and I think that’s the point some of these Democratic leaders in other states were trying to make sure Governor Newsom knew that when he came to other states.”
A few Democrats — who received donations from Newsom’s huge PAC, as the governor tries to set up favors ahead of a 2024 presidential bid — put the best face on things. Alabama state Rep. Anthony Daniels, a Democrat, said “the mere fact that [Newsom] is going to other states will help him put things into perspective” when he runs.
But Democratic activists interested in winning elections are having none of it and begging Newsom, no mas.
Texas Democrats do not need “more ‘turn Texas blue’ pep rallies,” said Matt Angle, who directs the Lone Star Project, dedicated to increasing the number of Democrats who hold office in the state. “Texans, even Democrats, resent people coming in and acting like they’re bringing fire to cavemen.”
And Newsom earned criticism from one campaign manager of a successful Southern Democrat. Newsom promoting a far-Left agenda in Southern states “just strikes me as a kind of a stunt,” said James Carville, who managed Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign.
Insiders say it’s not an accident. To paraphrase Marco Rubio, Newsom knows exactly what he’s doing.
Politico reported that “One adviser granted anonymity to speak about the governor’s strategy said Newsom knows that his presence is not necessarily an asset for red-state Democrats who would prefer cash to appearing with a leading progressive.”
“He’s self-aware enough to know where he’s helpful and not helpful,” the adviser told Politico.
In other words, Newsom isn’t campaigning in the South to help Democrats; he’s doing it to help himself.
It’s no secret that the vast majority of Democrats wish someone other than Joe Biden would run for president in 2024, and Newsom has been the leading contender.
Another telling factor is that he has the full support of his party in wrecking their own candidates’ campaigns. The national Democratic Party responded to the California governor’s trip by saying it’s “glad to see Governor Newsom making the case about what we’ve accomplished, what our values are, and the clear contrast with MAGA Republicans,” said Democratic National Committee chair Jaime Harrison.
Newsom is so pleased with what the tour has done for him that he plans to expand it to Indiana, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Texas.
The former San Francisco mayor’s presence won’t help moderate or conservative Democratic voters, but it will definitely raise his profile as a fire-breathing, leftist fighter ahead of the 2024 election.
“It’s working,” Newsom said.
That’s a strange statement, since Newsom has said he “has a sub-zero interest in becoming” the next president.
If Newsom has no interest in winning elections, he’s off to a great start.
Frank Holmes is a veteran journalist and an outspoken conservative that talks about the news that was in his weekly article, “On The Holmes Front.”