On February 6, 2026, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a $1 billion investment memorandum with UK Secretary of State for Energy Security Ed Miliband on California solar generation and carbon-capture technologies.
The deal is the latest in a series of agreements Newsom has struck with foreign governments, bypassing the foreign-policy priorities of the federal administration.
The leader of the nation’s most populous and highest-GDP state is positioning himself as the de facto leader of the opposition to Donald Trump and laying the groundwork for a 2028 Democratic presidential nomination.
The scale of his political activity—from foreign deals to lawsuits and redrawing electoral maps—exceeds that of any other potential Democratic candidate.
At the Munich Security Conference in February 2026, Newsom held separate meetings with European Commission representatives and officials from EU member states.
During the first year of Republican control of the White House, California signed partnership agreements with the governments of Denmark, Belgium, Kenya, and several Latin American countries.
The format of these deals demonstrates the Democratic governor’s ability to conduct a parallel foreign policy that does not align with the White House’s course.
Newsom has turned the conflict between the federal administration and Democratic-led states into a platform for his own positioning. The party’s control of the California legislature and local governments allows the governor to pursue an autonomous political agenda and present it as a clear alternative to the White House.
Following the Republican victory in the 2024 elections, the California governor effectively became the coordinator of coordinated resistance by Democratic states, cities, and counties against White House policies.
Since Donald Trump’s inauguration, Newsom’s team has filed 58 lawsuits challenging the deployment of National Guard units in Los Angeles, cuts to federal funding for Democratic states, and Washington’s decisions on migration, healthcare, gun regulation, energy, and environmental protection.
California was the first state to challenge Trump’s tariff policy in April 2025 and the first state to join the World Health Organization’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) after the United States withdrew from the organization in January 2026.
In response to Republican-led redistricting efforts in Texas, Newsom launched mirror initiatives in California that led to a special statewide vote on redrawing the state’s electoral districts.
After the governor’s proposal won majority support from California voters, the U.S. Supreme Court approved the new electoral map for the 2026 midterm elections, enabling Democrats to gain five additional House seats from the state in the next Congress.
In early January 2026, Gavin Newsom addressed the California State Assembly for the first time since 2020 and used the speech to position his policies as a direct counter to the White House agenda.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s February 20, 2026, ruling declaring tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) unconstitutional became a major validation of Newsom’s strategy.
California was the first state to challenge Trump’s tariff regime, and the Court’s 6–3 decision upheld the exact legal arguments advanced by the governor’s team. Within hours of the ruling, Newsom demanded that the administration return the $134 billion collected from importers.
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker sent Trump a bill for $8.7 billion—$1,700 per family in his state. Both governors turned the court victory into a public offensive, but Newsom gained the advantage of being first: the California lawsuit filed in April 2025 created the legal foundation for the Supreme Court decision.
Newsom’s second and final gubernatorial term ends in November 2026. Until then, he retains the resources of the nation’s largest state to cement his reputation as the most effective opponent of the Republican administration.
Once his term ends, his presidential campaign will rest on the image and concrete results achieved in his confrontation with the White House.
U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28, 2026, added an anti-war dimension to the 2026 electoral context. Within hours of the launch of Operation “Epic Fury,” leading Democratic figures issued anti-war statements. Newsom called the operation “an illegal and dangerous war,” while Harris labeled it “recklessness disguised as resolve.”
A University of Maryland poll conducted February 5–9 recorded only 21% overall American support for the strikes and just 6% among Democrats. An initial YouGov poll released February 28 showed 33% approval and 45% disapproval.
For Democrats aiming to retake Congress in November 2026, the anti-war stance has become a powerful electoral tool that complements their socioeconomic critique of the Trump administration—though its impact will depend on the length of the operation.
A swift conclusion to the military campaign and visible results could neutralize the anti-war effect and refocus public attention on economic issues.
Newsom is deliberately distancing himself from the agenda that the progressive wing of the Democratic Party emphasized in the previous election cycle.
In a February 2026 CNN interview, he criticized the party for its focus on identity politics and instead highlighted housing affordability, healthcare access, education, and utility costs.
This positioning sets Newsom apart from both progressives and the party’s traditional power centers and is clearly aimed at moderate voters.
Newsom’s positioning is reflected in current polling. According to an Emerson poll conducted February 21–22, 2026, 20% of Democratic voters support his presidential candidacy—the highest among potential candidates.
Second is former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (16%), a moderate technocrat who combines party-reform rhetoric with a pragmatic approach. Third is Kamala Harris (13%), whose support has dropped threefold from the 37% she held in the first weeks after the 2024 defeat.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rounds out the top four with 9%. Her base remains confined to progressive voters in major cities, and the progressive victories in New York and Seattle local elections in fall 2025 have not yet translated into national support.
Harris’s decline is structural. The former Vice President retains 36% support among Black voters, but that group constitutes only about 14% of the total population and had lower turnout (59.6% versus 70.5% among non-Hispanic White voters in 2024), limiting her overall electoral potential.
Among voters under 34, a Civiqs survey found that 53% hold a negative view of Harris; the relaunch of her digital platform Headquarters has not reversed the trend.
Younger voters are increasingly turning toward Ocasio-Cortez, but outside Generation Z and major metropolitan areas, her support remains in the single digits.
Newsom’s core base consists of voters over 50—the demographic with the highest turnout: nearly 75% among citizens 65 and older and 70% among those 45–64, compared with 60.2% among 25–44-year-olds.
A late-2025 Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 64% of voters over 50 consider the cost of living, crime, and uncontrolled immigration their top issues, while only 27% prioritize ideological concerns.
At the same time, younger voters are showing a similar shift toward material priorities: unemployment among Americans under 24 reached 10.8% in summer 2025, and rents, food, and fuel prices rose 20–50% in the first half of the 2020s.
Newsom’s economic agenda directly addresses this shift, appealing simultaneously to the older, high-turnout electorate and to younger voters whom progressives are steadily losing.
The battle for independent voters shapes Newsom’s electoral strategy. At the start of 2026, 45% of Americans identified with neither party.
An NBC News study from November–December 2025 found that 53% of independents rank economic and social issues as their top concerns, while only 15% identify with progressive ideology.
Trump’s approval rating among moderates fell from 41% shortly after inauguration to 26% in February 2026. The drop is driven primarily by economic dissatisfaction and correlates with rising support for Democratic candidates in this group.
Moderate power centers within the Democratic Party are consolidating around Newsom, but unity on this flank is not guaranteed. Pritzker and Buttigieg are competing for the same lane, and the outcome of the November 2026 midterms will determine which Democratic governor can convert an anti-Trump image into a nationwide mandate.
The field is more competitive than Newsom’s current polling suggests. Buttigieg is already actively courting early-primary states, enjoys the highest favorability among Democratic voters, and carries none of the burdens of governing a state.
Pritzker is building a parallel anti-Trump profile from Illinois and possesses financial independence that does not rely on traditional donor networks.
Shapiro maintains the highest approval rating among Democratic governors in swing states, positioning him as potentially the strongest general-election candidate—provided the Israel issue does not damage his standing in the primaries.
Gavin Newsom is building a unique position that no other candidate has matched: staying away from both progressive politics and the party’s old leadership, while showing real results—winning a court case on tariffs, succeeding in redistricting, and pursuing an active foreign policy.
Yet his strategy contains a structural vulnerability: once his governorship ends in November 2026, Newsom will lose the institutional platform that sets him apart from Buttigieg—the ability to act rather than merely comment.
The 2026 midterm elections will determine both the strength of the Democratic anti-Trump wave and which candidate can turn that wave into a winning electoral coalition.
