Kamala Harris lost to Donald Trump after Democrats handed her the nomination with 107 days left on the clock.
Now the man who watched it happen is going on national television to talk about her future.
What Gavin Newsom said will make every Democrat in America go silent.
What Newsom Said About Kamala Harris on Camera
Gavin Newsom sat down with Axios and delivered the most perfectly aimed compliment in modern politics.
He called Kamala Harris "incredibly talented." Said she'd "exceeded so many people's expectations." And volunteered that she could run "for another office" – maybe school board.
School board.
For the woman who spent two years as Vice President of the United States, being pointed toward school board is the political equivalent of a retirement party where nobody shows up.
Newsom also described her life in the past tense – "she's lived an extraordinary life" – while sitting in the present, actively clearing the runway for his own presidential run.
The finishing touch? He admitted on camera he hadn't read her memoir. "I did not fully read it. I've got it. I've read excerpts."
Harris wrote the book. He didn't open it.
Kamala Harris Has Lost Every Presidential Race She Has Ever Run
Here's what the media won't say: Harris has now failed to win a presidential election twice.
She quit the 2020 race before a single vote was cast – ran out of money, ran out of message, watched her numbers crater from 15% to the low single digits. Her own campaign staff leaked dysfunction to the New York Times on the record.
Then Biden handed her the 2024 nomination with 107 days left – no primary, no vetting, no mandate. She still lost every state that mattered – Pennsylvania went first, then Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada. Trump ran the table and Harris had no answer for any of it.
Now she's on a book tour, and her oldest California rival just told the country her moment is over.
The Daily Mail/JL Partners poll this week has Harris at 22% – technically still the Democrat frontrunner – with Newsom at 19% and closing fast.
In California, Berkeley's own polling now puts Newsom at 28% and Harris in fourth place at 9%, behind AOC and Pete Buttigieg.
Fourth in her home state.
Harris has not ruled out running for president again in 2028 – and her book tour stops in places like South Carolina, a key early primary state, make clear she is seriously considering it.
Why JD Vance Is the Real Winner of the 2028 Democrat Primary Chaos
While Harris and Newsom tear each other apart in public, the Republican side of 2028 looks like a different sport entirely.
Vance sits at 46% in the latest New Hampshire GOP primary polling from Saint Anselm College – conducted just last week. Marco Rubio is second at 27%. Every other Republican is in single digits.
Emerson College found Vance with the backing of 52% of Republican male voters and voters over 60 – the heart of the Trump coalition. CNN polling analyst Harry Enten put it plainly: Vance is "like Mario Andretti and the rest of the GOP is going around in go karts."
Trump himself said in August that Vance "would be probably favored at this point."
That's the heir apparent, sitting in the White House, watching the Democrats bleed.
Democrats have two candidates with massive home-state baggage and losing records in national elections. Newsom ran San Francisco into the ground before presiding over a French Laundry COVID scandal that nearly got him recalled. Harris lost twice. Neither can consolidate the party.
Vance doesn't need to do a thing except let it happen.
The San Francisco Machine Eats Its Own
These two have known each other for more than 20 years. They attended each other's swearing-in ceremonies in January 2003 – Newsom as San Francisco's mayor, Harris as the city's district attorney. They came up together through the same Willie Brown political machine. They vacationed with mutual friends.
For two decades, the late Senator Dianne Feinstein acted as a buffer – keeping them from running at each other inside California. Feinstein is gone. The buffer is gone. And several top leaders of Harris's 2020 presidential campaign are now working for Newsom and expected to stay with him through 2028.
The people who built her last operation decided he's the better bet.
Vance inherits a unified Republican coalition behind an America First agenda while Democrats spend the next two years watching a San Francisco frenemy feud play out on national television.
Democrats chose Harris in 2024 because they had no one better. Now they've got two candidates fighting over who gets to lose to Vance in 2028 – and neither of them can answer why they deserve the chance.
Sources:
- Alex Thompson, "She goes first: Newsom dances around Kamala rivalry on The Axios Show," Axios, March 26, 2026.
- Staff, "Newsom says 'fate' will decide if he faces off against Harris in 2028 presidential primary," Fox News, February 23, 2026.
- Staff, "Harris and Newsom stir 2028 speculation at Democratic Party summit," Fox News, December 15, 2025.
- Staff, "NEW: Poll Shows Clear Frontrunner In 2028 GOP Primary," Trending Politics News, March 24, 2026.
- Staff, "JD Vance is clear front-runner for GOP nod in 2028," The Hill, June 27, 2025.
- Staff, "Newsom has twice more support than Harris in early 2028 presidential primary poll," Washington Examiner, March 2026.
- Staff, "Kamala Harris drops out of presidential race," Fox News, December 3, 2019.