On Monday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that he would sue President Donald Trump’s administration for seizing control of the state’s National Guard to quell immigration enforcement protests in Los Angeles.
In response, Trump seconded his “border czar” Tom Homan’s threat that he might arrest the governor. “I would do it if I were Tom,” Trump told reporters. Just the day before, in an interview with NBC News, Newsom had all but dared Homan to arrest him.
The protests began late last week after Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents conducted raids and arrests in Los Angeles at a Home Depot that resulted in 44 people being arrested.
The move gave Newsom, who has never been able to conceal his aspirations for higher office, an incredible surge of media attention just after he received months of public derision. In truth, Trump’s war on Los Angeles has given California’s Democrats, who have long been beleaguered, a new life.
While California has long been one of the biggest vote banks for the Democrats, in recent years, it has caused just as much heartburn for the party.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, people fled the state given the high cost of living, though it has seen its population grow in the past two years.
California also accounted for a quarter of all homeless people in the United States in 2024, according to a report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Newsom has always had a penchant for the spectacle, going back to his time as mayor of San Francisco, when he performed same-sex marriages when even Democrats like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton publicly opposed marriage for gay couples.
He relished debating Ron DeSantis, Florida’s ultra-conservative governor, on Fox News and loves going on the network more than people might expect a Democrat from liberal San Francisco should.
But he’s also faced criticism in recent months for how he handled — or failed to get a handle on — the out-of-control wildfires earlier this year.
He’s also ruffled some Democratic feathers with his decision to chat with conservatives like former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on his podcast. When he spoke with Kirk, he said that allowing transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports was “deeply unfair,” which naturally angered progressives.
But now, Newsom is in the place where he feels most comfortable, in a combative stance pushing back against the Trump administration.
Like many other Democratic elected officials, he is weighing whether to jump into the 2028 presidential primary. If somehow Homan decides to slap some handcuffs, it would give Newsom potent fodder for voters in South Carolina and other early-voting primary states.
The same can be said for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.
During the wildfires, Bass was actually not in Los Angeles, but rather in Ghana, which violated her campaign promise to Angelenos that she would not travel internationally while mayor. When a reporter grilled her about being absent during the worst fires in the city’s history, she stayed silent.
Bass’ approval ratings plummeted in Los Angeles. And like many other cities with large Hispanic populations, Los Angeles shifted to the right in the 2024 election, though it remains firmly Democratic.
This would put her in a difficult position going into Los Angeles’s election in 2026, which has a top-two primary system where the two highest-vote earners in the primary advance to the runoff regardless of party.
But Bass, in part fueled by Trump’s federalizing the National Guard and sending them to her doorstep, has since pushed back to defend the city she leads.
She has urged people to remain peaceful, saying: “We do not want to play into the [Trump] administration’s hands.” If Bass is seen as advocating for her city in a moment when its large immigrant population feels under siege, it could pay large dividends.
Then, of course, there is Kamala Harris.
In the months since Trump defeated the former vice president by winning the popular vote and all seven swing states, Harris has weighed whether to seek the governorship of the Golden State when Newsom’s term expires or to take another go at running for the presidency.
Over the weekend, she denounced Trump’s escalation as “part of the Trump administration’s cruel, calculated agenda to spread panic and division.”
Republicans have loved to beat up on California, a state they once dominated with luminaries such as Pete Wilson, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. But if Trump and the GOP overstep their mandate, they risk a backlash and amplifying the very liberal politics and policies that they seek to quell, and might wind up making them stronger in the long run.
