Newsom Tells CNN He Won't Run for President in 2028 If Kamala Harris Does

Gavin Newsom just took himself out of a fight he hasn't even entered yet.

The term-limited California governor told CNN's Jake Tapper in an interview posted Monday, September 14, that he won't seek the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination if Kamala Harris runs. Tapper conducted the interview while fly-fishing with Newsom on the Bitterroot River in Montana, near Newsom's in-laws' ranch.

"I wouldn't run if she ran," Newsom said. "Of course not. Why would I? I wouldn't do that to her. I wouldn't waste everyone's time. Who needs that?"

Tapper, by his own account, was "stunned." He pushed back on Newsom directly, according to CNN's own reporting carried by The Hill, NBC News and Fox News. Harris already ran twice, in 2020 and 2024, and lost to Donald Trump last time. Newsom has never run a national campaign at all. Why should he defer?

Newsom conceded the point. "That would be the case you'd make. Pretty good one, actually. That's objectively true," he said. But he argued the two Californians share too much overlapping support to run against each other without gutting both campaigns. "I know her base of supporters. I know her friends. The Venn diagram on that is just pure crossover," Newsom said, calling a Newsom-Harris primary matchup "mutual assured destruction" and "a gift from God for everybody else."

A Softer Line in February

Newsom's answer this week was far more definitive than what he told CNN's Dana Bash back in February, when he said "fate will determine" whether his and Harris's ambitions collide, adding, "I've never gotten in the way of her ambition, ever." Monday's comments moved that hedge into an explicit conditional promise.

Newsom did not extend the same courtesy to Rep. Ro Khanna, a third California Democrat also floated for 2028, when Tapper raised his name, according to Breitbart's account of the interview.

Where the Numbers Actually Stand

Harris hasn't said whether she's running. She told the Rev. Al Sharpton in April she was "thinking about it," and told podcast host Megan Rapinoe last week that she hasn't decided and is focused on the midterms, according to the LA Times. Her office declined to comment on Newsom's remarks, NBC News reported.

On paper, Harris is still the frontrunner. A Harvard-Harris survey in April had her at 50% among Democrats to Newsom's 22%, according to the Daily Wire. The RealClearPolitics polling average puts her ahead 24.5% to 13.5%, per Fox News. The LA Times cited a separate July poll showing Harris beating Newsom by double digits.

But the betting markets tell a different story. Fox News reported that on Polymarket, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez currently leads the field at over 19%, with Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia at 16%, Newsom at 12.7% and Harris trailing even further behind. Traditional polling of Democratic voters favors Harris by a wide margin, while a betting market pricing in actual odds of a nomination favors newer faces over both Californians. Neither measure is a crystal ball, and neither should be read as settled.

The Backstory Nobody's Pretending Doesn't Exist

The two have a complicated history that predates this exchange. The Daily Beast noted that Harris advised a former Newsom staffer, Ruby Rippey, who had an affair with Newsom during his time as San Francisco mayor, to stay quiet and take time before speaking publicly, according to Rippey's own July account in Vanity Fair. Harris's 2024 campaign memoir, 107 Days, also revealed Newsom never called her back the day Joe Biden dropped out of the race, texting instead: "Hiking. Will call back." He endorsed her days later.

The Guardian's coverage leaned into Newsom's national profile-building, noting his fundraising operation, podcast, and role leading opposition to Republican redistricting pushes, framing his deference to Harris as sitting oddly alongside that buildup. That tension, an increasingly national political brand paired with a public pledge to step aside, is real and unresolved. Newsom's camp has also recruited several Harris alumni, including her former chief of staff and campaign manager, according to reporting cited by the Daily Beast.

What's Actually Unresolved

Harris has given no timeline for a decision beyond saying she's focused on the midterms. South Carolina, now the first Democratic primary state, could favor her given the state's Black voter base, the LA Times noted, while some California donors told the paper in May they're cooler on a Harris rematch than on a Newsom bid. Neither candidate has filed anything. Whether Newsom's promise holds if Harris stays silent past the midterms, rather than formally declaring, is the open question nobody in either camp has answered yet.