California Governor Newsom says he won’t run for US president if Kamala Harris does

CALIFORNIA Governor Gavin Newsom said he would not run for president in 2028 if former Vice-President Kamala Harris enters the race, ruling out a potential primary showdown between two of California’s most prominent Democrats.

“I don’t know if she runs, but we’ll see,” Newsom said in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper in a clip posted on Monday (Sep 14). “But I wouldn’t run if she ran.”

Newsom, who is prevented by term limits from running again for governor, has openly acknowledged considering a presidential bid and has increasingly raised his national profile, including by traveling to swing states such as North Carolina to campaign ahead of the midterm elections.

Newsom suggested that a contest between him and Harris, whose political careers have run alongside each other for decades in California, would limit both their chances at winning.

“First of all, electorally, it’s a gift from God for everybody else,” Newsom said while fly fishing with Tapper in Montana. “They can enjoy the hell out of it. Mutual assured destruction. It services no greater good.”

Harris has run for president twice, unsuccessfully seeking the Democratic nomination in 2020 and becoming the party’s nominee in 2024, when as vice-president she took over from Joe Biden in the middle of the general election campaign and subsequently lost to Donald Trump. Harris said in April that she is “thinking” about a 2028 run. BLOOMBERG