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Fox News’ The Five spent air time this week unpacking a Politico column that loudly dubbed California Governor Gavin Newsom the Democrats’ early front-runner for 2028 — a claim the mainstream media can’t stop talking about. The argument is simple: Newsom’s high-profile fights with President Trump and his social media savvy have vaulted him into national visibility, and the left-leaning organs are already crowning him the heir apparent.
Politico’s Jonathan Martin and other establishment scribes point to a string of political moments — from successful ballot fights to aggressive anti-Trump posturing — as proof that Newsom has engineered his own rise. That narrative overlooks the fact that the media’s job is to manufacture momentum; columnists write front-runner obituaries and coronations the way carnival barkers sell tickets.
Even the polling that supposedly proves Newsom’s inevitability is flimsy and fleeting. Recent surveys showing him ahead in early Democratic lists are snapshots driven by name recognition and outrage porn, not durable national appeal, and a Yahoo/YouGov snapshot that made headlines still showed a huge undecided share that could evaporate once real scrutiny begins.
Let’s not forget how Newsom earned his national profile: by turning California into a perpetual crisis-situation and then posing as the righteous critic of anyone who points it out. His public feud with the White House over the controversial deployment of federal troops and Marines to Los Angeles this summer made him a cable-TV star, but it also tied him to the very chaos Democrats now pretend to solve.
Beneath the headlines, California still wrestles with massive problems that any serious presidential contender should not be able to dodge. The state still houses the largest homeless population in the nation and reports of crime, fiscal strain, and regulatory strangulation of businesses have not gone away simply because Newsom took to social platforms to rant about the president.
That’s why conservatives should treat this “front-runner” talk as the gift it is: an opening to run the tape on what Newsom actually represents — woke governance, punitive regulation, and political theater over results. Democrats are nominating their warrior against Trump, but nominating a governor whose policies have produced mass exodus, shuttered small businesses, and endless taxpayer bailouts is not exactly a recipe for national victory.
Patriots and everyday Americans don’t want virtue-signaling governors who talk tough on Twitter while their states rot; they want leaders who put public safety, economic opportunity, and family first. Republicans should keep the messaging relentless and focused on pocketbook issues, local schools, and the rule of law — because when voters look past the cable-news glow, they remember who delivered results and who delivered headlines.
