Survey Says is a weekly series rounding up the most important polling trends or data points you need to know about, plus a vibe check on a trend that’s driving politics.
In some ways, it feels ridiculous to be already gaming out 2028. We haven’t even hit the 2026 midterms yet—an election that could dramatically reshape which Democrats look viable in the first place. But that hasn’t stopped people from speculating. And if you look at the numbers, a name that keeps creeping up is California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Back in February, Echelon Insights—a Republican polling outfit—asked likely Democratic voters who they’d support if the 2028 primary were happening right now. Former Vice President Kamala Harris led comfortably with 36%. Newsom? He was a blip in fourth place, barely pulling 6%.
Fast-forward to today, and the same question got a very different answer. Harris still tops the list, but her support slid ten points, down to 26%. Newsom, meanwhile, more than doubled his share, jumping into second with 13%. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg stayed basically flat (10% to 11%), while New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez nudged up a single point (5% to 6%).
That wasn’t an outlier. A separate POLITICO-Citrin Center-Possibility Lab survey of California Democrats found Newsom actually beating Harris head-to-head, 25% to 19%. Even more striking: Three-quarters of Democrats in the state said they were “excited” about Newsom running. Just 67% said the same of Harris.
So what’s driving the shift? Part of it is obvious. Voters don’t tend to warm up to candidates who’ve already lost, and Harris hasn’t exactly been a dominant presence since the last election. Even she has admitted that she doesn’t “want to go back in the system” right now. Her numbers in early polls may be less about enthusiasm and more about familiarity.
Newsom, by contrast, is everywhere. He’s been front and center in Democrats’ pushback against President Donald Trump’s agenda—fighting gerrymandering in Texas, slamming immigration raids, and railing against Trump’s tariffs. He’s made himself into a foil at a moment when many Democrats seem hesitant to claim the spotlight.
“Newsom is earning his frontrunner status by providing an answer to the question that Democrats across the country have been asking themselves since January: How do we fight back? He has become someone who offers both political courage and tangible roots to resistance,” Thad Kousser, a political science professor at the University of California, San Diego, told Daily Kos.
And unlike Harris, the issues that Newsom’s choosing to fight about are widely supported. Look at Trump’s disastrous federal takeover of D.C. policing. A Washington Post-Schar School poll found that about 80% of D.C. residents oppose Trump’s executive order to federalize law enforcement in the nation’s capital, with nearly 70% opposing it “strongly.” The same survey showed that while concerns about crime remain, residents overwhelmingly reject Trump’s heavy-handed approach. In fact, 65% of respondents said that the president’s actions (e.g., ordering the federal government to take control of D.C.’s police, along with the National Guard and the FBI patrolling the city) would not lower violent crime. In comparison, only 20% predicted it would.
Newsom, meanwhile, has been one of the loudest voices criticizing the move, calling it an abuse of power. He might also be uniquely positioned to speak on this issue. After all, in June, Trump federalized the California National Guard members and sent them to Los Angeles over Newsom’s objections after protests erupted when Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers began mass arrests.
In California, Newsom gained momentum with his redistricting proposal aimed at reclaiming power from GOP gerrymanders elsewhere. Internal polling from Democratic strategist David Binder, obtained by Axios, shows that 57% of Californians support Newsom’s plan to redraw congressional districts, with support increasing as more voters become aware of it. Only 35% oppose. This creates a 22-point lead on an issue that could reshape the map to favor Democrats.
In short, Trump’s moves are unpopular; Newsom’s are not. That creates an opening—and Newsom is rushing to fill it.
“One lesson here is that Democrats may still be able to succeed by just opposing Trump. He’s been the galvanizing issue of American politics for nine years now, and one of the thoughts among the political class is that Democrats need to stand for more than opposition to Trump, but Newsom’s rise shows that simply opposing the president’s agenda can generate a lot of momentum,” Kousser said.
Newsom’s also borrowing liberally from Trump’s playbook. His team has embraced all-caps tweets, mimicking Trump’s bombast while trying to turn it back on him. It’s performative, sure, but it keeps him in the headlines and positions him as a Democrat willing to go toe-to-toe with the former president on his turf.
All of this helps explain why Newsom appears to be one of the few Democrats with real momentum right now. With the party still struggling to find an identity, he’s carved out space as a fighter. The problem is that it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s the real deal.
Newsom has a long record of trying to triangulate, and it’s not always a pretty sight. He was once seen as a strong leftist, embracing the idea of a single-payer healthcare system. There was also a time when he was more inclusive with his language, using the gender-neutral reference “LatinX” for people of Latin American descent.
But Newsom has shifted to the right in many ways, sometimes making fellow Democrats uncomfortable. Regarding the use of the term LatinX, he recently denounced it as an “out-of-touch fixation” by his party-mates. And in the debut episode of his politics podcast in March, he threw cold water on the idea that transgender women and girls should be allowed to compete in sports aligned with their gender identity. This stance put him uncomfortably close to Republican talking points. He has also proposed ending new enrollment for low-income undocumented immigrants in California’s Medi-Cal program starting in 2026, and by 2027, charging $100 per month to those already enrolled. That’s not exactly progressive leadership.
Then there’s the style factor: He can come across as smarmy and often seems more focused on branding himself as the anti-Trump than on articulating a clear vision. For every moment he looks like a principled fighter, there’s another where he seems like a calculating centrist hedging his bets.
Daily Kos has hammered him before for trying too hard to find common ground with Republicans, which can make him look slippery at best and duplicitous at worst. In a Democratic primary, where authenticity matters, that could be a huge liability.
Related | Gavin Newsom’s epic trolling is sending Republicans into fits
So the question lingers: Is his rise in the polls about genuine leadership—or just about being the loudest Democrat at the right time? Right now, voters seem willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But history suggests he’ll have a hard time keeping that goodwill if his opportunism keeps poking through.
What’s undeniable is that Newsom has managed to make himself part of the 2028 conversation in a way that almost no other Democrat has. Harris may still technically lead the pack, but she’s fading. Buttigieg, Ocasio-Cortez, and others are basically treading water.
And if that momentum holds, Democrats are going to have to grapple with a new reality: Newsom, for better or worse, might be their frontrunner-in-waiting.
Any updates?
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Latino voters were already turning against Trump because of his harsh deportation policies, which have only worsened recently. Now, new polling indicates his economic record is also pushing them away. According to a survey from Data for Progress and Equis, 64% of Latino voters say the current economy is performing “somewhat” or “very” poorly. This sentiment is held by large majorities of registered Latino Democrats (79%) and independents (69%). The outlook remains bleak. Most Latino voters expect the economy to worsen in the next year, with 75% of Democrats, 60% of women, and 57% of independents believing things will “probably” or “definitely” decline.
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Could Texas Sen. John Cornyn be making a comeback in the state’s Senate race, where earlier polls showed him trailing scandal-plagued Attorney General Ken Paxton? New polling from Texas Southern University shows Paxton still holding an edge among Republican voters, but the gap is narrowing: Paxton at 44%, Cornyn at 39%, and 17% undecided. Notably, this same poll had Cornyn down nine points just a few months ago. Whichever Republican comes out on top may still face a tough general election in Texas, even in what could be a favorable year for the party. But the tightening numbers indicate that nerves over a Paxton candidacy aren’t limited to party insiders—voters are feeling it too.
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It turns out voters aren’t happy about a federal takeover of college campuses. The backlash comes as the Trump administration pressures top universities like Columbia and Harvard to crack down on supposed antisemitism, eliminate DEI programs, and follow federal rules—or risk losing funding. A new poll from The Economist/YouGov shows that 70% of adults believe Washington shouldn’t control university curricula, compared to just 12% who think it’s okay. Even more—77%—oppose the government controlling faculty hiring, with only 10% supporting it. Opposition to federal interference in admissions is also high, with 66% saying it’s not the government’s business. And 58% of respondents oppose entirely cutting off funds as leverage to make schools follow federal policies.
Vibe check
As of midday Friday, 44.3% of the public approved of Trump, while 52.2% disapproved—a net approval rating of –7.9 points, after rounding, according to election analyst Nate Silver’s polling average.