Californians who have lived under Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris are cooling fast on the idea of either one running for president in 2028, with enthusiasm dropping by double digits in just six months — a warning sign for a Democratic bench that is running thin on candidates anyone actually wants.
A September survey from the UC Berkeley Citrin Center, conducted with Politico, found that just 37% of California registered voters say they would be excited about a Newsom presidential run, down from 48% in March — an 11-point slide. For Harris, the drop was even steeper: 28% excited, down from 41%, a 13-point collapse.
The numbers matter because these are the voters who have seen both politicians up close, in office, for years. If you can't sell yourself at home, the national pitch is going to be a hard ask.
Among Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters — the only constituency that matters in a primary — Newsom still commands a majority: 61% said they would be excited about his running, while 39% would not. Harris's numbers flip the other way: 55% of Democrats said they would not be excited about another presidential bid from the former vice president.
The gap widens when Democrats are asked who can actually win. Forty-nine percent of Democrats said Newsom has the better chance of securing the nomination, compared with just 10% for Harris. On the general election question, it was 59% Newsom versus 9% Harris — a gap that amounts to a vote of no confidence in the woman who already lost to Donald Trump in 2024 and dropped out before the 2020 primaries even started.
Jon Cohen, founder of polling company TrueDot, told Politico: "There's no question that Democrats see Newsom as the stronger general election prospect, even if neither he nor Harris is generating much excitement, and that shines through."
Outside the Democratic base, the picture is worse. Roughly 85% of independent voters said they were not excited about either candidate. Among Republicans, it was 93%.
Newsom has publicly said he would not run against Harris. "I don't know if she runs but we'll see," he told CNN from Montana. "But I wouldn't run if she ran." The term-limited governor, who is under a DOJ investigation along with his wife, is nonetheless publicly weighing a White House run.
Breitbart framed the poll as proof that the people who know Newsom and Harris best do not want them running the country, and argued that corporate media outlets like Politico are spinning the numbers to clear the field for Newsom — a "straight, glib white guy" — over Harris, who remains the top choice of Democratic voters in most early polls. The New York Post led with the "crushing" nature of the numbers and highlighted the massive electability gap between the two.
The open question: if the two most prominent Democrats from the nation's biggest state can't generate excitement at home, who can?
