Newsom hits the road to campaign for Biden in Idaho, building his own base in red states
... At a time when states like Idaho, where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than 4 to 1, are enacting laws to restrict abortion, gay rights and advance other culturally divisive pillars of the GOP agenda, Newsom said only one man could be trusted to turn the tide: Biden.
The 80-year-old president has used his years in office to aggressively fight for Democratic priorities, Newsom told them, including LGBTQ+ rights, gun control and clean energy, while rebuilding the American economy post-COVID and keeping democracy afloat....
Saturday's swing through Idaho didn't just energize Biden's much-neglected base in such a conservative corner of the West. It helped build a future one for Newsom.
Many of the Democrats who flocked to hear Newsom speak in Idaho and at a separate fundraising event earlier that day in Bend, Ore., said they thought the 55-year-old liberal governor offered a glimpse into the future of their party, a bolder, more charismatic and younger potential heir of Biden's legacy in the post-Trump years.
“He looks like an incredible presidential candidate,” said Russ Buschert, an Idaho Democratic Party trustee....
"He’s putting in time and effort that no one else outside the White House appears to be," Stutzman (Rob, a Republican consultant in California) said. "He’s acting like the candidate in waiting....
Newsom cut the Idaho Democratic Party a $10,000 check for the event, the maximum allowed; it's a sliver of the more than $3 million he's funneled to Biden and Democrats in Republican-run states such as Florida, Tennessee and Mississippi over the last three months. This week, he'll have private meetings with Democrats in Montana during an annual family Fourth of July vacation, with a stop later in Utah....
California Republican Party Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson said the state's struggles should "serve as a warning to the rest of the nation."
"While Newsom runs a shadow presidential campaign, it’s increasingly clear he wants to take his failures from his own state straight to the White House," Millan Patterson said in a statement....
Mike Madrid, a Republican political consultant and co-founder of the anti-Trump group The Lincoln Project, said Newsom's brand appeals to Democrats throughout the country, including in swing states, who are looking for a leader "unashamed and unapologetic" about running defense against Republicans.
While Democrats in decades past focused on the economy and shied from the more divisive cultural issues of their time, Madrid said, Newsom's focus on LGBTQ+ and transgender rights, on gun control and environmental issues appeals to the white-collar, college-educated members of his party, along with certain Latino voters looking for a political home.
That could be a winning strategy in a deeply divided America in the middle of a culture war, Madrid said. As voters are looking for a champion on cultural issues, "Gavin Newsom is that champion."
At least for now, Newsom is shrugging off the presidential compliments and sticking to the script.
“I guess I should be humbled by that,” he said. “But that’s not why I’m here.”
Could be that it's all Biden promotion, kudos, but it's also exactly what a 2024 POTUS candidate would do. GoGavinGo.
He's implicating:
It does seem plausible. 