CHARLOTTE, North Carolina — Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has a blunt explanation for one of the Democratic Party’s biggest problems: “We’ve not delivered.”
Asked in an exclusive interview with the Washington Examiner about the hardest truth Democrats need to confront, the California governor did not blame President Donald Trump, Republican messaging, or an unfavorable political map.
“It’s our performance,” Newsom said.
But his assessment went beyond the party’s record in government.
Democrats, he said, stopped showing up in rural America and Republican-controlled states, lost their identity as the party of the “big tent,” and became increasingly willing to impose ideological “purity tests” on their own coalition. And, in perhaps his bluntest assessment, Newsom said Democrats effectively turned their backs on parts of the country they no longer believed were worth fighting for.
“I don’t want to say that as a screaming headline,” he said. “I don’t mean that as a cheap shot, but we did. We took for granted a lot of these states.”
The comments came during a four-day swing through Alabama, South Carolina, and North Carolina, where Newsom traveled through communities that have long been difficult territory for Democrats. His stops in South Carolina were part of an effort to energize Democrats in rural and Republican-leaning parts of the state, where the party is working to maintain and expand its local presence.
For Newsom, however, the problem is not simply that Democrats need a better message.
They need to rebuild from the ground up.
‘We stopped showing up’
“We stopped showing up,” he said. “You heard me say that. I remember a case where we just saw red, and we said, ‘It’s not worth the drive.’”
Garry South, a veteran California political strategist, said Newsom’s criticism reflected a broader Democratic failure to engage voters outside the party’s traditional political strongholds.
“Newsom is absolutely right when he blames Democrats for not showing up,” South told the Washington Examiner. “For a couple of decades, Democrats luxuriated in hanging out with their own type, in supportive enclaves, the choir preaching to the choir. We not only looked elitist, but forgot how to talk to non-Democrats — and anti-Democrats. We will not be a viable national party if we don’t try to sell ourselves, or at least explain ourselves, to the skeptics and doubters.”
The California governor argued that Democrats made a strategic mistake when they began treating Republican-controlled states and rural communities as lost causes, focusing their limited resources elsewhere while allowing their political infrastructure to erode.
Lessons of 2010
Newsom pointed to the aftermath of the 2010 midterm elections as a turning point. “We got shellacked,” he said, referring to Democrats’ losses that year.
Republicans, he argued, had a clear strategy: focus on redistricting and downballot races.
“Rove had a strategy and a plan,” Newsom said, referring to Republican strategist Karl Rove. “He delivered 675 seats.”
Newsom said Democrats should have paid closer attention to the Republican strategy, which he said focused on winning local and state-level offices rather than exclusively concentrating on Washington.
“You want to take back Congress? Redistrict,” Newsom said, recalling the strategy. “Let’s focus on these local races, these House races.”
Instead, Newsom said Democrats eventually looked at parts of the South and concluded they were no longer worth the investment.
“In 2010, we were in the majority down here, and the party said, ‘Well, just not worth the investment,’” he said.
Newsom acknowledged the practical realities of limited campaign budgets and competing priorities. But, he argued, there was one thing the party could always afford: “Time — we had time to come down here, at least show up,” he said. “That’s free. Your presence is free.”
David McLaughlin, host of the Kudzu Vine podcast in Georgia, said Democrats in heavily Republican parts of the South have continued working even as some in the party’s more favorable territory appeared to lose interest.
“I live in a very Republican leaning area of the South,” McLaughlin told the Washington Examiner. “While folks from outside these areas never stopped working or keeping the faith, Democrats in friendly territory might have given up on us. However, when Democrats do win in tough races, you can always point to improved margins in these areas. Raphael Warnock’s 2022 win is an excellent example of this.”
Warnock, a Democrat, narrowly beat Herschel Walker in the 2022 midterm race to retain his Senate seat in Georgia.
McLaughlin pointed to improved Democratic margins in heavily Republican areas as one measure of whether continued investment can matter in a statewide race.
That argument reflects Newsom’s broader contention that rebuilding in difficult territory does not necessarily require winning every county or community.
The criticism reflects a shift Newsom said began for him personally after surviving California’s 2021 recall election. The experience, he said, changed his understanding of how politics works in an increasingly polarized country.
“I really started to realize all politics is not local,” Newsom said. “I always thought it was. I was a romantic.”
Instead, he said, politics has become “all nationalized now, and weaponized.”
After the recall, Newsom began shifting more of his political attention and resources outside California, creating his Campaign for Democracy political action committee and focusing heavily on downballot races in states he said Democrats had neglected.
“That’s why I’ve been really focused on these downballot races for years now,” he said.
But showing up is only part of Newsom’s prescription.
‘We’ve lost the big tent’
The other problem, Newsom said, is that Democrats have narrowed their own coalition. “We’ve lost the big tent,” he said. “We’re not the big tent party anymore.”
The governor said the party has become too judgmental and too quick to subject members of its own coalition to ideological tests.
“There’s so much judgment sometimes,” he said. “It’s still persistent, and … there’s purity tests, and it’s not served us.”
Newsom argued that Democrats need to expand their coalition rather than demand ideological uniformity. “We’ve got to expand this coalition,” he said. “Let’s bring people and unite around the things that bind us together.”
That does not mean eliminating political differences, he added. Instead, Newsom said Democrats should “celebrate,” in the words of former President Bill Clinton, “our interesting differences” while finding common ground.
Newsom argued that the narrowing of the Democratic coalition coincided with another change in the party: an increasing focus on presidential candidates rather than party infrastructure. He said the party shifted after former President Barack Obama’s rise, as Democrats embraced the enthusiasm and energy surrounding a once-in-a-generation political figure.
“It became about him, not the party and the organizational construct,” Newsom said.
Newsom stressed that he was not blaming Obama, whom he described as the beneficiary of an extraordinary moment of political enthusiasm.
But he argued that Democrats became too dependent on presidential politics while neglecting the infrastructure needed to compete in state legislatures, congressional districts, and local races.
For Democrats, however, Newsom said the reckoning is already underway. “We need to reconcile,” he said.
For Newsom, that reconciliation begins with acknowledging that Democrats cannot expand their coalition while abandoning entire communities. Before the party can rebuild its big tent, it first has to show up — and stop leaving people outside of it.