‘Mutually assured destruction’: 2028 frontrunners on a collision course
When it’s two months before a midterm election, nobody is running for president.
It is considered poor form for a would-be candidate to announce a bid while their party colleagues are running their own race.
Friends from San Francisco, Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom are both hotly tipped presidential candidates. AP
As a result, even the most likely contenders play coy when they are asked about their ambitions.
Which is what makes Gavin Newsom’s comment so curious.
The California governor would be a heavyweight in the race, and has been putting himself in the spotlight for years in a way that presidential candidates tend to do.
But he was asked directly about his long-time friend and potential rival Kamala Harris.
"I don’t know if she runs, but we’ll see," Newsom told CNN.
"I wouldn’t run if she ran. I wouldn't do that to her."
In just a handful of words, Newsom gave a strong indication of his own presidential ambitions as well as Harris's.
Newsom said a head-to-head with him and Harris would be "mutually assured destruction".
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is nationally known, but not necessarily nationally loved. AP Photo/Mic Smith
Both Harris and Newsom would step into the race as heavyweights.
As the former vice president and 2024 nominee, Harris has universal name recognition, and a lot of remorseful Trump voters may now be regarding her as a better option.
But being universally known doesn't mean universally liked, and plenty of voters are angry she couldn't beat Trump last time around.
Nearly all the polling done in the past few months shows Harris is the frontrunner, well ahead of her competitors.
But the polling shows her getting between a quarter and a third of the vote, far short of a majority.
The same polling shows Newsom in the mid-teens, enough to put him in second or third place.
Harris and Newsom have an intractable problem that may come to bother them in the general election - most Americans don't like California.
Vice President Kamala Harris is considering running for the top job in 2028. AP
What California represents in the minds of voters - Hollywood, Big Tech, hippies, rich liberals and celebrities - is not what ordinary Americans connect with.
And Newsom, with his immaculate hair, gleaming teeth and complicated family history, may struggle to connect with working-class voters in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Harris meanwhile is strongly indicating she will jump in the race.
The former vice president was asked directly at an event in April if she would go for the job she lost in 2024.
"Listen, I might, I might. I'm thinking about it," she said.
"I'll keep you posted."
Kamala Harris’ 2020 presidential race was a flop but she was chosen as vice president anyway. AP Photo/John Locher, File
This week Harris announced she would be campaigning for midterm election candidates.
She would be campaigning in Michigan, Georgia and Nevada, all swing states she narrowly lost in 2024.
But earlier this year Alaska Senate candidate Mary Peltola rejected Harris’s endorsement, an indication the former vice president isn’t someone a politician would want to be associated with in a conservative-leaning state.
Harris would be the first politician to get the nomination twice in a row after losing the first time since Adlai Stevenson in the 1950s.
Stevenson lost to Dwight Eisenhower both times.
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