Gavin Newsom’s crude Prop 50 chest-thumping isn’t the win he thinks it is

California Gov. Gavin Newsom blew a big chance Tuesday night to share a vision for America with a national audience.

Instead, the Democrat made his victory speech all about President Donald Trump. 

In a way, that was no surprise: Newsom had campaigned for Proposition 50 — which sets aside California’s independent congressional map in favor of raw, partisan gerrymandering — as if it were a referendum on Trump, and not about California at all.

As of Wednesday morning, Prop 50 had won nearly two-thirds of the vote, a sign of the intensity of partisan loyalty among Democrats in the state — and of California Republicans’ despair.

Local GOP partisans gave up the fight long before Election Day. 

Even Rick Caruso, the Republican-turned-Democrat developer who saved his mall from the Palisades Fire by defying incompetent local authorities, felt obliged to support Prop 50 to remain politically viable. 

Caruso had to know the ballot measure was bad — but he funded mailers that promoted it, alongside his photo.

His best argument for gerrymandering was that without it, California would “unfairly lose power in DC” — an odd claim, since Democrats are already in the minority in the US House.

Caruso also claimed that Prop 50 “protected our rights in Congress,” when it actually disenfranchised millions of Californians. 

And after all that, Newsom didn’t bother to thank him in his speech.

Victory presents the opportunity to show magnanimity — to reach out to opponents and appeal to the common good. 

Newsom was having none of that. 

Instead, he continued his shrill attacks on the president, sketching a conspiracy theory in which Trump intends to use federal law enforcement and National Guard volunteers — most of whom lead ordinary civilian lives — to intimidate voters, seize power and “rig” the 2026 midterm elections in favor of Republicans.

Ironically, Newsom dangled the specter of Trump “rigging” the midterms while complaining that the president had accused him of “rigging” this year. 

There is no evidence of fraud, yet Newsom and his party benefited from $282.6 million to run a special election whose only purpose was to boost Democrats’ chances of retaking the House — and to help Newsom set himself up as the party leader ahead of a likely 2028 presidential bid.

Newsom also claimed that Trump intended to quash freedom of speech by sending federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to public gatherings.

Yet the California governor has one of the worst records on free speech of anyone in active politics. 

Last month, a federal judge threw out Newsom’s law banning “deepfake” parodies of political candidates, just as the Supreme Court ended his attempts to restrict religious worship during the pandemic.

In his address to a national audience from Sacramento, Newsom said that Prop 50 was the first step toward the “de facto” end of the Trump presidency.

If Democrats win the House in 2026, he explained, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) would become speaker, and would wield his power to stop Trump from governing. 

Not to advance Democrats’ own agenda, but simply to overturn the 2024 election, in which Trump won the popular vote.

Newsom has been cagey about whether he would support Trump’s impeachment or not; he’s said that he just wants “oversight” of the administration.

Recent history suggests that Democrats would be unable to resist the temptation to repeat what they have already tried twice before. 

In making so direct a threat to Trump, Newsom has ended any possibility of cooperation — this, while California is still asking the federal government for $40 billion in fire aid.

The governor has to know that he is sacrificing the welfare of his state for his own political ambitions.

He is taking a calculated risk: That Democratic Party primary voters will care more about how hard a candidate fought against Trump than about how well he or she governed, when given the opportunity. 

Perhaps that is Newsom’s best strategy.

After two terms in office, he has almost no accomplishments, and he wasted no time trying to cite any Tuesday night.

Still, Newsom could have chosen a less hysterical, more constructive tone.

He could have struck a contrast with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who quoted radicals and took potshots at his rivals in his own, strikingly bitter, victory speech. 

The California governor failed to rise to the occasion as he made his bid for party leadership.

In the glare of a national spotlight, Newsom may have dimmed his own prospects. 

Joel Pollak is The California Post’s Opinion Editor. The California Post, a sister publication to The New York Post, will launch early in 2026.