Politics

The Front-Runner

California’s Gavin Newsom would rather be wrong than weak.

First published in The Atlantic on January 6, 2026.

by Helen Lewis, The Atlantic

January 8, 2026 | reading time: 32 Min.

Gavin Newsom has a 30-page file of reasons the Democrats lost the 2024 presidential election. Bounding across his Sacramento office, he starts listing them: incumbency, inflation, interest rates, Israel—and that’s just the letter I. “Yes, too woke,” he adds. “Yes, 107 days,” referring to the short campaign after Joe Biden’s forced withdrawal. But the California governor distills his party’s problem down to one word. Weak.