Good evening. Tonight, my colleague Nick Corasaniti, who covers national politics, chats with our California colleague Laurel Rosenhall about why her state is jam-packed with political intrigue. We’ll start with the news. — Jess Bidgood

The unlikely center of 2025 politics: California

It’s the most populous state in the country, the world’s fourth-largest economy and home to two of the last three speakers of the House.

Yet California does not always find itself at the center of the national political debate, in large part for its deep-blue nature and its relatively minor role in the presidential nomination process.

That has changed in 2025.

The Golden State finds itself squarely in the political spotlight thanks to a confluence of events, some unprecedented and others expected: an overwhelming statewide vote to gerrymander California’s House map to help Democrats, the emergence of Gov. Gavin Newsom as a chief Trump critic and potential 2028 candidate, and a competitive, unpredictable primary to succeed him at the end of his term.

That’s not to mention the policy battles between California and the Trump administration over immigration policy and federal funding.

It’s a lot. To help make sense of these swirling stories, we’re turning to Laurel Rosenhall, our Sacramento-based reporter who has been covering them closely.

So, Laurel, how much of California’s political resonance has to do with Gavin Newsom, the state’s ambitious and loudly anti-Trump governor?

Well, Newsom has certainly figured out clever ways to make the most of the opportunities that have been presented.

But I would say it’s equally about Trump, and how much Trump has targeted California. He made Los Angeles the first place that he sent the National Guard following protests over immigration raids; overturned one of the state’s longtime environmental policies; threatened to withhold disaster aid for wildfire recovery; and tried to cut off hundreds of millions of dollars from California’s public universities. The list goes on.

Every time he does something like that, Newsom has seized the chance to fight back by portraying California as the largest Democratic counterweight to the federal government.

Trump’s attacks have helped raise his profile.

Newsom couldn’t be signaling much more clearly that he wants to run in 2028. How are Californians feeling about that prospect?

This has been very interesting.

Newsom’s approval rating in California was on a downward trend from 2020 to 2024. A U.C. Berkeley poll conducted in April found that by more than 2 to 1, voters felt he was giving more attention to preparing for a presidential campaign than to fixing the state’s problems.

But in the last few months, his overall approval has been rising. Since June, when Trump federalized the National Guard and sent troops to Los Angeles, Newsom’s approval in California has climbed 10 points.

He’s making himself the Left Coast warrior against Trump, and it seems that he’s changed a population that had been kind of jaded about him. And at least for now, it’s helped him reach front-runner status among potential Democratic presidential hopefuls in many of the national polls.

He figured out how to turn some pretty major governing challenges into some pretty serious political opportunities.

Proposition 50, Newsom’s plan to gerrymander California in response to a similar move by Texas, was always expected to pass, but Democrats’ winning margin ended up being wider than expected. What happened, and what can we learn from it?

A couple of things.

On the Democratic side, they were effective in completely making it a referendum on Donald Trump, which was basically just: Vote for this if you can’t stand what Trump is doing to America.

And they downplayed that it was actually about this wonky thing of drawing congressional districts and temporarily doing away with this good-governance reform that voters had chosen nearly 20 years ago, when they approved an independent redistricting commission.

And Democrats were very united, with support coming in from across the country and heavyweights like Barack Obama and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez appearing in ads.

Republicans had a very fragmented and floundering campaign that couldn’t really make a Trump argument, because that wouldn’t win a majority of support in California. They never succeeded in making it an argument about the merits of independent redistricting. Even though they had Arnold Schwarzenegger on their side, who championed independent redistricting when he was governor, he didn’t engage very heavily in the opposition campaign.

And in the end, they just didn’t have the money or the political star power to make it an even fight.

I’m particularly fascinated by the crowded Democratic primary to succeed Newsom. Who are the top Democratic candidates at this point, and why might they have particular advantages?

Well, it got even more crowded last night, when Eric Swalwell announced on Jimmy Kimmel’s show that he was jumping into the race. Swalwell has been a congressman from a suburban district east of San Francisco for the last dozen years, and he’s been very visible on cable news and social media confronting Trump. But he is not known around the State Capitol very well, so I’m curious to see if that ends up holding him back at all.

This race has been very unusual because for months, it was pretty much frozen. As soon as Kamala Harris lost the presidential race last year, the question started circulating whether she would run for governor. That dominated the first half of this year, and made it very difficult for candidates to gain much traction.

Then there was the question of whether Alex Padilla, one of California’s senators, would run. But after a few months, he decided not to. So now that the two biggest heavyweights are out of contention, the race is wide open.

Former Representative Katie Porter has been in the lead in most polls, but not by an overwhelming amount, and she dropped several points in the last month after a few high-profile embarrassing incidents. In one case, she had a really testy, disrespectful interaction with a television reporter. In another one, a video from a few years ago surfaced of her berating and cursing at a staff member.

Other Democratic candidates include Xavier Becerra, a former California attorney general and a former Biden cabinet secretary. There’s also Antonio Villaraigosa, a former mayor of Los Angeles and a former State Assembly speaker. Tom Steyer, a billionaire and former presidential candidate, got in the race this week.

It’s a strange field right now where you have several Democrats splitting up the vote. It’s very fluid, and a couple more candidates may still get in. The last poll said that 44 percent of voters were undecided.

With so many Democratic voters in California, are there any trends or issues that are rising to the top of this race that could tell us something nationally about the party?

Well it’s still early. And the ways that they’ve been able to differentiate themselves so far are pretty nuanced.

Villaraigosa is clearly trying to be the more business-friendly Democrat. He is questioning some of the climate policies that contribute to high gas prices in California.

Katie Porter is trying to do a double-barreled pro-affordability and anti-Trump campaign, which is exactly what Tom Steyer and Eric Swalwell are trying to do.

The shape of this race has not really gelled yet. The primary is in June.

But as our colleague Shawn Hubler said to me the other day, Californians tend to pick a governor who is either a movie star or a plumber. Next year may be the year of the plumber.

I love that. Could you unspool that just a bit?

Well, California has had some literal movie-star governors, like Schwarzenegger and Ronald Reagan. And even some of those who are not from Hollywood, like Gavin Newsom and Jerry Brown, have enjoyed celebrity status.

The current candidates just aren’t as well known, so one of them will have to convince voters that they can get the job done.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“The American people deserve transparency, and the Khashoggi family deserves closure.”

That was Representative Eugene Vindman, a Virginia Democrat who called today for the declassification of what he described as a “highly disturbing” 2019 phone call between President Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia after the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Got a tip?
The Times offers several ways to send important information confidentially.

THE MOMENT

It wasn’t so long ago — seven years, to be exact — that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia was a pariah in Washington, effectively barred after, according to U.S. intelligence, he approved the operation that led to the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.

On Tuesday, my colleague Haiyun Jiang captured the moment when he was welcomed back by a president eager to draw investment from his country — red carpet and all.

TAKE OUR QUIZ

This question comes from our Washington coverage this week. Click an answer to see if you’re right. (The link will be free.)

As President Trump welcomed Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia for a black-tie dinner at the White House, one somewhat surprising guest was among the dozens of business executives. Who was it?

Thanks for reading On Politics! We’re taking a break next week for the holiday, but we’ll be back in your inbox on Dec. 1. Happy Thanksgiving. — Jess Bidgood

Ama Sarpomaa contributed reporting.

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