The governor of California is in a high-stakes battle with Donald Trump. It’s not yet clear who will win

The last governor of California who became president of the United States was Republican Ronald Reagan. Democrat Gavin Newsom wants to be the next one. To get there, Newsom is in a knife fight with Donald Trump.

Newsom is playing Trump’s game on social media to show that two can tango. Ridicule is a powerful political knife, and Newsom knows how to wield it with abandon.

Trump finally snapped late last week.

“The governor is incompetent,” he said. “I know Gavin very well. He’s an incompetent guy with a good line of bullshit — and he doesn’t get the job done.”

Democrats love it.

Trump’s election last November was an “apocalypse now” moment for the Democrats. It was one thing for Trump to win the presidency. It was catastrophic for the Republicans to retain control of the House of Representatives – a failure that defied expectations going into election day. This meant the Democrats could not block Trump’s legislative agenda, including his One Big Beautiful Bill of trillions of dollars in tax cuts and hits to Medicaid enacted into law. It meant Democrats could not hold hearings on what Trump’s Cabinet was doing, or issue subpoenas to get his appointees under oath with their documents.

Democrats are furious that Trump is getting his way on everything he wants – and that they are seemingly powerless to stop it. Their two leaders – Chuck Schumer in the Senate and Hakeem Jeffroes in the House, both from New York – seem unable to land a blow on the president.

Democrats are in despair. Trump can flood the zone with his agenda with impunity. And he’s winning. There are no checks on Trump from Congress or the courts. Democrats want leaders who will fight like hell. The party is at its lowest ebb since 1990.

Enter Gavin Newsom

Weeks after the election, Newsom himself was hesitant to take on Trump. He started the year determined to work with Trump. With the Los Angeles fires raging in January, Newsom greeted Trump on the airport tarmac and shook hands, determined to get Trump’s help. To talk to Democratic voters – particularly younger men who defected and voted for Trump – Newsom went on bro media, including Steve Bannon, to say he understood the concerns that brought Trump to victory. He sided with Trump on trans athletes in women’s sports.

Newsom was being too slick. Cosying up to Trump’s MAGA crowd on culture-war issues is not the way out of losing at the ballot box.

Then suddenly, Trump changed the game. He used the military to fight crime and put down protests. And he is trying to rig the 2026 midterm elections to make sure Republicans keep control of Congress.

In June, Trump sent ICE agents into Los Angeles to detain and deport undocumented immigrants. And then the National Guard into the streets of LA to end the protests that were raging.

Newsom broke with Trump. In a speech in June that was heard across the nation, Newsom defined the battleground:

Trump and his loyalists, they thrive on division because it allows them to take more power and exert more control.

Democracy is under assault right before our eyes. The moment we’ve feared has arrived.

We do not want our streets militarised by our own armed forces. Not in LA. Not in California. Not anywhere.

Newsom shot up in the polls. Newsom’s playbook for LA has been taken up by Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington DC, where Trump ordered hundreds of armed troops from several states onto the streets, by Governor Wes Moore of Maryland in response to Trump’s signal he is sending troops into Baltimore, and Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois, who is now bracing for Trump’s ordering troops into Chicago.

But the main game remains control of Congress. Trump’s power today is unchecked. There is no Republican opposition to Trump on his legislation, his appointees, his wielding of executive power to close agencies and prosecute his enemies, his trade wars that are raising prices across the country, his failure to end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

Going into the 2026 midterm elections, Republicans will have a three-seat majority in the House. It is too close for Trump’s comfort. He wants firmer control. Breaking with norms that have gone back for over 200 years – that congressional electorates are recast every ten years after each national census – Trump is insisting states with Republican governors and Republican legislatures redraw their congressional maps now – mid-decade – to increase the number of seats Republicans can win so they can hold on to their majority.

Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, could not wait to act. He called a special session of the legislature to redraw the maps. Democratic members of the state house fled Texas to prevent a quorum to pass the bill. That spectacle set Democrats alight across the country. It was a cut-through political moment. Here in real time was a naked attempt to expand the power of Republicans in Washington and to let Trump act unimpeded for the balance of his second term. Abbott laid bare the ugliest form of hyper-partisanship that has been seen so far.

Democrats concluded they had to get dirty – or else remain irrelevant for as long as Trump is president.

Texas has passed legislation redrawing the state’s map to help ensure a five-seat Republican gain in the 2026 midterms. Trump is pressuring other states – Indiana, Florida, Missouri, Ohio, Utah – to do the same. Several of them will act.

Democratic states – Illinois, New York and Maryland – are poised to do the same.

Newsom seized the moment. Democrats have the votes in the legislature to rewrite their congressional map to create five more seats for Democrats – offsetting Texas. And that is what they did. Their new map projects a five-seat Democrat gain for their congressional delegation.

Even former president Barack Obama, who has always had little patience for the ugly side of politics, said it was time to get dirty:

The governor’s gamble

But there is a catch. Throughout its history, California has been moving toward post-partisan politics – because it is the right thing to do.

The California primaries (preselections) to choose the final candidates for federal and state offices – governor, senator, member of Congress – are nonpartisan. The top two vote-getters in the primaries for each office are in the final election. This means it is now common for two Democrats or two Republicans to run against each other for high office.

California outlawed the political gerrymander in 2008. Under existing law, the legislature can only redraw the state’s map if the state’s voters approve of the legislature acting to do so. This means Californians must approve it via a special election vote in November.

The latest polls show mixed support. As of now, the “yes” vote is below 50%. Many voters like the nonpartisan system California has in place.

If Newsom’s plan wins in California, and a re-energised Democratic party rises to take back the House of Representatives in the November 2026 midterm elections, Newsom will be the party’s hero and a front runner for the presidential nomination in 2028.

A Democratic House of Representatives will end Trump’s presidency in his second term just like it did in the first: stopping his legislation and investigating everything he and his officials do.

A Democratic House will also likely impeach Trump a third time for “high crimes and misdemeanors” proscribed by the Constitution.

If Newsom fails this November, and more Republican states pile on to tilt the party’s position in the House, and Trump remains not only unfettered but strengthened further in Congress, the road back to power by the Democrats will get longer.

Newsom knows all this. He’s moving now. We’ll see if he has more than just the flair to craft social media posts that drive Trump nuts.

Bruce Wolpe receives funding from the United States Studies Centre at trhe University of Sydney.. He worked for the Democrats in the US Congress.