California Gov. Gavin Newsom is heading to New Hampshire — and nobody is pretending it's about the book.
Portsmouth Music Hall announced Thursday that Newsom will appear on March 5 to present his new book, "Young Man in a Hurry." The venue sits along New Hampshire's Seacoast, in a state that has traditionally held the nation's first presidential primary for a century. For a two-term governor who told CBS News last year he would "seriously consider" a presidential bid after the 2026 midterms and that he'd be "lying" if he said otherwise, the itinerary speaks louder than the dust jacket.
Newsom is one of more than a dozen Democrats viewed as potential 2028 White House contenders. The list reads like a casting call for a party still searching for an identity: Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Sens. Cory Booker, Ruben Gallego, Mark Kelly, and Chris Murphy, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ro Khanna, plus former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
That's a crowded field with no frontrunner — and Newsom clearly intends to change that.
This isn't Newsom's first trip to the Granite State, Fox News noted.He was in Hooksett, New Hampshire, in July 2024 to support then-President Joe Biden, in the days after Biden's disastrous debate performance against Trump. That visit aged poorly. Biden dropped his re-election bid amid questions about his physical and mental durability, and Newsom pivoted to surrogating for fellow Californian Kamala Harris, who replaced Biden as the party's standard-bearer.
Now Harris is on her own book tour and reportedly mulling a 2028 run herself. The California lane is getting crowded before anyone's filed paperwork.
Newsom, meanwhile, has been working the backrooms. At the DNC winter meeting in Los Angeles in December, he held meetings and mingled with party delegates, including sit-downs with Democratic Party chairs from New Hampshire and Nevada. Ray Buckley, the longtime New Hampshire Democratic Party chair, offered a characteristically vague readout:
"We had a great discussion on a wide range of issues."
In politics, "a wide range of issues" is code for "we talked about the race."
Last summer, Newsom stopped in South Carolina — the state that held the first sanctioned Democrat presidential primary in the 2024 cycle. Connect the dots: New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada party chairs. He's running the early-state playbook with the precision of someone who's been planning this for a while.
Newsom's cheerleaders in the party aren't being subtle either. Veteran Democrat strategist Joe Caiazzo laid it out for Fox News Digital:
"Newsom has shown an ability to stand up to Trump in a bold and highly effective manner without shying away from core democratic values."
This is the pitch Democrats will make: that Newsom's vocal and visual pushback against President Trump — including viral social media trolling and a successful California push to counter the Republican congressional redistricting effort — makes him a fighter the base can rally behind.
But here's what that pitch conveniently ignores. Newsom would be running on the record of governing California, a state that has become the national cautionary tale for progressive governance. Homelessness, cost of living, population flight, rolling energy crises, business exodus — these aren't Republican talking points. They're lived experiences for millions of Californians who have been voting with their feet and their U-Hauls.
"Standing up to Trump" on social media is not a governing record. It's a content strategy. And a primary electorate addicted to resistance theater might eat it up — but a general electorate will want to know why the governor of the nation's most resource-rich state couldn't keep the lights on or the streets safe.
Former New Hampshire Democrat Party chair Kathy Sullivan explained why the early pilgrimages matter:
"Successful candidates in New Hampshire start early here and get to know the activists. They find out what issues are important to people in New Hampshire."
She added that the early trips by potential contenders signal seriousness:
"Show that they're putting the work in to take the whole process seriously and know they need to do the hard work to win the primary."
Translation: retail politics still matters in New Hampshire, and showing up is the price of entry. The state's activists expect to be courted personally, not just targeted with digital ads. And the courting has already reached saturation levels. One anonymous New Hampshire-based Democratic strategist, who asked to remain unnamed to speak more freely, described the inbound traffic:
"Every week I receive a dozen."
A dozen fundraising emails a week from White House hopefuls — and we're still three years out. The Democratic primary is shaping up to be an expensive demolition derby, with more than a dozen contenders fighting for oxygen in a party that can't decide whether it wants a progressive firebrand like Ocasio-Cortez or a moderate retread like Rahm Emanuel.
The 2028 Democrat primary will ultimately be a referendum on what that party learned — or didn't learn — from 2024. Harris lost. Biden was a liability before he dropped out. The progressive base wants ideological purity. The donor class wants electability. And the voters in between want someone who can explain why eggs cost six dollars.
Newsom's answer, apparently, is a book called "Young Man in a Hurry" and a tour through early primary states disguised as a literary event. The ambition is undeniable. Self-awareness is an open question.
Democrats are treating the 2028 field like a buffet. Conservatives should be watching it like a scouting report. The party that lost the White House is already spending — spending money, spending time, spending credibility on positioning. Meanwhile, the actual work of governing continues in Washington under a president who won a mandate and is using it.
Newsom can tour all the music halls he wants. The question isn't whether he's running. It's whether anyone outside the Democrat donor circuit is asking him to.
