California Governor Gavin Newsom headed to scarlet Idaho this weekend to campaign for President Joe Biden, insisting he doesn’t have his own ambitions for the White House.
That reports the Los Angeles Times that Newsom headlined an event with Idaho Democrats at a mansion in the Boise foothills on Saturday, addressing the 80-year-old commander in chief.
The 55-year-old has taken his liberal message to red states including Alabama and now Idaho, where the Republicans outnumber the Democrats by four to one.
“I’m really proud of this president, and I hope you are too,” Newsom told the crowd, saying he made the trip to Idaho to “advocate strongly for why we should be passionate and excited about Biden’s re-election.
Biden’s polls show that most Americans don’t feel that way about the current Oval Office resident.
California Governor Gavin Newsom stunned President Joe Biden and Democrats on Saturday at an event outside Boise, Idaho — one of the nation’s reddest states
Newsom visits a bookstore in Boise, Idaho that sold banned books. He posted about it on TikTok
Conducted an NBC poll in late April, the same week Biden announced his 2024 election, he found that 70 percent of registered voters did not want him to run.
Another 60 percent said the same about former President Donald Trump, who currently leads the 2024 Republican field.
Forty-eight percent of those who said Biden shouldn’t run said age was a “major reason” for them to believe so.
The White House was quick to acknowledge last week that the president had started using a CPAP device to treat sleep apnea when traces of the device’s mask appeared on his face.
The White House was also asked why he started using the shorter Air Force One staircase more often in the weeks after he tripped over a sandbag onstage at the Air Force Academy graduation ceremony. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had no answer to that.
While Newsom was in Idaho selling Biden, some Idaho Democrats saw California’s governor as the party’s future.
“He looks like an incredible presidential candidate,” Russ Buschert, a trustee of the Idaho Democratic Party, told the LA Times.
In addition to his more youthful appearance, Newsom has also hit Republicans harder than the president.
At the Idaho event, Newsom said Trump — if reelected — may never relinquish power.
“Do you think Trump, if he comes back to office, will not demand a third term?” Newsome asked. ‘Give me a break.’
“Do you think January 6 is the last we’ll see… Give me a break,” the California governor added.
He will troll Republicans on social media and call them by name, including taking cracks at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
Newsom’s political group, Campaign for Democracy, is pushing for a constitutional amendment to allow for certain gun control reforms.
He visited an Idaho bookstore that sold banned books and posted a video of his trip on social media.
“He puts in the time and effort that no one else outside the White House seems to have,” Rob Stutzman, a Republican adviser in California, told the LA Times. “He’s acting like the waiting candidate.”
“It might pay off for him one day,” Stutzman said.
California Republican Party Chairman Jessica Millan Patterson said Newsom should not export his failures to other states.
She told the LA Times that California’s problems — including with homelessness — “should serve as a warning to the rest of the country.”
“As Newsom runs a shadow presidential campaign, it’s becoming increasingly clear that he wants to take his home state failures straight to the White House,” Millan Patterson. “You don’t want what Gavin Newsom sells.”