NEW: Gavin Newsom Makes Major 2028 Announcement

Gavin Newsom is weighing a White House run, but Kamala Harris could settle the question for him.

The California governor said he would sit out the 2028 presidential race if the former vice president enters, drawing a clear boundary around his own ambitions before either Democrat has announced a campaign.

“I wouldn’t run if she ran,” Newsom told CNN in an interview released Monday.

Harris has left that possibility open. She said in July that she had “not made a decision” about another campaign and was concentrating on the midterm elections. At an April event with the Rev. Al Sharpton, she said she was “thinking about it.”

For Newsom, the prospect of competing against Harris comes with a problem: They would be asking many of the same people to pick a side.

Harris served as California’s attorney general and then a U.S. senator before becoming vice president. Newsom pointed to their overlapping political circles as a reason to avoid a showdown.

“I know her base of supporters; I know her friends,” Newsom said. “I wouldn’t do that to people.”

He argued that a contest between the two California Democrats would hand an electoral “gift” to the rest of the field.

“They’d enjoy the hell out of it. Mutual assured destruction. It services no greater good. Why would I do this if I wasn’t trying to serve some greater good? There would be no upside whatsoever,” Newsom said.

WATCH:

Gavin Newsom tells CNN’s Jake Tapper he won’t run for president if Kamala Harris runs in 2028

Link to full video: https://t.co/9YNSwYaq99 pic.twitter.com/auy3bnOSZN

— Politics Watch (@politics_watch1) September 14, 2026

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Still, the governor acknowledged there was an argument for giving someone else a turn.

Harris sought the presidency in the 2020 and 2024 election cycles. Newsom, who has never run for president, conceded that highlighting her previous attempts would be an “approach to the campaign” if they became rivals.

“That would be the case you’d make. Pretty good one, actually. You know, that’s objectively true,” Newsom said.

But he returned to the overlap between their supporters, saying their political Venn diagram had too much crossover.

Newsom has already been exploring his own path toward a national campaign as his final months as governor approach. He told CBS News last year that he would seriously consider a presidential bid after the 2026 midterm elections.

More recently, he traveled to South Carolina, which is set to hold the first Democratic presidential primary in 2028, and confirmed he was considering a run.

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