Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
Newsom Heads to Fresno, a County That Voted for Trump
d8a347b41db1ddee634e2d67d08798c102ef09ac
By The New York Times
Published 7 months ago on
November 21, 2024

California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a press conference in Los Angeles, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. Newsom vetoed a landmark bill aimed at establishing first-in-the-nation safety measures for large artificial intelligence models Sunday, Sept. 29. (AP File)

Share

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

On Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom will make the first of three postelection visits to California counties that Donald Trump won in the presidential race, reaching out to working-class voters in the Central Valley who remain frustrated by economic woes.

The appearance in Fresno, to unveil a new economic development system, comes as interviews and polls have shown that economic and class divisions were key to Trump’s return to power.

With Democrats still mulling their presidential and congressional losses, Newsom said in an interview Wednesday that his party needed to learn from the recent election and to address the struggles of American workers.

“A lot of people feel like they’re losing their identity or losing their future,” Newsom said. “Message received.”

Newsom Viewed as a Presidential Contender

A leading Democrat who has been viewed as a potential 2028 presidential contender, California’s governor has long been a pointed critic of Trump. Over the past 2 1/2 weeks, he has indicated that he expects his state and the Trump administration to repeat the pitched battle they waged during Trump’s first term, when California sued the federal government more than 120 times.

The governor’s immediate response after the Nov. 5 election was to call his state’s Democrat-dominated Legislature into an emergency special session that would start in December. Newsom urged Democrats to “stand firm” against expected efforts by Trump to deport immigrants, further limit reproductive rights and weaken environmental regulation.

In a video address shortly after the election, however, Newsom said that “my job is not to wake up every single day and get a crowbar and try to put it in the spokes of the wheel of the Trump administration.”

On Wednesday, the governor said he felt it was critical to counter Republican claims that Democrats had failed working-class residents. During the campaign, he said, he sensed that his defense of President Joe Biden’s economic record “wasn’t landing.”

“People are being left behind, their regions are being left behind,” the governor said. “We as a party will be history if we don’t heed the call to address the economy.”

Though dominated by Democrats, California has a conservative streak that runs from the rural far north, down through the Central Valley and into inland Southern California suburbs. Newsom has two years left before term limits require him to leave office, during which he will have to work with the Trump administration.

Fresno County had voted for Democrats in four consecutive presidential elections dating to President Barack Obama’s first win in 2008. But this year, voters went for Trump. Newsom also soon plans to head to Kern and Colusa counties, which have been Republican strongholds.

Former Mayor Swearengin Speaks on California Leadership

Ashley Swearengin, a former Republican mayor of Fresno who has since registered as an independent voter, said that California leaders have historically taken economic growth for granted and argued that state programs were not needed to advance the economy.

For much of the state, that was true, she said, but not for the Central Valley: “We were all like, ‘Cool to be you, but sucks to be us.’”

She said the day before the election, she saw the longest convoy of Trump supporters she had ever seen at a stoplight in North Fresno.

“It had to have been at least 50 vehicles,” she said. “Just truck after truck after truck after truck after truck.”

Since his 2018 election, Newsom has intentionally frequented parts of the state that don’t support him. Driven by a California Highway Patrol security detail, he travels by car, wending his way down rural highways still dotted with signs demanding his recall.

“It has served no political benefit,” he said, laughing off suggestions that the trips might also road-test his presidential prospects. “But I want everyone to know I hear them, and I see them.”

Democrats in California have long succeeded by making Trump a foil in their messaging because the former Republican president has been unpopular among voters in the state. But in Trump’s second term, leaders like Newsom may find the same line of attack to be less effective.

“He may want to be the hero of the Trump resistance,” said Dan Schnur, a political analyst who teaches at the University of Southern California, Pepperdine University and the University of California, Berkeley. “But while fighting with Trump is part of his path forward, it can’t be the only thing he does.”

Newsom’s economic development overhaul has been underway since before the pandemic but will formally take effect early next year, said Dee Dee Myers, director of the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development. Drafted by more than 10,000 representatives of labor, business, schools, tribal councils and other community interests, the plan will focus on creating jobs and distributing state economic funds through a regional approach that goes beyond power centers like Los Angeles and the Silicon Valley.

The Central Valley, for instance, is an agricultural engine with more than 5 million people, but unemployment there tends to be higher and median incomes lower than in most of California. In the four-county region around Fresno that will present Newsom with its plan Thursday, roughly 1 in 5 residents live in poverty and 1 in 7 has less than a high school education, according to census data.

That disparity has increasingly come with a political cost: Although final vote tallies are still pending, more than 57% of the region’s presidential ballots so far have been cast for Trump.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Shawn Hubler
c. 2024 The New York Times Company

RELATED TOPICS:

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

UP NEXT

Military Parade Barrels Through Nation’s Capital With Tanks, Troops and 21-Gun Salute

Israel and Iran Bombard Each Other, Trump Says He Can ‘Easily’ End Conflict

2 hours ago

Trump Vetoed an Israeli Plan to Kill Iran’s Supreme Leader, US Officials Say

2 hours ago

Fresno Man Arrested in Fatal DUI Crash on Trimmer Springs Road

A man is dead and three others are injured following a rollover crash Saturday evening on Trimmer Springs Road that investigators say was ca...

27 minutes ago

27 minutes ago

Fresno Man Arrested in Fatal DUI Crash on Trimmer Springs Road

Mourners pray during the funeral of a Palestinian killed in what the Gaza health ministry says was Israeli fire near a distribution center in Rafah, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 15, 2025. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled
35 minutes ago

Israeli Military Kills 41 People in Gaza, Medics Say

Bullet holes mark the front door of Minnesota state Senator John Hoffman, who was shot alongside his wife, Yvette, in what is believed to be an attack by 57-year-old suspect Vance Luther Boelter, who is also the lead suspect in the shooting deaths of senior Democratic state assemblywoman Melissa Hortman and her husband, Marc, in Champlin, Minnesota, U.S., June 14, 2025. REUTERS/Tim Evans
2 hours ago

Manhunt for Gunman Who Shot Two Minnesota Lawmakers Enters Second Day

Israelis take shelter at the side of a highway as siren sounds following missile attack from Iran on Israel, in central Israel June 15, 2025. REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon
2 hours ago

Israel and Iran Bombard Each Other, Trump Says He Can ‘Easily’ End Conflict

President Donald Trump speaks as he attends a military parade to commemorate the U.S. Army's 250th Birthday, on the day of his 79th birthday, in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 14, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
2 hours ago

Trump Vetoed an Israeli Plan to Kill Iran’s Supreme Leader, US Officials Say

4 hours ago

Newsom Wanted To Fast-Track the Delta Tunnel Project. The Legislature Slowed the Flow

6 hours ago

Five Weeknight Dishes: Seven Ingredients or Fewer, Because Summer

6 hours ago

Big Fresno Fair Unveils Second Wave of 2025 Concert Acts

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend