The governors' moment

On the politics of combining being a resistance figure with standard-issue political ambition

There have been a lot of authoritarian angles to the unfolding story this week about ICE raids in US cities, and the Trump administration’s militarized response to protests in Los Angeles. Among the most chilling has been the threat by “border czar” Tom Homans to arrest California Governor Gavin Newsom – a threat endorsed by a president apparently unaware that he, in fact, is the person in charge of the executive branch. Newsom responded defiantly: “So, Tom, arrest me. Let’s go.”

As a result of these confrontations, Newsom has emerged this week as a leading resistance voice in the Democratic coalition. But this is just the latest in the ongoing tension between a Democratic Party trying to operate like a normal political organization and the need for it to respond to political conditions that are anything but normal. Democrats are doing the usual out-party thing – trying to figure out what went wrong in the election, sorting through potential leaders, and looking to the 2028 nomination – while also dealing with the threat of arrest, ICE agents taking their constituents, and other transgressions against life in a democratic republic.

This dilemma has affected members of Congress, many of whom have struggled to figure out what to do. Governors, especially those with apparent presidential ambitions, have been among the louder voices. For all of Newsom’s confrontational approach to Trump this week, he’s also alienated important segments of the national Democratic electorate by hosting figures like Charlie Kirk on his podcast, and even agreeing with some of their stances on transgender issues. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, also a perennial favorite for presidential discussions, got in political trouble for visiting the Oval Office and then covering her face with a binder in front of the cameras. Former VP candidate and Minnesota governor Tim Walz has been vocal as well. There’s also JB Pritzker of Illinois, who has been a prominent critic of the Trump administration and so far hasn’t alienated a segment of the Democratic Party. So far. This is an obvious pitfall of such early efforts by governors to establish national reputations: there’s plenty of time between now and 2028 to make missteps.

What does it mean for governors to be navigating this role? Governors had a real moment as potential presidential nominees in the final decades of the twentieth century. They could claim executive experience while also running as Washington outsiders; this also meant that once in office, they sometimes brought teams of advisors without much sense of national politics, lacked foreign policy experience, and struggled to work with Congress. Notably, this played out somewhat differently for Democrats and Republicans: Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were seen as moderate, governance-oriented alternatives to the Congressional Democratic Party, while Reagan and George W. Bush used the governor-to-president pipeline as a way to bring movement conservatism to the White House.

These examples come from a very different point in time, however. Politics was less nationalized, the two parties were less polarized, and the conversation about political outsiders was different. And we weren’t dealing with the threat of an executive branch that saw its power as wholly unchecked and uncheckable, unwilling to follow norms and rules and determined to make policies that hurt vulnerable groups and political adversaries.

This all adds up to a very different moment for governors potentially seeking the presidency. In 2020, the crowded Democratic field featured more candidates from completely outside politics than it did governors – Washington governor Jay Inslee never made much progress, and Montana governor Steve Bullock got more press coverage from being excluded from the debates than much else. For Democrats, the demand for the kind of pragmatic, outsider centrism associated with governors seemed like it might be on the decline.

But things have changed a great deal since 2020. There are even more opportunities for governors to establish themselves as national figures. This doesn’t always go well (just ask Sarah Palin), but the political and policy tasks of governors to resist administration overreach might be compatible with greater ambition. What all Democrats are doing right now, though, is experimenting with a combination of strategies. Do they run away from or try to rehabilitate the party brand? How to address the ongoing intra-party fight about “identity politics?” What’s the best way to leverage opposition to Trump? In one sense, governors are in an advantageous position: they seem better poised to wage principled opposition to the administration in a way that’s relevant to policy. Members of Congress, by contrast, seem more hamstrung by the challenge of dealing with policy while also resisting measures that are at odds with American political values and traditions. (Though there are of course exceptions - the Booker filibuster, AOC’s media mastery, and Sen. Alex Padilla’s arrest yesterday for questioning the administration at a DHS press conference.) On the other hand, using federal structures to mount serious opposition is a fraught strategy, most associated in US history with “massive resistance” to school integration and civil rights. It’s not an obvious salve to the difficulties that Democrats have had operating in a nationalized political environment.

Nevertheless, governors may have a structural advantage in the age of Trump. They can establish themselves as individual focal points more easily than most members of Congress, and respond more directly to the individualized hyper-partisanship that has characterized the Trump era. This never worked well for party stalwart and long-time Senator Biden once he stepped into the presidential role. Maybe if a governor or two can maneuver through the politics of the Trump era, they can help meet the demands of a post-Trump era in a few years.