Enthusiasm among California voters for a 2028 presidential run by either Gov. Gavin Newsom or former Vice President Kamala Harris has eroded significantly since the spring, according to survey data reported by Politico and highlighted by Breitbart News columnist John Nolte.
The share of California registered voters who said they would be excited about a Newsom presidential campaign dropped 11 points, from 48% in March to 37% in September, according to the survey cited by Politico. Excitement for a Harris run fell even more steeply, sliding 13 points from 41% to 28% over the same period.
The decline is notable given that both figures are California politicians with long histories in the state — Newsom as its sitting governor and Harris as its former attorney general and later a U.S. senator. The people most familiar with their records appear to be the least enthusiastic about elevating either to the White House, Nolte argued.
Among Democrats, a narrower picture
The numbers shift when the sample is narrowed to Democrats and Democratic-leaning registered voters. In that group, 61% said they would be excited about a Newsom presidential bid, while 39% said they would not. Harris fared worse among her own party’s voters in the survey, with a 55% majority saying they would not be excited about her running.
Politico framed the results as a positive development for Newsom, running the headline “California Democrats see Newsom as stronger 2028 contender than Harris.” Nolte countered that the gap between the two among Democrats — the only voters who will matter in a presidential primary — amounts to roughly six points, and that both figures still reflect substantial support within the party.
Nolte also took issue with the framing itself, arguing that the more newsworthy finding is that voters in the state where Newsom and Harris built their careers are reluctant to see either lead the country.
A media narrative under scrutiny
The Breitbart column ties the Politico survey coverage to a broader argument about how outlets aligned with the Democratic Party are shaping the 2028 field. Nolte characterized Politico as a “fake outlet” that “puts its thumb on the scale to benefit Democrats,” pointing to the outlet’s recent removal from the White House press pool as context.
In Nolte’s telling, Democratic super PACs and sympathetic media organizations are working to discourage Harris from mounting another presidential campaign — not because she lacks support among primary voters, but because they believe another Harris candidacy would lose in a general election.
He argues that political professionals see Newsom, described in the column as a “straight, glib white guy,” as a stronger general-election matchup against Vice President JD Vance in 2028 than Harris, whom Nolte describes as having lost the presidency twice and served as what he calls Biden’s “diversity hire.” (The source column also repeats a reference to Harris’s past relationship with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, a line of attack that has circulated in conservative media for years.)
For all the attention the survey has received, Nolte concludes that Harris remains the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination in 2028, noting that she continues to lead in most polling of Democratic voters nationally.
What the numbers actually show
Survey data of this kind tracks enthusiasm, not vote choice, and is subject to the usual caveats: registered-voter samples can shift with turnout assumptions, question wording, and the political environment at the time of the poll. A decline in excitement between March and September does not necessarily translate into support for another candidate, and it says nothing definitive about how a primary electorate would vote more than two years out from the next presidential election.
What the Politico-reported figures do show is a measurable cooling in California toward two of the state’s most prominent political figures. Whether that cooling reflects dissatisfaction with their governing records, fatigue with the same names, or a broader mood shift in a state that has become a frequent target in national conservative messaging is not something a single survey can settle.
The results also land amid an ongoing argument over how political media cover the early stages of a presidential field. Nolte’s column is itself an example of that argument: it accuses Politico of manipulating facts to aid Democrats, while Politico’s own headline treats the same data as evidence of Newsom’s strength. Both readings draw on the same numbers, and readers of either account come away with a different sense of what the survey means.
For now, the survey points to one clear takeaway: the voters who know Newsom and Harris best are less eager than they were six months ago to see either of them run for president.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/09/22/nolte-california-voters-not-excited-about-kamala-or-newsom-running-for-president/