Gov. Gavin Newsom recently announced a lawsuit against the major oil companies, after previously announcing a proposed constitutional amendment on guns. Is this his plan to become the Democrats’ post-Biden standard bearer?

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is not running for president in 2024. He has made it clear that he supports President Biden’s re-election and that he will not be challenging Biden for the presidency. Sure, there are all sorts of conspiracy theories that the Democrats will switch out Biden at the last minute in favor of Newsom, but there’s no reason to believe any of that is true.

That said, Newsom is doing a lot of things that indicate that he would very much like to emerge as the Democratic standard bearer, in a post-Biden world, and that we can likely expect him to run for president in 2028. Part of that is some big swings that Democrats have resisted doing in the past, and which seem like possible signature proposals for a future presidential run.