Politico reports:

Gavin Newsom said he hadn’t heard of Zohran Mamdani until a few months ago. They communicated for the first time on Election Day.

But that night’s results have suddenly bound the California governor and the New York City mayor-elect together as two of the most prominent figures on the left — two geographic and ideological poles in a party that for months has had no clear national leader.

“Voters are looking for people who represent the exact opposite of what appear to be strategic, thoughtful, overly political, overly insidery approaches,” said Evan Roth Smith, a Democratic strategist and pollster. “Newsom and Mamdani represent a repudiation of the practice of politics that the Democratic Party has become accustomed to.”

The two could hardly be more different. Newsom has been the establishment-sanctioned favorite in every race since he emerged from San Francisco’s centrist ranks, becoming mayor after narrowly defeating a Green Party favorite and antagonizing his party’s left flank at times on issues like homelessness, tech regulation and transgender rights. Mamdani, a democratic socialist, not only came from outside the political hierarchy, but stunned New York kingmakers by riding an affordability platform to victory.

What they share, in their tandem rise, is a savvy for modern campaigning and a return to the antagonistic posture that powered Democrats at the opening of Donald Trump’s first term — when Democrats retook the House in 2018 — and before Trump’s victories across the map in 2024 not only left Democrats in the wilderness, but had them questioning how aggressively to take him on.

Now, Newsom is bashing Trump from the West, Mamdani is doing it from the East, and both are lighting into Democrats who they cast as insufficiently resistant to the president. [Continue reading…]