Will Gavin Newsom and Alex Padilla swap jobs next year?
It’s a live political possibility, the big storyline behind all the leaks that Padilla, California’s senior U.S. senator, may run for governor next year.
If Padilla were to join the gubernatorial race, he’d become a favorite in a weak field of seven Democrats. And If Padilla were to win, he’d succeed the term-limited Newsom at the end of 2026.
This is when the swap would happen. As governor, Padilla would appoint his own Senate successor, who could serve for two years, until the 2028 election.
If Newsom wanted the Senate opening, Padilla would almost certainly give it to the outgoing governor. The two men are allies. And Padilla owes Newsom for appointing Padilla to Kamala Harris’ Senate seat in 2021.
A two-year Senate stint would allow Newsom to continue his relentless fight against Donald Trump. And it would provide the former governor both Washington experience and an East Coast base while running for the Democratic presidential primary nomination in 2028.
Should he fail to get the presidential nod from the party — or if it becomes apparent that the authoritarian Trump won’t allow 2028 to be a free and fair election — Newsom could run for election to a full Senate term that year.
Would this be good for California? That’s a hard question. Padilla, an MIT graduate, might be the smartest person in California politics. And Newsom is perhaps the country’s most energetic politician, a ceaseless producer of both creative ideas and dumb blunders.
But political swaps like this are hardball insider moves that inspire cynicism and can backfire with the public. Especially if it begins to seem as if elites, not Californians, are picking our rulers, as the veteran political strategist Dan Schnur warned in a recent piece, “When Voters Don’t Matter.”
The perception that the voters no longer matter is growing, with Newsom, Padilla, and other Democrats pushing a partisan gerrymander on this November’s special election ballot (Prop. 50, which would add five Democratic seats in the House of Representatives). A Padilla-Newsom switch on top of that proposition might be tempting fate.
There is precedent for a high-profile California political swap going unexpectedly south.
In 1958, Republicans were nearly as dominant in California government as the Democrats are now. Since 1896, only one Democrat had been elected governor (the atheist Culbert Olson, in an electoral accident).
Gov. Goodwin Knight, a popular Republican moderate from Los Angeles, was preparing to run for re-election in 1958. But California’s senior senator, the conservative Republican William Knowland, owner of the Oakland Tribune, announced that he would challenge Knight for governor.
Knowland saw the governorship as a better perch from which to run for president in 1960, according to the author Miriam Pawel. Knowland also wanted to block his rival California Republican, Richard Nixon, from the presidency.
Under pressure from Knowland allies, Gov. Knight dropped out of the governor’s race to make way for Sen. Knowland. Knight then joined the race to fill Knowland’s Senate seat.
This swap of campaigns was dubbed “The Big Switch.” And it backfired spectacularly. The Democrats, led by their gubernatorial candidate, Pat Brown, argued that Republicans were playing political games and taking voters for granted.
The election saw record turnout. Both Knowland and Knight lost, in twin upsets that ended their political careers. The era of Republican dominance of state government was over.
Today’s overconfident California Democrats may dismiss this history. But Newsom and Padilla may be playing political musical chairs at a time of historic volatility in our state and country. Democrats are losing ground almost everywhere, with Latino, male, young voters see the party as weak and preachy.
Padilla and Newsom might switch their way into extending Democratic dominance in California.
Or, with too much maneuvering, they could lose it all.
Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Mathews: Governor Padilla, Senator Newsom, and a risky switch