Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown delivered a blunt assessment of Kamala Harris’s political future, arguing that California Gov. Gavin Newsom would enter a potential 2028 Democratic presidential primary as the more “viable” candidate because Harris would be carrying the baggage of her 2024 loss to President Donald Trump.
Brown, a longtime power broker in California Democratic politics and Harris’s former boyfriend, made the comments during an interview with ABC News’ Juhi Doshi while discussing a possible primary clash between two of the state’s most prominent Democrats.
Newsom would have an advantage, Brown argued, “because he would not be the most recent loser.”
“When you embrace somebody for the job, you really want to embrace a winner, and Newsom would be what you would have to say at the moment is a winner,” Brown said.
Brown added that he was surprised Harris did not run to succeed Newsom as California governor. Harris announced in July 2025 that she would not enter the gubernatorial race, leaving open speculation about whether she may instead seek the presidency again in 2028.
“I would have advised her to be elected governor, so that she would be in the same identical position, if not better than for electability nationally than Newsom,” Brown said. “If she was in the category of being on January 8, 2027, the governor of California, the dialogue would be about her candidacy, not about anybody else’s.”
The comments mark a notable shift from Brown’s remarks last year, when he suggested Harris may not be well-suited for the California governor’s mansion and said it could be difficult for her to win that race. Brown previously described Harris as stronger in legal roles than executive ones.
The renewed discussion comes as Democrats quietly assess the party’s next presidential field after Harris’s 2024 defeat. Newsom and Harris have long occupied overlapping political space in California, sharing donors, advisers, allies and rivals across decades of Bay Area Democratic politics.
Democratic strategist Garry South recently described the two as “like two cats, circling each other in an alley for years, politically speaking,” as speculation grows about a possible 2028 collision.
The rivalry is complicated by the fact that both politicians have publicly presented themselves as allies while privately being viewed by many Democrats as competitors for the same national lane.
Newsom, meanwhile, is term-limited as governor and has increasingly positioned himself as a national Democratic figure, frequently weighing in on major national issues and widely perceived as intentionally building toward a presidential run in 2028.
Brown’s remarks also revive long-running speculation about tensions between Harris and Newsom that date back to the chaotic aftermath of President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 race. In her recent memoir about the campaign, Harris recounted reaching out to prominent Democrats for support after becoming the party’s presumptive nominee and suggested that Newsom blew off her initial endorsement request.
The episode fueled a theory that has circulated among Democratic operatives for years: that Newsom had presidential ambitions of his own and viewed Harris’s elevation to the top of the ticket as a missed opportunity. When Biden exited the race, Harris effectively became the Democratic nominee without a competitive primary process; a decision supporters defended as necessary given the compressed timeline but critics derided as a coronation of sorts.
The lingering questions surrounding Newsom’s reaction to Harris’s 2024 nomination have only added to the intrigue surrounding a potential 2028 primary battle.
Brown’s latest remarks underscore a broader challenge facing Harris, as even some figures who helped shape her rise in California politics appear uncertain about the best path forward.
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