Newsom Says Democratic Socialist Priorities Are Merging Into Mainstream Party Platform

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in an interview aired Monday on “PBS NewsHour” that ideas associated with the Democratic Socialists of America are increasingly becoming part of the broader Democratic Party platform, pointing to climate policy, healthcare and campaign finance as areas of overlap.

Co-host Amna Nawaz asked Newsom how Democrats can retake control of Congress after a primary season she described as “a reckoning” for the party, citing wins by DSA-aligned candidates including Donavan McKinney in Michigan, Chris Rabb in Pennsylvania, and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, who does not identify as DSA but ran with backing from aligned groups. She asked whether those candidates’ ideas, which she said are “animating the base” and “energizing turnout,” should be worked more broadly into the party’s platform.

“I think they are,” Newsom said. “We want money out of politics. I’ve been supporting clean money campaigns for decades. We have a public finance —”

Nawaz interjected, noting what she called “a little distance between some leadership and those DSA candidates.”

Newsom pushed back on the idea of a rift over substance. “But not the ideas,” he said. “We want — I believe in universal healthcare, and I believe in Medicare for All. The party does overwhelmingly, you poll people in the party.”

“So, if it’s about more money in your pocket, lowering costs, it’s about getting money out of politics, and it’s about Medicare for All, I think we’re pretty aligned. It’s about recognizing that we’ve got a planet that is getting hotter and drier, and that we’ve got to address the issue of climate change, and we want energy security, and we want to move off fossil fuels. That’s a DSA position. That’s a mainstream position within the Democratic Party.”

Newsom argued the DSA label is less significant than the underlying ideas, drawing a comparison to earlier iterations of the party’s left flank. “I think, in many ways — it’s just a label,” he said. “And it’s a familiar — forgive me, you’re talking to the wrong person, it’s such a familiar label to me. We called them progressives. It was the Green Party. I ran against the Green Party. It sounded — the exact same platform 20 years ago, maybe it’s because I’m from the Bay Area, maybe it’s because I’m from California.”

He described the internal debate as constructive rather than divisive. “I think it’s healthy. I just think it’s — I’m not consumed by this. I don’t think there’s a great — I just — I think it’s the natural — it’s the — how — it’s reflected in Kucinich and just aspects and component parts of our party that we’ve always had, and it’s a healthy dialectic within the party.”