Billionaire environmentalist nutjob activist Tom Steyer wanted to be president. For a few weeks during the 2020 Democratic nomination cycle, this seemed oddly plausible. Then the debates happened and it wasn’t.
Six years later, Steyer has apparently stayed abreast of politics — or, at least, you would think so, considering he’s running for California governor.
He’s also being taken seriously in California’s jungle primary process; he’s one of only five candidates to reach double digits in a Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll conducted between March 9-15, and his 10 percent is just 7 points behind the leader of the cattle-car field, former Fox News personality Steve Hilton, but up from just 1 percent of the tally in the same poll in October.
He’s 5 and 6 percentage points ahead, respectively, of two Democratic favorites with real governmental experience: former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. And he trails the two Democratic frontrunners — U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell and former Rep. Katie Porter — by just 3 percentage points.
In other words, this is a man to be reckoned with. This could be the future of the state of California. So what does he think of the current governor and the kind of job he’s doing?
The answer: He doesn’t, really, because the man who wants to follow in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s footsteps after his administration is term-limited out hasn’t “followed it closely.”
Steyer was appearing on KCRA-TV’s “California Politics 360” when host Ashley Zavala asked the candidate to give Newsom a grade.
“I don’t know,” Steyer said, laughing.
“A through F,” Zavala pressed.
“I don’t know. I think that people have come to really appreciate how Gavin has stood up for the state of California,” he said, adding, “I haven’t followed it closely enough to give him a grade.”
I asked California candidate for governor Tom Steyer how he would grade Gavin Newsom for his two terms as governor.
He would not.
“I haven’t followed it closely enough to give him a grade.” pic.twitter.com/ILMQppUxXe
— Ashley Zavala (@ZavalaA) March 23, 2026
I mean, to be fair, he only has eight years of material to go on, plus eight years of his performance as lieutenant governor, and seven years as mayor of San Francisco. This Gavin, he’s quite the newcomer, am I right?
The Orange County Republicans said that this was “an absolutely insane answer for a guy who wants to be the next Governor.”
This is an absolutely insane answer for a guy who wants to be the next Governor. https://t.co/BjdNeXK4KB
— OC Republicans (@OCGOP) March 23, 2026
Which is true, but surprisingly he’s not the only one giving these kinds of answers. Swalwell — the putative frontrunner and a man who cannot even tell us whether he knew a Chinese spy in the biblical sense of the word — was asked what he thought Newsom got wrong as governor by a local CBS affiliate. You can almost see him on the verge of asking, “Can we please get back to talking about Fang Fang?”
CBS asked the candidates for Governor of California to name one misstep that Gavin Newsom has made as Governor. Name just one thing that Newsom has not done well as Governor.
Eric Swalwell was the only candidate who couldn’t or wouldn’t name a single thing that Gavin Newsom has… pic.twitter.com/Yj41x5A4jY
— MAZE (@mazemoore) March 19, 2026
It makes you wonder what Gavin Newsom has on these guys. The scariest answer may be: absolutely nothing.
Both men know that Newsom’s 2028 presidential campaign is effectively underway. They also know that he’s a failed politician with a string of disastrous policies that have taken California from a fiscally prosperous state to a state billions in the hole, all while making the state’s problems — crime, housing, homelessness, infrastructure — much worse.
The problem is that the old adage — “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all” — doesn’t work in politics. And it certainly doesn’t work when you want to become governor of a state you claim to have not paid much attention to these last eight years.
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