California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during the Clinton Global Initiative meeting at the Hilton Midtown on Sept. 18, 2023, in New York City.

If you’ve spent any time online over the past four days, you’ve probably seen internet users thirsting over Gavin Newsom. But if you chose to crawl into a hole after Tuesday’s election, I will sum up the posts for you: Gavin Newsom is an evil sociopath and he’s hot and he hates Republicans so he must run for president.

The reason for this unabashed yearning is, of course, that Donald Trump is the president-elect. Again. How catastrophic his second term will be is still unclear. What is clear, though, is that Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party suffered a remarkable ass-kicking on Election Day.

Harris lost all seven swing states, and is on track to lose the popular vote. Republicans took the presidency and the Senate and are poised to keep the House. Harris actually won fewer electoral college votes than Hillary Clinton did in 2016. It was an exceptionally thorough drubbing.

Advertisement

Article continues below this ad

So, it seems, those social media users are onto something. Newsom, like Trump, is pugilistic. Newsom, like Trump, is petty. Newsom, like Trump, is vain. Newsom, like Trump, really wants to live in the White House.

The presidential rumors have been swirling around Newsom for decades, but they were supercharged in 2022 after a fiery speech in which he called out the rest of the Democratic Party for not being more proactive in taking the fight to Republicans. Since then, he’s shown that his now-famous call to action wasn’t just........

© SFGate