California Governor’s Brash Online Tactics Rile Republicans and Thrill Democrats California Gov. Gavin Newsom is shaking up the political playbook, adopting a brash, Trump-like persona on X to fire up Democratic voters and needle his Republican rivals.

In the national struggle over U.S. House control, perhaps no politician has more at stake than the California governor, who has emerged as the leading Democratic adversary to President Donald Trump in what many see as a lightly masked trial run for his own future White House bid.

The California governor is adopting a combative social-media persona as well as partisan gerrymandering to counter the president.