Since the start of the second Trump administration, the Democratic Party has suffered from a leadership vacuum. The party has struggled to cope with a declining approval rating while leading Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries concede to Trump’s overwhelming “flood the zone” strategy. That is, until California Governor Gavin Newsom confronted Trump. However, media outlets have misinterpreted the source of Newsom’s strength. The takeaway from the Newsom-Trump clashes should not be that Democrats can succeed just by imitating Trump’s tweets. Rather, Democrats should seek to emulate the main aspect of Newsom’s approach: fighting the current administration on your own terms. 

National Democrats have a problematic tendency of becoming paralyzed by Trump’s authoritarian policies. While we should not downplay Trump’s desire to tear down American democracy, some Democrats believe that they can and should avoid conflict with the administration for as long as possible. Certain Democratic governors believe that they should fiercely oppose the administration’s policies in court while seeking to cooperate with Trump on state-wide issues. Through this approach of passive resistance, Democrats like Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer have moderated their opposition to Trump and established a working relationship to discuss policies like tariff relief. 

Now, I realize that it’s easy to criticize Whitmer and other Democratic governors from politically moderate states if you are from a state as liberal as California. However, Newsom initially embodied the passive-resistance Democrat approach by reaching out to Trump to receive assistance for the 2025 California wildfires. But what happened? Trump ignored Newsom’s requests for additional wildfire funding and forced Newsom to rely on other sources of funding directly from out of the state budget. Trump would pick fights with Newsom and then force him to either capitulate — therefore sparing California from punishment — or to support a socially liberal position that was unpopular with the national electorate, risking political backlash and a harsh federal response. In late May and early June, respectively, the Trump admin started withholding federal funds from California to pressure Newsom to enforce a ban on transgender women in sports and sent in National Guard troops to crack down on anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles. Though slightly more people surveyed in a       YouGov study disapproved of the anti-ICE protests than approved, Trump’s second move seemingly backfired, as Newsom fiercely opposed the deployment of troops, and at least 47 percent of Americans viewed Trump’s actions as an overreaction. 

But then, this summer, Newsom adopted the strategy of measured retaliation by targeting Republican gerrymandering.  By picking a fight with Trump on his own terms, he demonstrated how Democrats can win back political capital in the Trump era. On July 15, Trump called on the Texas Republicans to redraw the state’s congressional maps to give the Republican Party an extra five seats. The next day, Newsom announced that if the Trump redraw went through, California legislators would redraw their state’s map to give the Democrats five seats in retaliation. 

Several Democratic critics alleged that the plan was dangerous because Republicans would disproportionately retaliate. After all, it is Republicans who hold a clear advantage over Democrats in the total number of maps of states that could be re-drawn. This line of thinking, however, completely ignores the fact that Ohio Republican legislators had been planning for months to add two to three seats to the Republican Party. By replacing passive resistance for a strategy of measured retaliation, Newsom forced the Republican Party to actively justify redistricting in Texas while condemning redistricting in California, all while reducing the post-redistricting Democratic disadvantage in the 2026 midterm elections. 

Moreover, Newsom’s strong stance in June likely allowed for Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Maryland Governor Wes Moore to preemptively oppose the Trump administration’s proposal to send National Guard units into Chicago and Baltimore. Perhaps partially as a result of their fierce vocal opposition to the planned deployments, a majority of Americans oppose military deployments to major cities. But it’s not enough for Democratic leaders to constantly be on the defensive. Rather, Moore and Pritzker should try to pick fights with the Trump administration over politically expedient issues for Democrats, including housing, social services, corruption, and education through passing anti-MAGA legislation at the state level. Regardless of whether they opt to redistrict, Moore and Pritzker must seek to actively retaliate against Trump where he is vulnerable as Newsom did. 

However, many Democratic politicians continue to advocate for the court-based ‘passive resistance’ approach, as their power is currently limited. A former Republican commentator from The Hill argued that Newsom is a poor model to emulate as he is generally viewed as more liberal than the majority of Americans. Furthermore, this moderate Republican pundit and others imply that taking partisan stances will only further alienate some of these well-liked Democratic governors in the eyes of potential voters.   Moreover, some liberal Californian Newsom critics also assert that the governor is disingenuous about progressivism and prioritizes his political ambitions over the needs of the residents that he represents.

While I agree that governors should not be blinded by political ambition,  I believe that this sentiment ignores the fact that capable state-wide political leaders have historically been able to take partisan stances that have expanded their party’s electorate. Whatever Newsom has done in response to Trump pales in comparison to Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s program to bus 119,000 migrants from the border to liberal cities during the Biden administration. By picking fights on their own terms, Democrats can win political capital and avoid making costly concessions. But by continuing to rely on a strategy of passive resistance, Democrats are forced to constantly be on the defensive and risk getting drawn into fights that are politically advantageous for the current administration. Ultimately, Democratic leadership cannot afford to continue viewing themselves as powerless, regardless of who is in the White House.