CA 120: Gavin’s podcast – Presidential run or empire building?

This is the second of a two-part series analyzing the impact of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s podcast, “This is Gavin Newsom.” Part one can be accessed here. 

In last week’s article we reviewed polling on Governor Newsom’s announcement that he would be hosting a new podcast. The eponymously named “This is Gavin Newsom Podcast” was intended to be a vehicle for the CA Governor to have conversations with “people I disagree with, as well as those I look up to.”

Well, so far it seems he has been focusing on the former with his first guest shocking progressives as he invited right wing provocateur Charlie Kirk for a softball interview in which he praised or agreed with Kirk nearly 125 times, including saying he “appreciates” Kirk or his ideas a whopping 52 times.

It was so much that even Kirk, on his podcast following the Newsom interview, stated “Governor Newsom was being overly-effusive in his praise of me“ and then he subsequently rolled right into his repeated attacks on the Governor for ruining the State of California.

The reviews around Sacramento are in, with a mix of shock and derision. The Sacramento Bee’s Robin Epley announced Gavin Newsom’s political podcast with Charlie Kirk sucked and Los Angeles Times columnist Mark Barabak’s column came with the headline “With his new podcast, Gavin Newsom may just talk himself to political death.” This reaction only got worse when Newsom released his latest podcast featuring another well-known Republican provocateur, Steve Bannon.

On the substance of the interview, Newsom sparked fury from Sacramento’s LGBTQ leadership when he came out in opposition to California’s policy, signed by Governor Jerry Brown in 2013, which allows transgender students equal access to sports consistent with their gender identities, claiming that this was “deeply unfair.” He also came out opposed to “woke culture” including the use of “Latinx” and preferred pronouns being declared in work meetings.

While we could dig into the media response and the left’s reaction and viral memes, the question we set out to answer was what California voters think.

As was discussed in last week’s article, our initial polling showed a general suspicion surrounding this podcast, with Democrats slightly more positive, and Republicans openly hostile. Before the launch of his first podcast, 30% of those polled had positive comments, 22% neutral, and 47% negative.

After the launch, this shifted slightly with only 25% positive, 38% neutral and 36% negative in their comments. So, response was slightly less positive, but also significantly less negative. In this response, voters may be signaling a willingness to give Newsom a chance with this.

In this new survey which fielded to 1,000 California voters, 54% of said that they had heard something about the podcast, while 46% had not and one-half of one percent (.057%) said that they had already listened to it. As with the first poll, most voters (58%) said that they were not likely to listen to the podcast, while interest was greater among Democrats and voters who said that they regularly get their political news from podcasts.

To dive in more deeply we had voters watch three clips and provide their unfiltered, open-ended responses. These provide a way for use to dive into specific reasons they may like or dislike any of the segments, without having them be restricted to pre-set questions.

The first clip was one with Newsom introducing Charlie Kirk, and joking that his 13-year-old son wanted to stay home from school to meet him. “You cancelled school for like two years, what’s one more day!?” Kirk quipped.

Sentiment Analysis of the responses ranked the comments on this video as 43% negative, 21% neutral and 34% positive.

There were some positives in the responses, particularly to how well Newsom and Kirk interacted, with respondents praising how relaxed they were, and saying that it “is nice to see politicians treat each other like real humans.”

The reviews around Sacramento are in, with a mix of shock and derision.

There was a definite strain among Democrats and Independents in particular of disgust that Newsom would platform Kirk, with statements like “Disgusting,” “Despicable,” “Charlie Kirk is trash” coming from Democratic voters, and one Independent voter saying ““Charlie Kirk is a Nazi and should never be addressed at all, much less given any platform, in any context, ever.”

Republicans seemed to be in a bit of a pickle, something that we will see in all three of these videos.  Their vitriol toward Newsom was not something he could penetrate, being described as “fake”, “pandering” and “a liar,” with a general distrust of his sincerity, and seeing it as a “conniving political play.”

After this clip we asked voters “Do you believe by praising Charlie Kirk that he is showing a bipartisanship or openness to other political ideas?” The response was very negative, with only one-quarter of voters agreeing. Even among Democrats, who had the best response toward Newsom, only 40% agreed and 60% disagreed.

In the second clip, Newsom is discussing the “woke” culture and brings up “the Latinx stuff” saying “not one person in my office has ever used the word ‘Latinx.’” Newsom then goes on to say that only once has he ever been in a meeting where people started going around and stating their preferred pronouns.

Sentiment Analysis of the responses ranked the comments on this video as 57% negative, 21% neutral and 20% positive.

Democrats responding to this clip seemed to accept that their party needs to step back from some of the “woke” culture that are seen as excessive or can’t be understood by voters in more conservative parts of the country. “Agree,” “Good,” “Insightful” were some of the descriptors used. Several Independent voters questioned if this was just political posturing, while others claimed that it sounded honest. Many voters had statements reflecting a centrist fatigue with cultural debates.

Among Republicans there was a broad agreement with Newsom’s stance, but distrust his motives or authenticity, saying that he was flip-flopping or lying. One Republican voter stated “He denies everything publicly he endorses legislatively. His office is pure DEI, so they embraced this.”

As a follow up to this question we asked voters what they thought about people expressing their preferred pronouns in work meetings, and opinions were very split. Among those surveyed, 20% said they supported announcement of preferred pronouns in work meetings, 35% said they didn’t mind it, while 35% were opposed to it, and 19% said that it wasn’t anything they had ever confronted.

Only 20% of voters said the use of “Latinx” and personal pronouns were something that was important to them, while 80% said it was not.  Among Latinos the support dropped to 18%, with even more negative sentiment to the whole conversation, with one Latino respondent stating “Discussing ‘wokeness’ and being two white-presenting dudes hosting a podcast is a bit hypocritical” with another Latino voter stating “The pronouns/Latinx is another distraction from the real issues. The left uses these things to signal that they are progressive, the right uses it to fuel the rage machine.”

In the final, and most controversial clip, Newsom discusses the issue of trans women participating in sports. He states that it is “deeply unfair” for people who were born male to be participating in female sports. Newsom goes on to discuss how Kirk and others weaponized the issue of trans sports, but raises concern about people talking down to vulnerable communities.

Sentiment Analysis of the responses ranked the comments on this video as 63% negative, 16% neutral and 20% positive.

This response has probably had the greatest real-world impact and generated the most headlines.

Newsom has reportedly been talking like this among staff and friends for a while. According to his office, he has been opposed, generally, to having trans women, born as men, participating in sports according to their self-identification, but at the same time he has expressed, as he does in the video, that this is not a simple issue, and needs to be balanced with compassion for a vulnerable community. He has also supported and signed some of the most progressive trans legislation in the country, being regularly seen as one of the greatest champions of LGBTQ rights in politics today.

Response to this was the most intense of any of the podcast segments. Liberal Democrats in particular seemed double-crossed by the Governor, calling his comments disgusting and expressing frustration in his over-simplification of the issue. One Democrat stated “The science definitively says trans women taking estrogen after two years have no advantage. You’re either informed by science, or ideology.”

We asked voters “Do you believe by praising Charlie Kirk that he is showing a bipartisanship or openness to other political ideas?” The response was very negative, with only one-quarter of voters agreeing.

At the same time, more conservative Democrats largely agreed with the Governor, either from a messaging standpoint “this is not the issue Democrats should hang their hat on” or from a policy position, with several simply stating that men shouldn’t be in women’s sports. One conservative Democrat respondent supported the stance, but didn’t trust the messenger, stating “he’s trying to split from the party to position himself for a presidential run by siding with the 80% on this 80/20 issue.”

Like many Democrats, independents were split on the substance of the issue, with a more dogmatic, practical tone in their comments, expressing concerns about needing fairness in sport, but not being strident or angry in their responses. They also didn’t think this should be an issue that politicians need to be focusing on, with one Independent voter stating “Transgender women are an incredibly small portion of our population, I would rather our elected officials focus on real issues instead of this.”

Republicans were the most agitated by this clip. While they almost universally opposed trans women participating in women’s sports, citing things like “common sense” and stating “men are men,” there was also a strong theme of “he’s lying” and other notes of skepticism. One Republican voter stated “He’s a hypocrite… he allowed and pushed for transgenders to play in women’s sports in California and the rest of the country.”

For a full airing of the public responses, broken down by positive, negative and neutral sentiment, along with the voter’s demographic information, you can click here for the full 40 page PDF.

As a follow-up we asked voters if they generally agreed that transgender women, who were born as biological men, should be able to participate in women’s sports and only 13% said yes, with 61% saying no, and 26% saying it depended on the situation.

In deeper analysis, voters were asked in what kinds of sports they felt that a transgender woman should not be able to participate. Overall, a majority of CA voters said that it was “Always OK” or “Sometimes OK” for transgender women to participate according to their self-identification in School PE Sports and Intramural / Recreational leagues, but not in collegiate, professional or international/Olympic sports.

Among Democrats support for the transgender community was significantly higher, saying that it was Always OK or Sometimes OK to allow participation in all but Olympic sports. Republicans were staunchly opposed at all levels, with over 80% opposition to transgender women’s participation in even required High School Physical Education classes, and 85% were opposed to participation in voluntary intramural / recreational leagues that are not winning medals or winning championships.

After seeing all three snippets of the “This is Charlie Kirk” podcast, 24% of voters said that it made them think of Newsom as being more moderate, with 17% saying it made them less likely to see him as moderate, and 59% said it made no difference.

The podcast only made 13% of voters have an improved perception of the Governor, with 26% saying that it harmed their perception, and 58% saying it made no difference.  One in five voters said that these snippets made them want to watch or listen to future Newsom podcasts.

While the response to each of the snippets is interesting, those watching the Governor expect that the cumulative goal of all of these podcasts is to increase his popularity, particularly among voters who are more moderate or are within the Biden-to-Trump swing voter universes.

If this was the goal, the initial response is not what the Governor would want.  The negative impact on Newsom’s popularity with voters is clearly visible in this survey. Newsom’s favorability in our last survey, done the first week of February of this year, had his total favorability at 52%, with 48% unfavorable, for a net favorability (favorable minus unfavorable) of +4. Notably, his “very favorable” was at 25%.

In this survey, his favorability has dropped to 47%, with his “very favorable” dropping to 18% and his net favorable going to -6, for a 10-point drop in net favorability.

Among self-identified liberals, 37% said that these snippets of the Newsom podcast harmed their perception of the Governor, and among these voters the Governor’s “very favorable” number has dropped from 46% to 30%.

But, of course, maybe we have this all wrong.

One interesting analysis from longtime Republican political strategist Mike Madrid, citing a Newsom insider, is that this isn’t actually about him upping his popularity for a coming Democratic primary for President. According to Madrid, this is about him not seeking future office, and instead seeking to create a new media empire, like other podcasters such as Ben Shapiro on the Right, or the Pod Save America team on the Left. In those cases, political podcasters were able to go on to create entire media empires from their popular podcasts.

As Madrid says “The media terrain has shifted. Newsom is adapting. And if my source is right, he’s not running for President – he’s positioning himself for something even bigger. And he may just be giving Democrats a fighting chance.”

If this is true, it could be an unprecedented step for a former Governor to grow an even larger profile outside of elected office. And all the outrage, memes, and even this story are part of the momentum that he needs to build in order to ascend beyond lowly Sacramento and this Gubernatorial chapter of his career.