This evening Gavin Newsom is appearing in New Hampshire for a “book tour” event with progressive YouTuber Jack Cocchiarella. On the agenda, Cocchiarella has teased, is Israel. Speaking earlier this week on liberal podcast Pod Save America, the California Governor called Israel “sort of an apartheid state” and questioned American military aid. Last month, he said he would “never” accept Aipac money. Remember: this is a governor who flew to Israel two weeks after October 7 to see Benjamin Netanyahu.

Nobody should trust a word of it. Newsom’s political career is a masterclass in sensing which way the wind is blowing and sprinting to get in front of it. He championed single-payer healthcare during his gubernatorial primary, then shelved the plan once in office. He vowed to end homelessness as mayor of San Francisco in 2004 and has made the same promise for 22 years while California has become the nation’s homeless capital. Last March, he told Charlie Kirk that transgender athletes competing in women’s sports was “deeply unfair”, reversing a position he had held for years while declining to repeal the California law which permits it. As Democratic strategist Max Burns told NBC last year, “no one can quite tell you what Gavin Newsom stands for.”

The Aipac reversal is further proof of Newsom’s ideological promiscuity. The Governor never took Aipac funds because the organisation never gave money to state-level candidates; swearing off their funding costs him nothing. What’s more, talk of “apartheid” sounds bold until you realise he signed anti-BDS legislation and visited Israel as a solidarity gesture when it actually counted. He has broken with Israel at the very moment such a performative utterance carries minimal cost and maximum upside.

The polls explain why. Gallup’s February poll found that Americans now sympathise more with Palestinians (41%) than Israelis (36%) for the first time in 25 years of tracking. Among Democrats, 65% side with Palestinians against just 17% for Israelis. Independents flipped for the first time too, by 11 points. A DNC internal investigation also found that Kamala Harris lost votes in 2024 specifically because of her Israel stance.

Meanwhile, Aipac’s $96 million midterm war chest has thus far produced diminishing returns: in New Jersey last month, its attack ads against a moderate Democrat resulted in voters choosing a pro-Palestinian progressive instead. In four Chicago-area primaries, Rust-Belt candidates are tripping over each other to distance themselves from the group. Even JB Pritzker, the Governor of Illinois and a former Aipac board member, says he “walked away” around 2015.

Newsom’s likely primary opponent is Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a self-described Zionist whose Israel stance is openly discussed as his biggest 2028 liability. Shapiro’s recent memoir foregrounds his faith and his Zionism in terms that could be radioactive in a Democratic primary where two-thirds of the base sides with Palestinians. Drawing the sharpest possible contrast gives Newsom the anti-Aipac lane almost by default.

The counterintuitive dimension is on the Right, where MAGA’s Israel consensus is fracturing. Tucker Carlson called the Iran strikes “Israel’s war” this week, while Marjorie Taylor Greene accused the administration of “murdering children”. GOP favourability toward Israel dropped 15 points this year in Gallup’s data, and only 24% of Republicans aged 18-34 now sympathise more with Israel.

These disaffected voters have no home on the Right, with Donald Trump insisting Aipac-aligned orthodoxy remains the price of admission. In a general election, even a small number of those voters could make a difference in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Nobody should confuse Newsom’s positioning for conviction. But a governor whose funding base is so vast he can weather whatever Aipac throws at him, competing in a primary where the pro-Israel candidates will split the pro-Israel money, has identified the one issue where the primary maths, the general election maths, and bipartisan anger all converge. The question is whether voters will buy yet another conversion from a man who has converted on seemingly everything else. With an unpopular, Israel-fronted war against Iran heating up, they just might.

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Oliver Bateman is a historian and journalist based in Pittsburgh. He blogs, vlogs, and podcasts at his Substack, Oliver Bateman Does the Work

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