Above: Gavin Newsom has “a problem,” a piece in The Atlantic observed in January. “The California governor’s pivot to the center may be too late for 2028.” Photo: AP / Damian Dovarganes

By Erik Skindrud, InfoWise.org

Let’s spend a minute with an open mind, trying to understand California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s drive to double in-office days for close to 100,000 state office workers — starting in July.

While words like collaboration and “mom and pop” businesses top his talking points, a bit of digging turns up a more powerful — as well as delicate and sensitive — motivation.

The reality is that Newsom’s confidence about a run for President in 2028 is tempered by vulnerability. The issue is laid out in a January piece in The Atlantic by Marc Novicoff and Jonathan Chait.

Gavin “Newsom has a problem,” the pair write. “During his tenure (as governor), the state has been a laboratory for some of the Democratic Party’s most politically fraught policies and instincts, which has left it less affordable and more culturally radical than it used to be.”

“It (now) provides (Newsom) opponents an endless buffet of vulnerabilities across social and economic issues.”

Newsom is grasping for bona fides to lend him cred with right-leaning voters. Two years ago, he undertook a flurry of steps — hosting Steve Bannon and the late Charlie Kirk on his podcast, sniping at trans people, announcing the return-to-office gambit.

The move throws California state workers under the bus. Newsom is surprisingly tone deaf on this point. At his budget-revise press briefing on May 14, he even compared his record to the federal-worker DOGE initiative of 2025 — now shorthand for politically-driven HR policy.

“We were DOGE before DOGE,” Newsom said last week. “I just didn’t do it with a chainsaw.”

The point here is not to excoriate the governor — but to understand his thinking with empathy and openness. He is known to be impulsive.

“Gavin Newsom is a person with frailties and failings,” writes Maya Singer is her recent Vogue piece — which offers glimpses of Newsom the man.

He “likes to be spontaneous. Which is curious in a politician,” she writes.

There’s a less-attractive side to this, of course. Newsom goes with his impulses — which increasingly have him aping the current inhabitant of the White House.

At the May 14 presser, he flashed an image based on the 1993 film “Dumb and Dumber” — to troll the sitting President. The gesture just looked dumb, however.

Newsom needles the current U.S. President with ALL CAPS social media posts and A.I.-generated images like the above — displayed here at his May 14 presser in Sacramento. Photo: Miguel Gutierrez Jr. / CalMatters

State workers aren’t the only ones feeling the fallout. Last week, the Sierra Club expressed disappointment with Newsom’s revised budget — which backs away from “the climate action that California needs.”

Similarly, last year saw Newsom’s Department of Transportation delete climate goals from its mission statement.

Democrats need a grounded, moderate candidate to successfully challenge in 2028. Many watchers feel Newsom is too deeply linked to Golden State excess — to turn his dreams to gold in two years.

“The trouble is that before (Newsom’s) awkwardly recent pivot, (he) spent years trying to satisfy every Democratic whim,” Novicoff and Chait write. “(Now his) own missteps are considerable enough that, in a close race, they might well prove decisive.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom with wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom, children and pets — at their $3.7 million compound in Sacramento County. The family spends more time at its $9.1 million Marin County mansion. Newsom may face difficulty connecting with U.S. voters. Photo: Annie Leibovitz / Vogue

The state of play leaves California office workers abandoned, facing doubled costs from gas prices, parking fees — and time in traffic — as inflation blooms. Climate will also lose if Newsom’s RTO sticks.

History may see Newsom’s telework flip as a blip. Telework is gaining acceptance, especially among younger managers and workers. Even if candidate Newsom forces doubled gas bills and time commuting down workers’ throats, time will likely undo the move.

Texas workers endured an RTO from Gov. Greg Abbott for three months — before the same governor signed a bill restoring their hybrid schedule.

“(When) Texas discovered that remote work actually boosted productivity while slashing turnover, the economic argument for forcing everyone back… evaporated,” telework consultant Gleb Tsipursky wrote.

California Assembly Bill 1729, now making its way through California’s state legislature, mirrors the legislation Texas Gov. Abbott signed. California gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, who topped a poll last week, has made multiple pro-telework statements.

It’s hard to imagine telework faring worse in California than it did in the Lone Star State. For now — given Newsom’s impulses — state workers may need a dose of patience, however.

Erik Skindrud is a writer in Huntington Beach. @Erik_Bookman on X.