JTA — When an interviewer told him he wouldn’t vote for a candidate who accepts support from AIPAC, California Gov. Gavin Newsom stumbled over his answer.

“It’s interesting,” Newsom said, repeating the phrase multiple times. He distanced himself from the pro-Israel lobbying group, saying it is “not relevant” to his “day-to-day life,” but didn’t comment on whether he would ever accept its support. His critics said he “short-circuited.”

That was back in October. This week, he had a clearer answer.

“Never have and never will,” Newsom said on Sunday, asked whether he would take money from AIPAC.

It wasn’t the first time that Newsom has shown off his record of not taking money from AIPAC, nor from other special interest lobbying groups in industries like tobacco and oil. And that record comes as no surprise: AIPAC has not historically gotten involved in state elections, and Newsom has run only in gubernatorial races since 2018.

But Newsom, who’s widely believed to be running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028, was offering a clear sign that he is aiming to appeal to a voter base that is increasingly critical of Israel and uses AIPAC support as a litmus test of politicians.

Signs are piling up that support for Israel is a mounting liability for national politicians. Polling shows that support for Israel has plummeted to the single digits among Democrats and has declined on the right, too. An internal investigation by the Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, found that Kamala Harris lost votes in the 2024 election as a result of her stance on Israel’s war in Gaza, Axios reported this week.

Now, moderate Democrats who have records of voting for pro-Israel policies are swearing off AIPAC, signaling just how toxic the pro-Israel group has become in electoral politics.

Newsom was the first sitting mayor of San Francisco to visit Israel when he did so in 2008, according to J. As governor of California since 2019, Newsom’s constituency includes more than 1.2 million Jews, making up more than 16% of the American Jewish population, according to the 2024 American Jewish Year Book.

Newsom visited Israel less than two weeks after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack, meeting with anguished Israelis as well as senior officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

During a wave of pro-Palestinian protests in 2024, Newsom signed legislation requiring public universities to update their codes of conduct and add mandatory anti-discrimination training for students amid a rise in antisemitic incidents on college campuses. He also signed a bill meant to prevent “hate littering,” aimed at limiting the dissemination of flyers with threatening speech.

He said earlier this year that he is “crystal clear in my love for Israel — and my condemnation of Bibi [Netanyahu], and there’s a distinction.”

In a podcast with conservative commentator Ben Shapiro in January, Newsom said “there was a dehumanization” in the way Netanyahu talked about Palestinian people when they met. Newsom said he disagrees with accusations of genocide — an increasingly common accusation among Democratic politicians — and that he was not “granting legitimacy” to them. But he said he understands “the tendency for people to assert” that Israel committed genocide because of its conduct in the war.

Weighted polling data compiled by Race to the WH shows Newsom as the leading Democratic presidential candidate, though some polls have him behind Harris or Pete Buttigieg.

Newsom has taken a unique approach as a major Democratic politician over the past year, hosting right-wing figures such as Shapiro, Charlie Kirk and MAGA firebrand Steve Bannon on his podcast. “We can all be in our own lanes and be in total denial, and that’s a line we can draw, but we’ve got to draw a circle. We have to live together across our differences,” he told NPR on Tuesday, when asked about those podcasts. Newsom, who is currently on a book tour with stops in Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina, has framed the tour as a way to appeal to voters in red states. Newsom made headlines on the Atlanta leg of his tour this week when he revealed that he “can’t read” his speeches because of his dyslexia.

Newsom’s Israel views have drawn criticism from some progressives, such as US Representative Ro Khanna from California.

“He doesn’t want to offend the AIPAC donors,” Khanna said in January, in response to Newsom not accusing Israel of genocide. “He doesn’t want to offend the donor class. And that explains his position on going to give Netanyahu a blank check right after October 7, on not being willing to ever call out the funding we were giving, and not willing to call out that clearly it was a genocide, and then not willing to challenge the billionaire class on tax policy.”

There is no record of Newsom receiving donations from AIPAC, though a filing from his 2003 run for mayor showed that his campaign gave $500 to AIPAC as a “civic donation.”

His latest comment about AIPAC, which came in an interview with YouTuber Adam Mockler on Newsom’s book tour, did not halt left-wing criticism of Newsom’s Israel-Palestine views.

“Gavin Newsom is a former AIPAC donor,” the X account Track AIPAC, which works to counter the pro-Israel lobby, wrote as the clip was circulating. “He refuses to acknowledge the genocide in Gaza, attempted to crush pro-Palestine protests, and still supports unconditional aid to Israel. He will never be president.”

Track AIPAC’s co-founder, Cory Archibald, said in a follow-up that she took Newsom’s comment as a victory.

“I would also like us to take a collective moment to appreciate what a feat it is that Gavin Newsom feels he has to come out, in February 2026, to state that he rejects AIPAC,” Archibald wrote.

She added: “We will make AIPAC money the defining issue of the 2028 race. Watch.”

If so, we have a request. 

Every day during the past two years of war and rising global anti-Zionism and antisemitism, our journalists kept you abreast of the most important developments that merit your attention. Millions of people rely on ToI for fact-based coverage of Israel and the Jewish world. 

We care about Israel - and we know you do too. So we have an ask for this new year of 2026: express your values by joining The Times of Israel Community, an exclusive group for readers like you who appreciate and financially support our work. 

We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.

You clearly find our careful reporting valuable, in a time when facts are often distorted and news coverage often lacks context.

Your support is essential to continue our work. We want to continue delivering the professional journalism you value, even as the demands on our newsroom have grown dramatically since October 7.

So today, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. For as little as $6 a month you'll become our partners while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.

Thank you,David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel

1 Dead Sea ScrollsGreat Isaiah Scroll, oldest near-complete biblical book ever found, on show in entirety for 1st time since 1968

2 Trump said frustrated with limits of military leverage against Iran

3 Trump: Top general doesn’t oppose Iran war, thinks it would be ‘easily won’

4 ‘Complete game-changer’: Iran close to buying supersonic anti‑ship missiles from China

5 AnalysisDecisive hours: Progress on a new nuclear deal, or countdown to a US strike?

6 China pivoting toward antisemitism, driven by geopolitics, report finds

7 F-22 jets deploy at Israeli Air Force base as US builds up forces for Iran strike

8 Footage from 2022 shows Hamas commanders overseeing dry run of October 7 attack

AIPAC American Israel Public Affairs Committee

2028 US presidential elections

© The Times of Israel