Gavin Newsom is a lot more complicated than you think
📖 Full Retelling
Son of a financially strapped mother and a father who was practically a Getty, Newsom explores his past in his new memoir, 'Young Man in a Hurry.'
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By Robin Abcarian Columnist Follow March 1, 2026 3 AM PT 7 min Click here to listen to this article Share via Close extra sharing options Email Facebook X LinkedIn Threads Reddit WhatsApp Copy Link URL Copied! Print 0:00 0:00 1x This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . p]:text-cms-story-body-color-text clearfix max-w-170 mt-7.5 mb-10 mx-auto" data-subscriber-content> One thing you can say for California Gov. Gavin Newsom: He’s not afraid to tick people off. In 2004, as mayor of San Francisco, he defied the law and ordered that gay couples be allowed to marry. The move, he was told , was a career ender. He did it anyway. In 2013, as lieutenant governor under then-Gov. Jerry Brown, Newsom took the occasion of Brown’s absence from the state — on a trade mission to China — to declare the avocado the state’s official fruit. Brown was not amused . Newsom called it “a benign act of defiance.” Advertisement With his bespoke suits, Pat Riley hair and annoying verbosity, Newsom has always been easy to lampoon, easy to underestimate and he knows it. In his new memoir, Newsom describes the “visceral reaction I triggered in a subset of Californians.” “It wasn’t simply my politics that rubbed them the wrong way,” he writes of his critics in “Young Man in a Hurry.” (The title comes from a 2009 headline for a Newsom profile in the Economist.) “It was my personage — my perceived privilege and how I spoke and walked through the world and even wore my hair — that would turn me into a different sort of lightning rod.” Ah, the hair. When Newsom played in high school basketball games, he writes, his gel-slicked mane inspired the cheerleaders to chant “Dippity-do, dippity-do, Gavin, Gavin, we love you.” After 30 years of public service, beginning at age 27 with his appointment by then-San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown to the city’s Parking and Traffic Commission, Newsom has now emerged at 58 as President Trump’s chief Democratic antagonist , wh...
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