Gov. Newsom will visit South Carolina, a pivotal presidential primary state

Gov. Gavin Newsom will spend two days next week in rural South Carolina, fueling speculation that the California Democrat is laying the groundwork for a 2028 presidential run.

During the visit Tuesday and Wednesday, Newsom will make stops in eight rural counties that are among the state’s “most economically challenged and environmentally vulnerable,” the South Carolina Democratic Party said Thursday.

The chair of the state Democratic Party, Christale Spain, said in a statement that Newsom’s tour through the Pee Dee, Midlands and Upstate regions was aimed at showing rural voters in areas that had been “hollowed out by decades of Republican control” that “they aren’t forgotten.”

Newsom’s visit is also aimed at a state that will be among the first to have a Democratic Party primary in 2028. But Lindsey Cobia, a Newsom senior political advisor, denied that the governor is laying the groundwork for a presidential run.

Cobia said Newsom is “squarely focused” on helping Democrats win back the U.S. House of Representatives in 2026 and on “sounding the alarm about how rural families and communities requesting disaster relief are being left behind by the Trump administration.”

Newsom’s tour with the South Carolina Democrats, dubbed “On the Road With Governor Newsom,” will include stops in Marion, Chesterfield, Marlboro, Laurens, Pickens, Oconee, Kershaw and Florence counties. The Post and Courier reported that Newsom’s schedule would include stops in small settings such as cafes, coffee shops, community centers and churches.

The tour will take Newsom to some of the state’s reddest counties. Seven of the eight counties Newsom is scheduled to visit went for President Trump in November, including two where he garnered 75% of the vote.

The South Carolina trip is one of several overtures that Newsom has made to Southern voters in recent years. He stumped for then-President Biden in South Carolina in 2024. In 2023, he faced off in a highly publicized debate with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. And in 2022, he bought ads in Texas and Florida excoriating their governors for their stances on gun violence and abortion.

Newsom isn’t the only California Democrat visiting South Carolina this month.

U.S. Rep Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) of Silicon Valley will be holding town halls in the Palmetto State on July 19 and 20 in partnership with the advocacy organization Protect Our Care, which has been mobilizing voters in swing House districts against the planned Republican cuts to Medicaid.