California Gov. Gavin Newsom is traveling to Iowa this month to campaign for his home-state Sen. Kamala Harris’ Democratic primary bid, her team announced on Monday.
Newsom’s visit, which is set for Dec. 14-15, comes as Harris remains stuck polling in the single digits. The Democratic governor will spend the first day in the Des Moines area and then move on to Cedar Rapids ― the two largest cities in the state that casts the first votes of the primary and caucus season.
“At all of his events, Newsom will speak about Harris’ record of fighting for justice and her plans as President to fight for economic justice, reproductive justice, and health care justice,” a press release from the Harris campaign said. The release also calling her the “most prepared to go toe-to-toe with” President Donald Trump.
Newsom’s chief strategist, Dan Newman, told HuffPost that the governor and the senator have been longtime political partners.
“They’ve been allies for decades, and he endorsed her without hesitation months ago because he’s seen that she has what it takes to beat Trump,” Newman said. “He’s also seen her repeatedly dismissed and counted out, but he knows there’s a good reason she’s won every single race she’s ever run.”
The governor publicly endorsed Harris in February less than a month after she entered the race, telling MSNBC that he was “very enthusiastic” about her candidacy.
“I’ve known her for decades, not only as district attorney where she did an extraordinary job with a very progressive record, but I watched her up close as lieutenant governor when she served as attorney general, and I have the privilege of working with her as a U.S. senator,” he said. (Harris served as district attorney of San Francisco while Newsom was the city’s mayor and as California attorney general while he was the state’s lieutenant governor.)
In July, CNBC reported that Newsom had been reaching out for months to his network of influential donors to help fuel her presidential campaign.
“Keep an eye on Newsom,” a source familiar with the outreach told CNBC. “He’s got the resources, connections and money to be a game-changer for Harris.”
According to the National Institute on Money in State Politics, a nonprofit that tracks campaign finance data, Newsom raked in $50 million by the end of the 2018 election cycle during his gubernatorial run.
Newsom’s effort to boost Harris follows substantial layoffs within her campaign, which shed most of its New Hampshire field staff as well as employees at its Baltimore headquarters in October.
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