Carla Marinucci is a reporter.

SAN FRANCISCO — California Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom, the former San Francisco mayor, has forged a political reputation as a risk-taker whose controversial—but ultimately prescient—moves in support of gay marriage, the state’s legal cannabis market and some of the nation’s toughest gun laws have put him on the national radar.

But as he prepares to assume the reins of the nation’s most populous state, Newsom will be pressured to manage an even more daring stylistic high-wire act in California. He must be able to do two things at once: Stay on top of the key issues that have made him a leader of the “State of Resistance” against President Donald Trump while simultaneously establishing himself as a power broker in Sacramento who can manage a booming economy and $16 billion in surplus and “rainy day” reserves as hungry Democrats push for new spending and initiatives.


As leader of the world’s fifth-largest economy—the state that’s home to Silicon Valley, Hollywood and the nation’s agricultural breadbasket, the vast Central Valley—Newsom will automatically be catapulted into the ranks of future Democratic prospects for the White House. The political pressures of a party eager to unseat Trump may pit him, eventually, against fellow Californians like Sen. Kamala Harris and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. And already, the increased scrutiny has put him in the sights of conservative Fox News commentators and Trump himself, who referred to him as a “clown” in stump speeches during the midterms. Although Newsom insists he is keeping his focus entirely on California for the next eight years, his path could be mined with political risks, should the state’s currently booming economy run out of gas—and the costly effects of wildfires and climate change could tarnish even a popular young governor’s future prospects.

Newsom’s political godfather Willie Brown, the former San Francisco mayor and assembly speaker—who launched Newsom’s political career when he appointed his enthusiastic 20-something campaign aide to a spot on the city’s traffic commission more than two decades ago—warns that weathering all this will require some political magic tricks.

One trick is getting out from under the shadow of Jerry Brown, the four-term governor and son of the late Gov. Edmund “Pat” Brown, who has known him since childhood.

Another is marshaling the sharp elbows Newsom honed in the mosh pit of local San Francisco politics, while forging his own governing style in Sacramento—a town Newsom has never called home.

Willie Brown advises Newsom to make an immediate departure from the press-adverse Jerry Brown and schedule weekly press conferences in Sacramento, both to improve his relations with the media and to dominate the headlines. That approach will be necessary “to gain the same presence that Jerry had by birth,’’ Willie Brown said. “Newsom will have to work for it.”

Brown noted that unlike his predecessor, Newsom isn’t a creature at home in Sacramento’s insular political cultural or statewide Democratic Party machine politics. A business owner and entrepreneur who has enjoyed the backing of the Getty oil family, Newsom has frequently been labeled a “pro-business Democrat.” Early in his political career, he even described himself as a “dogmatic fiscal conservative and a social liberal’’—a profile that has earned him barbs from the party’s far left.

“He’s not part of the Democratic Party on a full-time basis. He’s not part of organized labor on a full-time basis. He’s not part of the business world on a full-time basis,” Brown said. While “there will be all these wannabes” crowding around to get into his circle, he said, “the lobbyist types will be disappointed. ... Newsom never performed in that way. He has paid no interest to them. But he’s smart enough, and sharp enough, to have talented folks seek him out.”

In the final days of his gubernatorial campaign, camped out in the back of his big blue campaign bus, Newsom acknowledged that he’d told his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, he’d been feeling “butterflies,” a combination of exhilaration and a sobering gut check as the reality of that challenge set in.

“It’s been such a long, multiyear journey,” said a reflective Newsom in the waning hours of a dawn-to-dusk campaign barnstorm across California that would seal his win. And now, the reality is here: “There’s an ending,’ he said. “There’s a real responsibility. That’s the job.”

Newsom acknowledged that it’s daunting to be following Jerry Brown, a man who’s “a master” of California political dialect, calling him “exceptionally gifted, exceptionally skilled ... one of the best political minds of our generation.”

But as much as Newsom respects Brown, he has little time to waste—there’s a preliminary budget due on Dec 15, though he won’t be formally sworn in until Jan. 7. “I just want to get to work,” he told POLITICO. “I’m not going to wait around for the first 100 days ... these transitions are pretty quick.”

Newsom is approaching his first budget, which gets reviewed by the Legislature in May, the way he approaches everything else: with deadly earnestness. It’s “your first chance at a first impression ... demonstrably a reflection of your values,” he said. And for one who has talked about prioritizing issues like early childhood education, he noted, it will be seen as a “proof point” of his commitments.

For months, Newsom has been quietly assembling 30 policy teams—experts in academia, tech, business and government; the groups have been examining the challenges ahead in issues ranging from health care and climate change to more granular topics like cybersecurity, job automation and government procurement. Those efforts have produced a series of in-depth policy papers.

So far, Newsom said, “I’ve been focusing on ‘how.’” As the governor-elect, “I think the next phase is ‘who.’ … You can make big mistakes in a transition—and often they’re attached to personnel.”

Jason Kinney, a longtime Newsom adviser, resigned his spot at California Strategies, a powerhouse state lobbying firm, to help the former mayor navigate what he acknowledges will be critical decisions ahead.

And Newsom’s first major picks, two veteran women in politics, have already won praise. His chief of staff—and the head of his transition team—will be Ann O’Leary, a former policy adviser to Hillary Clinton. And Ana Matosantos, who served as budget director to both Govs. Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger, will be his Cabinet secretary—a key post that will serve as the new governor’s chief contact to key government agencies and departments.

Friends say Newsom, while seeking the advice and views of his trusted staffers, relishes the work of governing. He is known to read policy papers from the moment he wakes up, highlighting in yellow and crowding the margins with notes.

“He’s been looking at these issues for a long time and he is so far ahead of most people coming into this office on a policy level—because he really does love policy issues and he doesn’t jump fast,” said veteran Democratic consultant Gale Kaufman. “He’s thoughtful in his approach.”

Bill Whalen, a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution who was previously an adviser to Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, says the new job will require Newsom to tone down his national profile and go local. “He has to spend a lot of time talking to lawmakers, staying on top of bills, building relationships,” he said. “Sacramento is a lot closer to Davis than to Davos. ... He has to take care of matters at home first.”

Still, Whalen says it’s a good sign that Newsom is one of the few Democrats who in the past year has visited the conservative think tank, in part to explore the views of some of the nation’s most preeminent economists and policy experts on the other side of the aisle. Many came away impressed with the depths of the discussion, he said.

Such efforts may assist Newsom in a big challenge ahead, Whalen suggests: controlling the pent-up spending demands of California’s Democratic state Legislature, which chafed under Jerry Brown’s trademark frugality and fiscal discipline.

“Jerry has been the ‘alpha dog’ in Sacramento for the last eight years,” pushing back on budget demands with tough vetoes — an approach that has helped Brown protect a budget that went from deficit to surplus on his watch. Says Whelan, “Can a Gov. Newsom be the same big dog? Are the Democratic leaders of the legislature intimidated by Gavin Newsom or not?”

Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, at Newsom’s victory party last week, noted Newsom’s statements that he would not be “profligate” and would try to follow in Jerry Brown’s footsteps by keeping the Legislature in check when needed. “That’s the governor’s job—to say no to us sometimes,” he said, adding a pointed warning: “And it’s our job to say no to the governor sometimes. ... It’s a balance of power. And I know that Gavin Newsom understands that.’’

Democrats who’ve known him for years say Newsom won’t have a problem saying no.

The former San Francisco mayor, during his tenure as the city’s chief executive, gained an understanding of “what it’s like to veto legislation that pisses off your friends,” said a longtime friend and adviser, Nathan Ballard, CEO of The Press Shop, a Bay Area media-strategy group run in partnership with veteran Democratic strategist P.J. Johnston.

But Newsom is also likely to carve out his own signature issues where he goes further than his predecessors. Former state Sen. Fran Pavley, who helped craft a landmark climate-change bill signed by Schwarzenegger, which mandated a cap on greenhouse gas emissions statewide and a 25 percent reduction by 2020, says she sees Newsom already looking ahead on how to advance the environmental agenda forged by Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown.

Pavley says she’s both energized and reassured by the news that Mary Nichols, who heads the California Air Resources Board—and has been a key in resisting Trump’s agenda aiming to roll back fuel emissions standards—will stay on through at least 2020, when her current term ends. Nichols, who’s been dubbed the state’s “clean air czar,’’ served as chair of the board under Schwarzenegger and has been widely viewed for decades as the most influential force behind the state’s successful moves to dramatically reduce air pollution—while advancing a cutting-edge climate change agenda. She says Newsom is strongly rumored to be preparing to address the issue of fracking—representing a key departure from Brown, whose continued support made him the target of environmental groups.

It may be one of the areas where Newsom will immediately be challenged to make an early and bold, game-changing stroke—much as he did in 2004 as a new mayor by legalizing same sex-marriage in San Francisco, says Willie Brown.

That decision put him on the national political map—and sparked a national uproar. Republicans lambasted Newsom, as did some Democrats, like Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and many more—like then-Sen. Barack Obama — declined to have photos taken with him in the immediate aftermath. Pundits predicted the end of his political career, but it was Newsom’s prediction that marriage equality would be the law of the land someday — “whether you like it or not,” he said — that turned out to be spot-on.

But Newsom cautions that recreating that “lightning in a bottle” moment will be “tough.” He adds: “That issue chose me, I didn’t choose it.”

But even as he sought to tamp down expectations, Newsom noted that his campaign slogan was “Courage, for a Change.”

“I don’t want anyone to be surprised with what they’re getting,” he said. “I’m not saying courage is always noble and righteous—but it’s an expression of a willingness to lean into issues” when others “may be a little more reticent to do so.”