California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been a political fixture in the Golden State since the late 1990s, first serving on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from 1997 to 2004 before serving as mayor of San Francisco from 2004 to 2011. After that, he was elected as California’s Lieutenant Governor, a position he held for eight years until he was sworn in as the state’s Governor in January 2019.

He’s term-limited out now, with the next gubernatorial election to be held in 2026. Though there are murmurings about whether former Vice President Kamala Harris will jump into the growing field of contenders, Newsom’s focus is not on speculation about the candidates nor endorsements. Instead, he is rumored to have his eye on the ultimate prize for an entrenched, ambitious politico: the presidency of the United States.

“This was not really a speech about California, which, based on his record, he seems to care little about—this was his first real salvo in the ’28 presidential elections,” my colleague Bob Hoge wrote in response to the disastrous, lie-filled speech Newsom gave amid the LA riots. “He knows he’s watching his chances go up in smoke like an electric vehicle in downtown Los Angeles, and this was his desperate attempt to right the ship.”