How One Scandal Could Haunt Ne
Gavin Newsom’s greatest threat isn’t Donald Trump. It’s 2007.
Before he was a polished, presidential contender, he was a young
San Francisco mayor at the center of a scandal so personal, so intimate, it nearly ended his career.
As Gavin Newsom’s star rises on the national stage, the story he most wants behind him is the one his opponents are most eager to resurrect.
His affair with Ruby Rippey Gibney, the wife of his close friend and aide Alex Tourk, was not just a
lapse in judgment; it struck at the core of loyalty, power, and trust inside his own political family.
Newsom’s public confession and Tourk’s resignation left a scar that time never fully erased—only buried beneath bigger offices and broader ambitions.
In a post-#MeToo era, that same scandal lands differently.
What was once framed as a private moral failing now invites questions about workplace power dynamics and character under pressure.
Layered on top of his more recent incendiary rhetoric, a 2028 run
would force voters to decide whether they see a flawed man who grew, or a pattern they can’t afford in a president.
His future may hinge on which story they choose to believe.
