EDlection2018: Gavin Newsom focuses on immigrants, children and families in his victory speech after being elected California’s governor
Esmeralda Fabián Romero | November 8, 2018
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Gavin Newsom and family at his victory party Tuesday. (Photo: Gavin Newsom Twitter)
Gavin Newsom accepted his victory in California’s race for governor with a speech focused on immigrants, children and keeping families together.
Newsom, 51, will be the first governor in decades to hold office while raising young children. He has four children, ages 2 to 9, which, he has said, makes him “more righteous about public education.”
Newsom easily defeated Republican businessman John Cox in a race that in effect was a referendum on the state’s opposition to President Donald Trump and his policies regarding immigration, the environment and a host of other issues. Newsom got 59.3 percent of the vote to 40.7 percent for Cox in unofficial reporting.
Newsom’s wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, gave a brief speech, both in English and Spanish, before introducing him as the new governor on Tuesday night, only two hours after the polls closed. She called him to the stage as “the father to our four incredible young children and the next governor of the great state of California.”
“We all are a family and together we will rise,” she said. “You all are welcome in our California family.”
Now is the time for going far and going together. For facts. For trust. For truth. Now is the time for leaders to lead.
This is California’s moment. Incredibly honored and privileged to serve as this great state’s next Governor. pic.twitter.com/DGFcfZOS7d
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) November 7, 2018
Newsom followed the family tone during his speech.
“We don’t separate families and lock kids in cages,” he told supporters, referring to the undocumented families separated at the border earlier this year and taken to detention facilities where children reportedly were kept apart from their parents and held in cages.
He also vowed to make California “a state of results and of refuge” and to protect undocumented students known as Dreamers — such as Joshua, a young Californian he said he met at one of his campaign stops and became his supporter.
“Now is our turn to spend our waking days protecting that dream for every Californian,” Newsom said, referring to Joshua, who he said was an undocumented student protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program who couldn’t vote for him but gave him his support during the campaign.
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