California Gov. Gavin Newsom launched a national campaign on Thursday to counter the GOP agenda, announcing that he is heading out to “take the fight to states where freedom is most under attack.”

The Democratic governor transferred $10 million of his state campaign funds

to a new federal political action committee called the “Campaign for Democracy,” which he said he set up to boost Democrats and push back Republican leaders who “ban books,” “kidnap migrants” and “foment racism”

for

for the 2024 elections.

“What happens in those red states, it’s not who we are,” Newsom said in a new campaign video. “It’s un-American. It’s undemocratic, and all it takes to fight back is a willingness to stand toe-to-toe and say ‘enough.'”

Newsom is political

advisors

said

the governor

he plans to go with his wife and children to the

Republican controlled

The states of Mississippi, Arkansas and Alabama begin this weekend.

The move expands Newsom’s role in America’s culture wars as a champion for the left at a time when many view him as a future presidential candidate. Newsom, who denies

Presidential White House

ambitions, has used his California lectern to champion abortion, immigrant and LGBTQ rights, which

That

be attacked

a lot of red

states.

Last summer huh

placed ads in Florida,

Urging Flordians to “join us in California, where we still believe in freedom

.

“Hey sponsored

billboards in seven states

with the most restrictive abortion laws, women living there tell California will defend your right to make decisions about your own health. The new campaign is the latest effort in Newsom’s increasingly confrontational pattern

taking his messages outside of California.

It

also gives the governor a chance to build an infrastructure to reach Democratic voters and donors on a national scale. Nathan Click, a spokesman for the governor, said the campaign took place

already

raised money from donors in 50 states.

“He’s building something that fills a huge, dangerous gap in the Democratic Party,” said Mike Madrid, a Republican political adviser. “He’s trying to unite the Democrats

P

arty in a united front, and there’s no better way to do it.”

Madrid founded and has since left an organization called the Lincoln Project, which was created as a Republican force to counter the former president

Donald

Trump. He said the Democrats have not risen to match the “right-wing media echo chamber” on a national scale. Through social media and conservative media outlets, Republicans have been able to tell a story and mobilize voters across the country.

“While it didn’t help them build a majority, it certainly radicalized much of the American public,” Madrid said. “Democrats don’t have that at all.”

Newsom’s campaign gives him the chance to “go right in the belly of the beast

,

”

Madrid said,

to talk about the

the same

Issues he’s been outspoken about in California and to check the story the GOP has been selling in red states.

While Madrid and others don’t believe Newsom would challenge Biden, the move helps

news sum

the governor is building his brand in case Biden doesn’t make a request

–

elections or for future presidential campaigns.

Newsom’s new campaign video contrasts clips of controversial GOP figures

,

like Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and

Arkansas

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, with himself and his family during the well-choreographed “People’s March” at his inauguration in 2023.

from Newsom

The governor is political

team strategists

said

the governor

he plans to use his campaign to help Democrats up and down the vote in 2024

targeting deep red states

.

Click said

Governor Newsom

plans to meet

in Alabama

with Bryan Stevenson, a civil rights attorney whose work to change the criminal justice system was portrayed in the 2019 film ‘Just Mercy’.

in Alabama.

Stevenson heads the Equal Justice Initiative, based in Montgomery, and has been an influential figure in Newsom’s work to oppose the death penalty.

Newsom described a conversation with Stevenson in 2019 when the new

–

announced governor

to make

a moratorium on the deal penalty in California.

I spoke to Bryan Stevenson, which everyone should spend time talking to Bryan Stevenson and he made a point that he has made on many, many occasions, Newsom said at the time.

And it just struck a chord. He said it’s not about the death penalty whether people deserve to die for their heinous deeds. The question really is, do we have the right to kill?” Newsom said. “That’s a deep and existential question, and I don’t think we have that.

In Arkansas, he will meet high school students who have fought against

huccabee

Sanders’ education reforms, Click said.

news sum

supported her Democratic opponent Chris Jones

in his race against Huckabee Sanders last year.

Newsom also meets in Mississippi with Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, who is fighting against his own GOP-controlled legislature.

in Mississippi.

“He puts his money where his mouth is,” Click said. “He goes to the places where these attacks on freedom and rights are not an academic issue and helps local leaders who oppose them.”

Sacramento Bureau Chief Laurel Rosenhall contributed to this report.