The next US presidential election is more than two years away but conservative media have wasted no time attacking expected Democratic contenders. In recent months, they have turned their attention to Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the wife of California’s governor.
In early April, the progressive writer and researcher Kyle Tharp noted that conservative media and influencers were “aggressively resurfacing” old footage of Newsom, a 51-year-old documentary film-maker who has been married to Gavin Newsom for nearly 18 years. The clips, Tharp said, included “rambling, word-salad answers that seem tailor-made to provoke conservative outrage” and made their way from social media to television and radio, leading to a sudden surge in interest in Google search.
