Gov. Gavin Newsom of California has reached the conclusion that his party needs to embrace the mainstream after spending the year examining why Democrats suffered steep losses in 2024.

“We have to be more culturally normal,” Mr. Newsom said Wednesday at the DealBook Summit. “We have to be a little less judgmental.”

Mr. Newsom has long touted California’s role at the cultural and economic vanguard, as a bastion of diversity that has fostered creative expression and expansive rights for immigrants and L.G.B.T.Q. people. But he now seems to be positioning himself as a 2028 presidential candidate who has to appeal well beyond his own state.

Mr. Newsom himself rose to national prominence two decades ago by marrying same-sex couples in defiance of federal and state law when he was the mayor of San Francisco. At the time, many Democratic politicians felt Mr. Newsom was pushing the party too far beyond accepted norms in American society.

On Wednesday, he was the one calling for Democrats to moderate some of their positions.

“We have to be a party that understands the importance and power of the border, substantively and politically,” he said, adding that Democrats need to develop a “compelling economic vision for the future where people feel included.”

Mr. Newsom currently tops many early polls for the 2028 Democratic nomination. Asked by Andrew Ross Sorkin, DealBook’s founder, about the buzz around his front-runner status, Mr. Newsom said he was “humbled” by it, but that he’s not evaluating a bid for the presidency “to the degree that you think.”

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