California Gov. Gavin Newsom attends the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials conference in Los Angeles, Tuesday, July 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) Sex and politics make strange bedfellows. Sometimes, revelations of the affair destroy careers; sometimes they make interesting reading, and the scandal blows over.
The latest on the firing line is presidential hopeful Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) of California — just as he lives out his final year as governor — with his erstwhile extramarital lover reviving a 20-year-old tale of forbidden congress.
Newsom is not alone in his infidelity. The Biblical David had seven wives before he met Bathsheba. He also had a few wives afterwards.
When Grover Cleveland ran for president in 1884, Republicans alleged he had sired an illegitimate child. Their slogan was “Ma, ma, where’s my Pa?” When Cleveland won the election, the Democrats had the last laugh, capping off the slogan with “Gone to the White House, Ha, ha, ha.”
Nan Britton claimed she had been the mistress of Warren G. Harding throughout his presidency. She said he was the father of her daughter, a claim his family denied but later confirmed by DNA evidence. Britton said she had intimate relations with Harding in the cloakroom of the White House.
John F. Kennedy’s dalliances are legion. British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan quoted him as having said, “If I don’t have a lay for three days, I get a headache.” When the Washington socialite Mary Pinchot Meyer — said to be the love of his life — was murdered in a Georgetown park the year after he was, conspiracy theories abounded. Her ex-husband was a CIA agent. Another CIA agent broke into her house looking for her diary, which was later burned.
Was the murder a CIA hit to conceal her story of the affair? “Occam’s razor,” the philosophical principle that the simplest explanation is usually the best, was that the murderer was someone who tried to mug Meyer and killed her when she resisted. However, the police botched their investigation, and the only suspect was acquitted. The mystery lives to this day.
Maine Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner was forced to step down because of alleged sexual misconduct. Democrats kept him on the ticket for a while, when in Texas, they were simultaneously attacking Republican Ken Paxton for adulterous behavior. Whether this affects their campaign to flip the Senate remains to be seen.
Newsom’s predecessors have been subjects of sexual scrutiny: John Edwards, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump. The parade never seems to stop. The spotlight even shines on nominees for the Supreme Court. Justice Brett Kavanaugh had to go through a brutal confirmation hearing focused on his allegedly throwing a woman on a bed when he was in high school.
Now, we have Newsom. In a kiss and tell Vanity Fair essay, former aide Ruby Rippey recounts the details of her dalliance with Newsom, a man she says is “often described as Kennedy-esque.” He was single at the time. She was married to Alex Tourk, a close friend serving as Newsom’s reelection campaign manager after working as his deputy chief of staff.
While Rippey has been silent about their liaison until now, it was the talk of the town in 2007 when Newsom was San Francisco’s mayor. But even though he was single, the revelation of his affair rocked California politics because he’d had a relationship with his subordinate and wrecked his close friend’s marriage.
Rippey attributed her years of silence to the advice of Kamala Harris, then the San Francisco district attorney. According to Vanity Fair’s subhead, “In the wreckage of the scandal, Ruby Rippey faced her demons but lost her voice. Twenty years later, she is ready to share her story.”
Rippey wrote that their relationship lasted for months. “I always go to him — his penthouse in Russian Hill, a private back room at a North Beach bar, the W Hotel in Los Angeles.”
Of course, the revelation invites the expected he said-she said. Newsom’s flack released a statement saying: “The governor acknowledged his role and publicly apologized for his conduct nearly two decades ago when he was still mayor. In the time since, he met his wife, started a family and has focused on serving Californians.”
So far, Rippey has refused to be interviewed. She retained the same public relations strategist who acted for Monica Lewinsky and Kristen Cabot, the woman seen on a kiss cam in the arms of her married boss at a Coldplay concert.
In a New York Times story, Cabot denied a sexual relationship with her boss at a data orchestration tech company. She says she was separated from her husband when she took her boss to a rock concert, had two Margaritas and allowed him to embrace her. Yet, a stranger confronted her at a gas pump and said, “Adulterers are the lowest form of human.”
The question is, can Newsom’s presidential ambitions survive the scandal? Does a public figure’s infidelity really matter? Have we become more or less tolerant of philandering than the ancients were in King David’s time? Is public morality possibly revealed by private morality? Can a holder of high public office be the two-faced god Janus, with one face for the hotel room and another for the public?
It’s a key question for 2026 and beyond.
James D. Zirin is a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York and a published legal analyst.
Add as preferred source on Google Tags Alex Tourk bill clinton Brett Kavanaugh California California Gov. Gavin Newsom coldplay democrats Donald Trump Gavin Newsom Gavin Newsom Gavin Newsom affair Graham Platner Graham Platner Allegations Grover Cleveland John Edwards John F. Kennedy Kamala Harris Monica Lewinsky President Grover Cleveland Sexual misconduct Vanity Fair Warren G. HardingCopyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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