Gavin Newsom knows the popular image of him is of a smooth talker with slicked-back hair, the wealthy liberal who co-owns a vineyard.

He knows, regarding the presidential ambitions he’s hardly hiding, that the biggest question he would face out of the gate is whether he could sell Americans on wanting California to represent their future rather than seeing it as the place where the wackiest liberal dreams go to run wild.

The redistricting fight that Newsom and the state legislature are launching Monday could, he and his inner circle believe, give him all the rebuttals he needs.