Both are governors, rising stars and speculated recent presidential candidates, building micro-ideological models in their sunny capitals.
In perennially blue California, Newsom, the son of a state appeals judge, has rebooted from his beginnings as a brash progressive hero around quieter legislative strains. Meanwhile, in red-hot Florida, there’s DeSantis, the son of a Nielsen box salesman, who publicly attaches himself less to his two Ivy League degrees than to the anti-elitist, reactionary politics that have engulfed the Republican Party.
Newsom is now going on the air against DeSantis in Florida — in what he says is not the first ad of the 2024 or even 2028 presidential race — to try to get Democrats to regain a sense of collective identity that may allow them to defeat Trumpism in the long run.
With $105,000 on Fox News, Newsom’s new ad, first given to CNN and airing on July 4, is a mix of a classic commercial, a business investment ad and one of those California tourism commercials full of celebrities who say how much better it is there, enveloped in the existential dread that shakes progressives these days.
“It’s Independence Day — so let’s talk about what’s going on in America,” Newsom says in the ad, standing in the California sun, tie-less, as “America the Beautiful” taps in the background. “Freedom is under attack in your country.”
Those last words flashed across the screen in red, followed by a photo of DeSantis shaking hands with former President Donald Trump, then another photo of the Florida governor as Newsom went through Florida’s book-banning and voting-restriction laws. speech and access to abortion.
“I urge all of you living in Florida to join the fight — or join us in California, where we still believe in freedom: freedom of speech, freedom of choice, freedom from hate and freedom to love,” Newsom said. with images continuing from an aerial shot of the Santa Monica Pier to a rainbow flag waving in the arms of two embracing women. “Don’t let them take your freedom away.”
The ad was paid for by Newsom’s re-election campaign, though it’s clearly not to drum up potential absentee voters who have retreated to the Sunshine State for what is expected to be an easy victory for the California governor in November.
“He’s running for president,” Newsom told CNN last week. “I care about people. I don’t like people being treated as less than they are. I don’t like people being told they are not worthy. I don’t like people being used as political pawns. It’s not just him, but he’s the poster child for it.”
“We’re as different,” Newsom said of both governors and their states, “as day and night.”
Over the course of a 20-minute phone interview, Newsom called DeSantis a bully, a fraud, an authoritarian, a fake conservative, a traitor to Ronald Reagan’s legacy, and “DeSantos” several times.
“Everybody has parts of the playbook,” Newsom said, comparing DeSantis to other Republicans. “He writes it.”
DeSantis declined an interview request, but those around him say he’s happy about this fight.
“Gavin Newsom might as well set a pile of money on fire,” said DeSantis campaign spokesman Dave Abrams. “Pass the popcorn for his desperate attempt to get back the California refugees who fled the hell he created in his home state to come to Florida.”
The feud between the two governors has been building for months. DeSantis said California is allowing a “coercive biomedical apparatus” to lead its lockdown-heavy Covid-19 approach, and he called San Francisco — a city Newsom once led — “a dumpster fire.” Newsom said DeSantis’ approach to the pandemic would have killed an additional 40,000 Californians and that he was “not looking for inspiration for this particular governor.”
It’s also a matter of style. When Newsom was caught going barefaced to a birthday party at an exclusive restaurant in Napa Valley in November 2020, he coyly apologized. When DeSantis was spotted without a mask at the Super Bowl months later in February 2021, he blurted out, “How the hell am I going to be able to drink beer with a mask?” His campaign put the quote on a koozie and sold it online.
DeSantis on the rise
DeSantis’ popularity among Republicans soared during the pandemic, when he defied medical experts and pushed Florida toward normalcy months before the rest of the country. DeSantis welcomed comparisons between the laissez-faire approach of Florida and California, where leaders imposed mask mandates and lockdowns dictated by public health indicators such as case rates.
Look no further than how each state handled its House of Mouse. Disney World, outside Orlando, reopened in July 2020, just as Florida became the epicenter of the country’s deadly summer of Covid-19. Disneyland in Anaheim, California is cautiously welcoming visitors about 10 months later in April 2021.
Wide differences in approach became fodder for the two governors.
In a recent interview with conservative political commentator Dave Rubin, DeSantis recalled a fundraising trip to California in June 2021 (he received more donations from Golden State residents than from any other state except Florida, and most of them were $100 or less) . He had made it a point to tell staff that he would not be following any Covid-19 restrictions while in the state, and recalled an incident that he said showed how much he resonated there.
“These two masked guys came running at me,” DeSantis said. “I was like, ‘Oh my God. Here we are.” A man stands right in front of me, takes off his mask, looks me straight in the eye and says, ‘I wish you were our governor.’
If DeSantis vs. Newsom ever moves beyond a shouting match and becomes a real campaign, Florida Republicans believe they have the best winning argument: Florida is a growing state and California’s population is declining, though there’s a long way to go before the two catch up side by side; Florida has more than 21 million residents and California has about 40 million.
“We have a working product in Florida,” said Christian Ziegler, vice chairman of the Florida GOP. “The No. 1 way you can measure the success of states is the economy, job performance and people moving into or out of the states. And Florida State is winning that battle. They lose people. People are fleeing California. a lot of them come to Florida.”
But unlike Texas leaders, who cheer every time a Silicon Valley company sets up shop in the Lone Star State, DeSantis has recently urged California CEOs to stay away from Florida for fear that a progressive wave of tech workers will offset the Republican Party sanctuary he is building. When other Republican leaders in Florida publicly courted Elon Musk to move Twitter to the Sunshine State, DeSantis fired back, saying, “They’re happy about our lower taxes, but you know what they’re actually providing?”
Newsom pushes back
For California’s governor, it goes deeper than a personal grudge or a political game, as he pushes legislation and lawsuits that veer from the right direction of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions and further embrace the “Republic of California” on the state flag.
DeSantis isn’t the only GOP target. The California governor joined Trump’s social media site for the sole purpose of trolling the former president and his supporters. He repeatedly jabbed Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and tweeted a line aimed at Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who signaled last month that he would be comfortable defending the state’s defunct sodomy law if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns its decision of 2003 to repeal the statute.
“Hell thing. Not to mention during Pride Month,” Newsom wrote. “Hey corporate America – where are your values? Stand up to these hateful states and come to California.”
Newsom insists he’s not picking on President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi when he says he’s trying to push his party to become angrier and more active. He called the hearings held by the House Special Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol a “master class,” but said Democrats need to look beyond Trump and how Trumpism is evolving. After spending much of the pandemic watching and reading right-wing media, Newsom said he became increasingly alarmed to see how much it was taking root.
“My expression is one of frustration, watching it for many years, in many ways predating the current climate and the current administration,” Newsom said in the interview. “The success of the right to set the terms of the debate, the success of the right to dominate the narrative … they are winning in ways that are troubling to me.”
The ad, he promised, would be the start of much more to come.
“Things have changed, the rules of engagement have to change,” Newsom said. “You must bear the battle with them.”
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