Govs. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and Gavin Newsom‘s (D-CA) red vs. blue state debate battle royale promised to deliver political fireworks, and it was like the Fourth of July.
The debate, televised without an audience and slower in pace than its 2024 Republican counterparts, allowed DeSantis to differentiate himself from his primary opponents and Newsom to introduce himself to a general election audience should he run for president in the future.
DESANTIS GOES FOR ‘HAIL MARY’ IN HIGH-RISK DEBATE AGAINST NEWSOM
Here are the Washington Examiner’s top four takeaways:
DeSantis had a good night
DeSantis has improved in the Republican primary debates over the course of his campaign and had a strong performance against Newsom.
Despite appearing awkward at times, DeSantis had a solid opening, criticizing Newsom and other blue state governors, several of whom have lost residents to red ones.
“You almost have to try to mess California up,” DeSantis said. “They actually, at one point. ran out of U-Hauls in the state of California because so many people were leaving!”
“He’s imposed restrictions on his own people while exempting himself from those restrictions and going to The French Laundry while his people were suffering,” he added.
DeSantis’s responses also included anecdotes from people he has met during the election cycle, in addition to a pandemic-era story about Newsom’s father-in-law, who now lives in Florida.
“These liberal elites, they like to impose burdens on you,” he said. “They don’t want to have to face the consequences of their actions.”
The debate was a “throwback” to a more traditional time before former President Donald Trump’s presence on the political scene, according to University of Michigan debate director Aaron Kall.
“This will provide DeSantis with practice and momentum heading into next week’s Alabama debate,” he told the Washington Examiner of the fourth primary debate. “DeSantis can now say he’s gone toe-to-toe on a debate stage with the Democratic governor of California, which is good preparation for general election debates with President [Joe] Biden.”
Newsom had a tough crowd
With Fox News as the host, Newsom was aware he would have to answer harder questions than DeSantis, with anchor Sean Hannity interfering less when DeSantis interrupted Newsom than vice versa.
Newsom went into the “lion’s den” to debate both DeSantis and moderator Hannity, according to Kall.
“Newsom was effective tonight in defending the legislative record of the Biden-[Vice President Kamala] Harris administration while simultaneously raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for the campaign,” he said. “High-profile events like tonight’s will put Newsom in an excellent position to be one of the Democratic Party’s top standard bearers heading into the 2028 presidential election.”
Republican strategist Cesar Conda countered that the debate will make Democrats “even more depressed.”
“Gavin Newsom is far more articulate than Joe Biden, who everyone knows would get destroyed by [former U.N. Ambassador Nikki] Haley, DeSantis, or Trump in a presidential debate,” he said. “Newsom has become the leading ‘break glass in case of emergency’ Democratic nominee should something happen to Biden.”
Regardless, Newsom persevered, criticizing DeSantis for weaponizing “grievance” during his bid and “focusing on false separateness.”
“There’s one thing, in closing, that we have in common, is neither of us will be the nominee for our party in 2024,” he said to DeSantis.
Newsom hugged Biden
Newsom underscored his support of Biden and his record before next year’s election during his opening remarks, going on to defend the president against criticism regarding his age and economic policies, rebranded as Bidenomics.
DeSantis seized on Newsom’s strategy, anchoring him to Biden and Harris amid their poor polling.
“I’ll give Gavin credit — he did at least admit in his first answer he’s joined at the hip with Biden and Harris,” DeSantis said.
One of DeSantis and Newsom’s most cacophonous clashes concerned DeSantis’s claims Newsom is running a shadow 2024 campaign against Biden.
“I thought this guy was running for president of the United States,” Newsom said.
“You are too. You just won’t admit it,” DeSantis replied.
Immigration, education, and freedom
Aside from their dissection of each other’s leadership during the pandemic, DeSantis and Newsom’s most memorable exchanges centered on immigration, education, and freedom.
Newsom criticized DeSantis for “lying” to immigrants before “using human beings as pawns” and sending them to places such as Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, and his home state’s capital of Sacramento.
“I’m the only guy here that is a border state governor,” he said. “You’re trolling folks trying to find migrants to play political games, to get some news, so you can out-Trump Trump, and by the way … how is that going for you, Ron? You’re down 41 points in your own home state.”
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DeSantis came prepared with props, including Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer: A Memoir and a graphic from an app that tracks where human feces has been found in Newsom’s hometown of San Francisco.
“California does have freedoms that some people don’t, that other states don’t,” he said. “You have the freedom to defecate in public in California, you have the freedom to pitch a tent on Sunset Boulevard, you have the freedom to create a homeless encampment under a freeway.”
