Following a publicized campaign reboot, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has begun to find some success in breaking through a media environment dominated by former President Donald Trump’s legal troubles by taking on a high profile surrogate of President Joe Biden’s 2024 campaign.
On Wednesday, DeSantis accepted a request to debate Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), who has been a vocal critic of his administration in Florida. The California governor first challenged DeSantis to the face off last year.
BIDEN AND REPUBLICANS DUKE IT OUT TO DEFINE THE ECONOMY
The move successfully generated non-Trump related headlines, as did a recent back and forth with Vice President Kamala Harris over Florida’s black history education standards. DeSantis challenged Harris to a debate as well, but she refused.
The two instances illustrate DeSantis’s attempt to shift national focus away from Trump’s various legal battles and position himself against Biden and his allies, according to political analysts.
After accepting the debate from Newsom, DeSantis’s campaign sent out a surrogate messaging guidance detailing the decision. According to the memo obtained by the Washington Examiner, the event isn’t to determine which state’s policies are more effective, as “that debate has already been settled.”
Rather, “Ron DeSantis is debating Gavin Newsom to highlight the choice facing American voters next year. The Left wants America to follow the path of California’s decline—Ron DeSantis wants to reignite the American Dream, restore sanity, and ensure our nation’s best days are ahead.”
The Washington Examiner understands that DeSantis intends to take every opportunity that comes his way to present to the country what he believes the ultimate choice to be in 2024: decline or revival. This may come in the form of confronting prominent Biden adjacent figures such as Harris and Newsom.
This strategy could be hit or miss for the Florida Republican, according to political strategists and pollsters. While some praised the idea as a smart move in an unusual media environment, others dismissed it as desperate.
According to Republican strategist Ron Bonjean, this is “a smart strategy to impress voters” but only so long as “he can prove that he is effective at scoring points against a leading Democratic player.”
Fellow GOP strategist David Kochel agreed, noting, “The new Trump indictment sucks up all the oxygen, and I think anything these campaigns can do to gain some of the market share of coverage and media is smart.”
“I think right now DeSantis is struggling and scrambling to get some air. So to do something like this could help at least provide him some headlines that get away from Trump, which is what he desperately needs,” said pollster Doug Usher.
However, he added, “You just don’t look presidential when you go up against people who aren’t running for president.”
One Democratic strategist claimed, “A campaign that is going well and is surging, or at least heading in the right direction, doesn’t accept an invitation from a governor to debate on Fox News. He’s doing it because it’s like all he’s got left to do.”
The Trump campaign agreed with this characterization, referring the Washington Examiner to a tweet from senior adviser Jason Miller in which he compares the debate to the National Invitational Tournament, which is an event for Division I men’s college basketball teams that are not selected to participate in the NCAA Tournament.
As to why Newsom is game for the debate and has been for months, the California governor told supporters in an email from his PAC Campaign for Democracy that he challenged DeSantis because “he is a total fraud and the world needs to see it.”
He further assured recipients that he intends to advocate and defend “the Biden agenda and accomplishments from DeSantis’ attacks” before urging them to donate to the president’s campaign.
According to sources familiar with the Biden campaign’s thinking, Newsom has kept the president’s team in the loop each step of the way. The campaign views the debate as part of its larger surrogate effort, which the California governor serves as a high-profile and effective component of.
While Biden’s reelection campaign sees the debate as an effective platform to show voters that Republicans, as a whole, have become extreme, one GOP strategist says the contrast between the two men could also work in DeSantis’s favor.
Kochel explained that Newsom is a “good foil” for the Florida governor. And, he said, with the unprecedented news cycle, DeSantis needs to find ways to get coverage. According to him, if DeSantis takes on “one of the most liberal, progressive, woke governors in the country” and does well, “it’ll get attention, and I think it’ll help them a lot.”
Bonjean echoed this, adding that “DeSantis is doing anything he can to get GOP voters to pay attention to him as a credible alternative to Trump.”
But, Usher said, looking for attention in this way isn’t necessarily beneficial. “I don’t think he can reframe this as anything but him vs. Trump because that’s who he has to beat, and he’s in a terribly bad position,” he explained. “But he’s looking for any way to get attention.”
Regardless of whether the debate will work to the benefit or detriment of DeSantis, he predicted, “People will watch because there’s an appetite for anything of interest.” However, “the people that will watch something like this are totally decided voters. It’ll likely be more left-wing progressives looking to see somebody attack DeSantis to his face.”
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In a letter to Fox News’s Sean Hannity, Newsom outlined rules for the debate. The showdown is to be hosted in studio by Fox News and moderated solely by Hannity. The California governor also noted that there are to be no other speakers but himself and DeSantis and no audience present. The debate will additionally need to be aired live, something Fox News usually avoids with presidential candidate town hall events. Further, the event will be 90 minutes long, with Hannity ensuring that each candidate has equal time and is not interrupted. No prepared documents should be allowed on the stage, per Newsom.
He proposed two dates in November for the program, which evidently has been accepted by DeSantis, whose team sent out a promotional text on Friday advertising the debate with Newsom during the fall month.
