SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Gavin Newsom says there’s no chance “on God’s green earth” he’ll run for president in 2024, but he wants to make it clear that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is running, is “weak” and “undisciplined” and “will be crushed by Donald Trump.”
DeSantis, meanwhile, likes to poke fun at Newsom’s apparent “fixation” on Florida while insisting the Democratic governor’s “leftist government” is destroying California.
Welcome to one of the fiercest rivalries in American politics, with term-limited governors representing opposite ends of the ideological spectrum and leading two of the nation’s largest and most influential states. Newsom and DeSantis almost certainly won’t face each other on the ballot in 2024, but in many ways, they are defining the debate in their corners of America as the presidential primary season gets underway.
Newsom addressed both his disdain for DeSantis and his loyalty to President Joe Biden in a recent interview just as the Florida governor began a two-day fundraising trek that included at least five stops across California. The Golden State has become one of DeSantis’ favorite punching bags as he tries to avoid a direct confrontation with his main Republican presidential rival, Trump, and the former president’s mounting legal challenges.
“He’s deflecting the ball,” Newsom said of DeSantis’ escalating attacks on him. “And that’s not inconsistent with my own assessment of him, which is that he’s a weak candidate, he’s undisciplined, and he’s going to be crushed by Donald Trump, and he’s going to be third or fourth in the national polls soon.”
Representatives for DeSantis did not make the governor available for an interview. Beneath the war of words, however, strategists on both sides suggest there may be a mutually beneficial dynamic at play. While confronting each other’s policies and personalities through comments in the press and on social media, the governors are scoring points with their respective political bases, raising money and expanding their national brands.
Both men issued fundraising appeals on Monday following the other by name.
But not everything is useful.
Newsom, in particular, faces lingering questions about his presidential ambitions less than a week after DeSantis dared him to “stop moving” and launch a primary challenge against Biden.
The California governor, whose second and final term ends at the end of 2026, has seen his national profile rise since easily beating a recall attempt in 2021 and clinching re-election last fall. He finished the midterm campaign with about $16 million in the bank. And in March, he funneled $10 million into a new political action committee he calls the Campaign for Democracy.
All along, Newsom’s team has been moving deliberately to avoid the perception that he is running a shadow presidential campaign just as Biden is ramping up his political activities.
For example, Newsom’s new PAC is initially focusing on challenging Republican incumbents in deep red states that are largely irrelevant in the 2024 presidential race. He campaigned in Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi in April on his first trip associated with the PAC.
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Newsom is expected to avoid battleground states or key presidential primary states for the foreseeable future, his allies say.
At the same time, the California governor and his team have been in regular contact with Biden and his top aides, including Jen O’Malley Dillon, who managed the president’s 2020 campaign and serves as deputy chief of staff to White House A Biden campaign official said the president’s team is coordinating closely with Newsom.
“Newsom is not going to run against Joe Biden and never would. But life is long and Newsom is one of the leading national Democrats. It’s part of that role to have these big national battles,” said Newsom’s adviser and friend of long time, Nathan Ballard, about the fight with DeSantis.
“There’s the 2024 election, and then there’s the 2028 election,” Ballard added.
Indeed, veteran Democratic consultant Roy Behr, whose clients have included former California Sen. Barbara Boxer, said the two governors are engaged in what could become an early advance of the 2028 presidential contest.
“It’s not inconceivable that four years from now, these two guys could be the nominees of their respective parties,” he said. By hooking up with DeSantis, who is 44, Newsom, 55, is building his national brand and visibility and “certainly trying to create opportunities for himself.”
Sacramento-based Democratic consultant Andrew Acosta said he expected the ongoing rivalry to continue as it benefits both politicians with their core supporters. He described Newsom and DeSantis as “enemies.”
“They both get points,” Acosta said. “There’s a hard core of voters on both sides of the aisle who think this is great.”
Although polls show many Democrats don’t want Biden, 80, to seek a second term, Newsom said there are no circumstances under which he would challenge the incumbent from his own party.
“Not on God’s green earth, as the phrase goes,” Newsom said in the weekend interview, adding that he would be with Biden on Monday and a fundraiser for him on Tuesday. “I’ve been pretty consistent, including recently on Fox News, advocating for his candidacy.”
DeSantis was not scheduled to make any public appearances during his California fundraising tour, which included stops in Sacramento and the Bay Area on Monday and continued Tuesday with events planned in San Diego, Orange County and Los Angeles.
Last weekend in Nevada, DeSantis noted that he has seen a wave of “disaffected Californians” moving to Florida.
“Why would you leave as a San Diego to come and say, Jacksonville, Florida? I see people doing that,” DeSantis told thousands of conservative activists at a weekend rally near the California border. “It is because the left-wing government is destroying this state. The leftist government is destroying cities all over our country. It’s destroying other states.”
Former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, who hosted the weekend event and leads the pro-DeSantis super PAC, said the political contrast between Florida and California leaders is “a debate that our whole country must have.”
“California has been the model for many left-wing policies. I would take the contrast between Florida’s policies and their results under Governor DeSantis and California’s policies any day of the week,” Laxalt said in an interview. “We can already see what leftist policies are doing.”
Both DeSantis and Newsom took office in 2019 and won re-election to their second and final terms in 2022. While in office, both have been fueled by multiple billion-dollar budget surpluses and aid of the state institutions controlled by his own party that overloaded his agendas.
In California, Newsom expanded the state’s Medicaid program to cover all eligible adults, regardless of their immigration status. He signed a number of laws to make abortion easier, including authorizing $20 million in state spending to help people from other states travel to California. When the US Supreme Court refused to strike down an abortion law in Texas that was enforced by private lawsuits, Newsom signed a similar law in California, only he did it on guns.
And earlier this month, he proposed amending the U.S. Constitution to institute what he called a “reasonable” waiting period for all gun purchases, a ban on so-called assault rifles, background checks universal background checks and raising the minimum age to purchase a firearm to 21. .
“I think Gavin Newsom is a very useful role for Ron DeSantis, frankly,” said Lanhee Chen, a California Republican who attended one of DeSantis’ five fundraisers in California this week. “The more kinds of crazy things Newsom does, at least crazy in the eyes of Republican voters, the more I think Ron DeSantis benefits frankly as someone who sees that as a counterweight.”
In Florida, DeSantis has leaned on conservative cultural issues in what he calls his “war on awakening.”
Earlier this month, his administration flew groups of migrants from Texas to Sacramento to draw attention to the influx of Latin American immigrants trying to cross the US-Mexico border. He did the same last fall, sending dozens of Texas immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard, which he often highlights during his speeches.
DeSantis also signed and later expanded the Parents’ Rights in Education bill, known by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, which prohibits classroom instruction or discussion of LGBTQ+ issues in Florida public schools for all grades. He took control of Disney World’s governing body after the company publicly opposed the law.
Florida’s governor also signed a law this year banning abortion at six weeks, which is before most women realize they are pregnant. And he took control of a liberal arts college he believed was indoctrinating students with leftist ideology.
While DeSantis doesn’t have the legal entanglements Trump faces, Newsom said Democrats may be wrong to assume the former president would be an easier candidate to defeat in the 2024 general election.
“I see a deep weakness, I refer to it often, weakness with DeSantis masquerading as strength,” Newsom said. “I think he would be a more favored candidate. But I will leave that judgment to more objective minds.”
By STEVE PEOPLES and MICHAEL R. BLOOD. Associated Press writers Adam Beam in Sacramento and Michelle Price in New York contributed.
