DeSantis-Newsom debate: A campaign sideshow in the spotlight
Call it the “Debate Me Please” showdown.
Florida’s Ron DeSantis, 45, and California’s Gavin Newsom, 56, two relatively youthful governors adept at seeking — and finding — the spotlight, will face off in a nationally televised debate in Alpharetta on Thursday at 9 p.m. Eastern , Georgia, in suburb of Atlanta. Both made the case for this matchup, and now they have it.
They all have agendas, both short-term and longer-term, and political challenges they hope to tackle during their 90-minute meeting. Republican DeSantis must halt his presidential campaign a week before the fourth Republican primary debate and less than seven weeks before the Iowa caucuses. Mr. Newsom, the Democrat, must boost the fortunes of his president, Joseph R. Biden Jr., and prove in the short term that he is a team player and in the medium term that his appeal can extend beyond the liberal enclaves. of the West Coast.
With Donald J. Trump still with a wide lead amid Republicans’ 2024 nominating contests, and Mr. Biden determined to seek re-election, both men could also be eyeing the 2028 presidential race, though neither would admit it. They have presented themselves as the fresh, new avatars of their respective ideologies and possibly the future of their political parties. Now that they have used each other as a counterweight for years, the debate could be a culmination of their long-running public feud.
Here’s what to watch.
The higher stakes for DeSantis
Mr. DeSantis has a lot more to offer than his verbal sparring partner at this point.
The first three Republican presidential debates featured crowded stages, some verbal brawls, often involving 38-year-old entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and not much from Mr. DeSantis. Thursday night will be one-on-one, and with a friendly moderator, Sean Hannity, for the Republican on stage.
Mr. DeSantis’s poll numbers have fallen, leaving him seeking prominence at every opportunity, including the debate against Mr. Newsom. Now Mr. DeSantis, who once preferred to ensconce himself in the friendly bubble of conservative media, has become almost a fixture on mainstream broadcast networks.
He has also repeatedly challenged his top rivals for the Republican nomination to debate him, hoping to generate momentum and attention, though his appearances on stage so far have done little to change the dynamics of the race. But Mr. Trump has refused to appear at the GOP debates, saying they were not worth his time given his lead in the polls. And former Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina, who has trailed or overtaken Mr. DeSantis in many early polls and has been busy building support among influential Republican donors, turned down his recent offer of a one-on-one matchup.
Voters in Iowa will head to the caucuses on January 15 to cast the first ballots of the primary season. Mr. DeSantis has secured coveted endorsements from the state’s governor, Kim Reynolds, and an influential evangelical leader, Bob Vander Plaats. Now he must win over more Republican voters if he hopes to catch Trump and advance his campaign ahead of tougher primaries in New Hampshire and South Carolina.
There will be no partisan audience that will influence viewers’ perceptions, but Mr. Newsom fully expects that Mr. Hannity will level the playing field: “We have no illusions; this will be a two-on-one game with the referee in the bag for the home team,” said Nathan Click, a spokesman for Newsom.
If the moderator keeps the Democrat on the defensive on policy, Mr. DeSantis could use the 90 minutes on Fox to combat his awkward, aloof and sometimes canned image. Supporters of DeSantis say this is the moment for him to emphasize the stakes for the Republican Party in a debate not about marginal policy differences among Republicans, like the primary debates, but about starkly different visions of the future. If he can defeat Mr. Newsom, he can bask in the victory of a united party, if only for one night.
“Ron DeSantis will take this responsibility seriously and looks forward to sharing the stark contrast between his vision to revitalize our nation and Newsom’s blueprint for failure,” said Mr. DeSantis’ campaign manager, James Uthmeier.
A top Biden surrogate in the spotlight
In political circles it is self-evident that the governor of California has his sights set on the highest office in the land.
“It’s very clear that he’s running for president right now,” said Jessica Patterson, chair of the Republican Party of California. “He’s elevating himself to a national level trying to beat Ron DeSantis. He takes every opportunity he gets to be on the national stage.”
Perhaps so, but as long as Mr. Biden wants to be re-elected, Mr. Newsom’s job on that stage will be to defend the president’s record. Nothing else would elevate Mr. Newsom more in the eyes of his own party than helping keep a Democrat in the White House next year — and Mr. Trump out.
But to be a credible surrogate, Mr. Newsom cannot pose as an elite, West Coast liberal who is out of touch with the concerns of voters in key swing states far from California, such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia .
Can Hannity keep the focus on policy?
Mr. Hannity sees the showdown not as a substitute for a presidential debate, but as an opportunity for the governors of the nation’s first and third largest states to defend and highlight the widely differing policies governing those states.
“I think both governors really have an opportunity to present their political philosophy and ideology and why they govern the way they do,” he said in an interview.
They would have a lot to discuss: Florida’s growing economy with low taxes versus California’s dominance in areas like technology and electric vehicles, but battling Republican states that are taking away their businesses; university systems with varying approaches to political expression and influence; California’s hands-on approach to climate change, including an eventual ban on internal combustion engines, versus Florida’s laissez-faire attitude, even as it is ravaged by stronger, more frequent hurricanes and coastal flooding.
Mr. DeSantis enjoyed talking about his record in Florida. He often brags about how many California residents there are moving to Florida, claiming that Mr. Newsom’s “left-wing” policies are responsible. Mr. DeSantis once said that Mr. Newsom had treated Californians as “farmers”During the corona pandemic. He filmed a campaign advertisement in San Francisco depicted the city as some kind of dystopia, with Mr. DeSantis saying he had seen people using drugs and “relieving themselves in the streets.”
Mr. Newsom hasn’t held back either. During Mr. DeSantis’ re-election campaign, he placed a targeted ad on the Florida airwaves criticize Mr. DeSantis’ policies and recently implemented another policy offensive the six-week abortion ban signed by Florida’s governor. He has called Mr. DeSantis is “weak” and “undisciplined” and said he would be “crushed” by Mr. Trump in the Republican Party primaries. After Mr. DeSantis sent planeloads of migrants from the southern border to Sacramento this year, Mr. Newsom suggested his counterpart in Florida could face kidnapping allegationscalled him a “little, pathetic man.”
Mr. Newsom still sees the evening as “a way to highlight and bring more scrutiny to Mr. DeSantis’ authoritarianism,” Mr. Click said.
But both men have said their more pressing target for this debate is the White House, not the State House.
“We are focused on defending the President and contrasting the President’s record with Ron DeSantis’ record of taking away basic freedoms we have come to take for granted over the past fifty years,” said Mr Click, listing abortion, freedom of speech and freedom of expression. voting rights.
Location, location, location
The Newsom camp has made great use of the California governor’s willingness to venture into hostile territory and deliver his message to Republican voters. And just a decade ago, the northern areas of Fulton County, Georgia, where the debate was held, qualified as such.
Not anymore. Most of North Fulton has turned Democratic over the past eight years as the population has diversified and many suburban Republicans led by Trump have shied away from the party’s leadership. Mr Trump secured a victory in the zip code where the debate will be held, although his margin fell by almost 5 percentage points. But surrounding zip code 30005 are blue areas, a testament to Georgia’s arrival on the national stage as a veritable presidential battleground.
Both camps said they wanted the debate in Georgia (Mr. DeSantis will campaign in neighboring South Carolina on Friday). Fox News chose the location, a battlefield within a battlefield.
Adam Nagourney reporting contributed.