As the country celebrated Independence Day this week – with large swaths of the population divided by recent Supreme Court decisions, record inflation stinging consumers’ wallets and the nation rocked by more mass shootings – polls showed that Americans are in agreement on one thing: that the country is headed in the wrong direction.
But in California and Florida, a Democratic and a Republican governor show two distinct paths forward.
Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis have for months – if not years – courted a political rivalry, even if it was only an implied one. In recent weeks, the contrasts between the two have come to the fore, as pitched political battles felt nationally have perhaps been most prominently on display in the starkly different realities in which the two states are operating – and in the fringes of the parties where each governor stakes his claim.
“This is sort of a proxy war, if you will, for a broader fight between the Democratic vision of the country and a Republican vision of the country,” says Steven Webster, a professor of political science at Indiana University who studies the nature of political behavior and public opinion in the U.S.
It’s a fight that seems to have become more urgent – and more personal – in recent weeks.
Newsom upped the ante in an advertisement that made headlines this week, targeting the GOP – and, in particular, DeSantis.
“Freedom, it’s under attack in your state,” the Democrat says in the advertisement released in Florida on Independence Day, citing moves from Republican leaders in the state to ban books, impose restrictions on voting, limit classroom discussion of certain topics and roll back access to abortions as footage of DeSantis speaking at a podium and shaking hands with former President Donald Trump plays.
“I urge all of you living in Florida to join the fight, or join us in California,” Newsom said. “Where we still believe in freedom: freedom of speech, freedom to choose, freedom from hate and the freedom to love.”
“Don’t let them take your freedom,” he said.
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Just as Newsom paints DeSantis and the moves of his GOP colleagues as extreme, DeSantis has taunted Newsom’s state in recent months for its liberal policies, while his spokesperson called the advertisement a “desperate attempt to win back the California refugees who fled the hellhole he created in his state to come to Florida.”
According to Webster, both Democrats and Republicans tend to perceive the other side as being more extreme than they actually are and regularly campaign against the other party by pointing to their fringes. But with the fall of Roe v. Wade, he says, “We see states really become further divided along political lines. And so, in some respects, you see Newsom and DeSantis as these archetypes of a Democratic state and a Republican state.”
In the last week, at least three of the controversial policies Newsom pointed to in his advertisement took effect in Florida – the legislation dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by opponents that bans classroom instruction of sexual orientation or gender identity in some age groups, the “Stop WOKE” act, which bans the teaching of Critical Race Theory in classrooms and a ban on abortion beyond 15 weeks of pregnancy – DeSantis-backed policies he has heralded in his effort to make the state the “freest state in America.”
“While so many around the country have consigned the peoples’ rights to the graveyard, Florida has stood as freedom’s vanguard,” DeSantis said during his State of the State address before the state legislature in January, where he outlined legislative priorities including cracking down on immigration and safeguarding Second Amendment rights in addition to the abortion and school curriculum policies.
Meanwhile, in California, Newsom has packaged the state as a “safe haven” for abortion, while committing to protecting the rights of LGBTQ Californians, expanding funding through Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program, to include people in the country illegally and imposing some of the strictest gun control measures in the nation to combat a string of gun violence in recent weeks.
The two leaders appear to be operating in different realities.
“We’re as different,” Newsom told CNN, pointing to the governors and their states, “as daylight and darkness.”
That divide was especially evident when DeSantis signed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill into law. Billed as a parental rights policy despite claims from those in opposition saying it targets LGBTQ individuals, DeSantis touted it during a press conference in March for giving parents a voice in their childrens’ education, declaring, “in Florida, we no longer know that parents have a right to be involved, we insist that parents have a right to be involved.”
Newsom, on the other hand, said on Twitter that the bill was “born out of a LIE – that people ‘become gay’ by talking about it,” warning that it will harm LGBTQ children and criticizing the move as “monstrous.”
“I think both parties truly believe that what they’re doing is expanding freedom for the people that live in their states,” Webster says. “The fact that they had this belief, even though they’re doing drastically different things, really underscores how divided and how polarized the country is.”
The two governors, who took office a day apart in 2019, have gained prominence within their parties and a national profile. But as Newsom acknowledged, they otherwise couldn’t be more different.
“I think (Newsom’s) political career really begins during the time of when California kind of leads the way on on gay marriage,” says Tom Hogen-Esch, chair of political science at California State University Northridge, pointing to when as mayor of San Francisco in 2004, Newsom unilaterally ordered the city clerk to marry same-sex couples just a month into his term. When Newsom ran for governor in his second attempt more than a decade later, he won handily, at the age of 51, succeeding long-time California Gov. Jerry Brown, and was expected to pursue an even more progressive agenda for the state.
Across the country, DeSantis, who marked the beginning of his career with a penchant against Barack Obama, eked out a narrow win against the Democratic mayor of Tallahassee at the age of 40 in a then-more purple state after representing the state’s 6th District in Congress, where he was elected to three terms. But since then, DeSantis has gained steam rapidly, possessing some of the same brash, anti-establishment politics and style of Trump, even in a state that was until recently considered a battleground, with deeply entrenched political differences.
“What I think is really kind of difficult to explain is how successful DeSantis has been as a politician by not bridging those divisions but rather by accentuating them,” Hogen-Esch says.
When the coronavirus pandemic emerged early on in the governors’ tenure, as a national divide came about over mitigations, the two leaders appeared as beacons within their party, solidifying the line in the sand between their methods of governing.
While Newsom embraced the Biden administration’s COVID-19 recommendations, or took them even further, DeSantis unsurprisingly clashed with the White House over mask and vaccine policies.
The pushback became a central part of DeSantis’ platform, flouting federal recommendations in the name of personal freedom. Meanwhile, Newsom was observed defying his own masking recommendations when he attended a dinner party in 2020, fueling a recall election last year.
But after winning the recall with similar margins to the election that made him governor, Newsom is “riding high,” Hogen-Esch says, “and I think he’s feeling emboldened.”
That may explain why Newsom’s voice has been among the loudest in a chorus of outcry from Democratic leaders over recent Supreme Court decisions, including the rollback of abortion rights and another decision making it easier to carry guns in public spaces in some states.
“Where the hell is my party?” Newsom said after a draft opinion leaked in May suggesting the Supreme Court was poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, amid calls from Democrats for Biden to do more.
“I think there’s certainly a demand among Democrats to see Joe Biden and Kamala Harris exhibit more of this behavior,” Webster says. “I think there’s this sort of desire for a fighter, somebody who Democrats and the Democratic base perceive as defending their values and their ideals.”
Now, as Newsom and DeSantis face reelection this fall with easy wins expected, the pair all but certainly have presidential ambitions, as they continue to grab their parties’ – and the nation’s – attention.
But Newsom’s path to the White House would be a fraught one, where he would likely have to challenge Vice President Kamala Harris, another California politician, for the nomination if Biden decided against a reelection campaign. Meanwhile, Newsom has vehemently denied that he plans to run for president, saying he has “subzero interest.”
DeSantis’ path forward, however, may possess fewer hurdles. In his reelection campaign for governor, DeSantis has been clear that he doesn’t need Trump, bucking an endorsement perhaps in an attempt to launch a presidential bid. But even with a massive pool of donations, which could possibly be diverted from seeking gubernatorial reelection to a run for the White House, he continues to say he’s focused on Florida, even as some straw polls project him beating out Trump.
“It’s fairly possible that Joe Biden steps aside. And I think it’s also fairly possible that Donald Trump is not able to run for president for legal reasons,” Hogen-Esch says. “And so, the field could potentially be cleared for both of these candidates to run for president. And so they’re staking out their positions as national figures, the right national leaders.”
