Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis escalated his war on “leftist” states and politicians while promoting his likely presidential bid in an early trip to California exactly one year before that state’s presidential primary.
It was a brazen attempt by DeSantis to step into one of the country’s most liberal states and challenge a potential 2024 rival, California Gov. Gavin Newsom – as well as his likely GOP challenger, Donald Trump.
And Newsom wasted no time blasting back at DeSantis, ridiculing his trip and predicting the Florida Republican governor would get “smoked” by Trump in the primaries.
The back and forth exchange was an early prelude to what could be a pivotal debate over “woke” ideology that DeSantis is trying to ignite.
The Florida governor highlighted what he called a “great American exodus” from states like California and New York – you can throw Massachusetts in there too – to Florida to escape “leftist politicians imposing leftist ideologies.”
“I know you’ve got a lot of problems out here, but your governor is very concerned about what we are doing in Florida…so I figured I had to come by,” DeSantis said in a shot at Newsom.
DeSantis is traveling to Iowa on Friday and later this month will be in Manchester, New Hampshire, on a trip to the first-in-the-nation primary state.
Former Vice President Mike Pence also will be in Keene, New Hampshire, later this month in a bid to generate support for his so far lackluster campaign effort.
But it’s DeSantis and Trump who are generating the most headlines lately. Trump crushed his rival DeSantis in a CPAC straw poll vote over the weekend, though most of Trump’s potential GOP opponents skipped the event, weakening its impact.
The dueling DeSantis-Trump speeches over the weekend previewed what should be a fiery campaign race between the two GOP superpowers. Trump has largely tried to ignore DeSantis so far but that strategy won’t work much longer as the Florida governor is expected to formally launch his campaign in June.
Trump has the upper hand right now, according to polls, but those numbers could tighten as DeSantis gears up his campaign.
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu – who is considering a possible presidential campaign also – predicted that DeSantis would win the Granite State’s primary over Trump. He said the party should move on from the former president — words that Trump undoubtedly won’t forget when he travels to New Hampshire.
DeSantis’s highly anticipated trip to Manchester later this month will be the first time GOP voters there get a good, close up look at the Florida governor.
