With his reelection against a little-known GOP state senator more or less assured, Gov. Gavin Newsom waded deeper into the politics of far-away Florida with his Thursday announcement of a $100,000 donation to the Democrat running against Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The donation to Charlie Crist, a former Republican governor of Florida now running for his old job as a Democrat, follow’s Newsom’s July 4 weekend ad buy in the Sunshine State in which he criticized DeSantis, a rising GOP star and potential 2024 presidential candidate in a race Newsom is rumored to be eyeing.
“For a governor to be taking his money and parking it in someone else’s race is unusual,” said political analyst Bill Whalen, a Hoover Institution fellow who worked in former Gov. Pete Wilson’s administration and consulted for former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Los Angeles mayor Richard J. Riordan.
