Two of the country’s most high-profile governors will debate on Fox News Thursday night, offering contrasting visions for the United States on everything from immigration and abortion rights to crime and the economy.
Heading into a crucial election year, the high-stakes showdown between Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom is, in many ways, a perfect pairing to contrast the red state versus blue state policies that define much of today’s political polarization.
Indeed, Fox News is billing tonight’s 90-minute primetime sparring session as “DeSantis vs. Newsom: The Great Red vs. Blue State Debate.”
Only DeSantis is in the running for his party’s presidential nomination next year. Newsom is backing President Joe Biden’s reelection bid but is widely expected to run for president in 2028, and possibly sooner.
“I don’t believe at the end of the day in November of 2024 that President Biden is going to be the Democratic nominee,” California GOP chairperson Jessica Millan Patterson told Spectrum News. “I think the Democrats are going to find a graceful way for President Biden to exit out of this race, and they’re going to need a candidate.”
Patterson called Newsom’s numerous visits to red states and his visit to the spin room at the Reagan Library following the GOP debate in October part of a “shadow presidential campaign" that serves as a "brush-back pitch to ever single other Democrat, saying, 'I'm the No. 1 guy.'"
Newsom first suggested the idea of a debate more than a year ago during an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, who will moderate tonight’s event. Hannity resurfaced the idea in June, and in August, DeSantis agreed to do it, saying, “Let’s get it done. Just tell me when and where.”
The when is tonight at 9 p.m. ET. The where is Alpharetta, Georgia. Fox News will carry the debate live on broadcast TV, Fox News Radio and will also stream it on FoxNews.com.
Tonight’s debate offers an unusual opportunity for DeSantis to generate a fresh look from voters as he tries to narrow the growing gap between himself and former President Donald Trump in the Republican race for President — and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. Haley recently surpassed DeSantis for second place in the GOP primary and also secured a coveted endorsement from the influential and conservative Koch Network this week.
For DeSantis, “This can be an effective strategy given that no one else has that same opportunity,” George Washington University professor Casey Burgat told Spectrum News. “But if he has a poor showing, then it’s really tough to spin in a stage because instead of splitting time with seven other candidates, it’s just going to be him.”
For Newsom, the debate is an opportunity to raise his national profile for the future.
“On some level, he has less to lose,” Eckerd College professor Anthony Brunello told Spectrum News. “He’s not running for anything. But secondly, he can walk in this room and say, ‘Look. I went right into the lion’s den and I took them on.”
Newsom, 56, and DeSantis, 45, are both significantly younger than the leading candidates for the presidential nomination in both parties. President Biden is 81. Donald Trump is 77.
In September, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 77% of voters thought Biden was too old to be president, including 65%of Democrats, while 56% of voters thought Trump was too old.
Brunello said tonight's debate mirrors a 1967 encounter between two up-and-coming politicians with national aspirations: California Gov. Ronald Reagan, a Republican who went on to win two terms as U.S. President starting in 1981, and Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York, a Democrat who was assassinated in 1968.
Newsom and DeSantis “are really poised one against the other,” Brunello said. “Plus, governors of states of this size will have an opportunity to impress the audience with what they accomplished in states as opposed to what goes on in Washington, D.C.”