When you think about California’s historic political rivals, Texas usually comes to mind. But in recent years, a new challenger has emerged in Florida.

Los Angeles Times Washington bureau reporter Noah Bierman joined Lisa McRee on “LA Times Today” with the story of California, Florida and their leaders — who have competing visions for America.

Bierman said that Florida has historically leaned to the right politically, but was usually a swing state. When Ron DeSantis became governor in 2019, he embraced the “culture wars” and backed former President Donald Trump. 

“[DeSantis] starts out behaving as a typical Florida governor, embracing some environmental ideas that the Republicans have traditionally done there. But as he’s gone on, he’s seeing more and more value in a lot of these culture war issues that have gotten him on Fox News a lot,” Bierman said. “And then you have Newsom, who’s trying to get some oxygen in a country where his party is in charge of the White House. He’s decided he’s going to be the guy who confronts some of these governors.”

Florida and California took very different approaches to the COVID-19 pandemic. While DeSantis opened his state up quickly, Newsom took a more cautious approach in California.

"DeSantis initially was actually a big fan of vaccines and was very much encouraging people to get vaccinated. He’s gone really more toward the anti-vaccine-mandate," said Bierman. "There’s also a lot of global issues like the environment. Newsom has really gone full bore on environmental issues. Notably, this idea that gas cars are going to be phased out within a decade in the state as far as new purchases. That’s really given him a stamp to put down on the left."

One thing California and Florida have in common is their close ties to the Walt Disney Co. Bierman explained how Disney became involved in DeSantis’ culture wars.

"DeSantis really went after [Disney], taking away their special tax status because he claimed they were a ‘woke’ corporation, because they opposed his legislation on limiting how much you could talk about LGBTQ issues in schools," said Bierman. "This was one of those culture war issues that he really got involved in."

Both Newsom and DeSantis are believed to have White House ambitions. While Bierman said it’s unlikely that Newsom would challenge Biden in 2024, he could plan for a campaign down the road.

Watch the full interview above.

Watch "LA Times Today" at 7 and 10 p.m. Monday through Friday on Spectrum News 1 and the Spectrum News app.