Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis took parallel paths from opposite ends of the American political spectrum to the front lines of the high-stakes battle between progressives and conservatives over the nation’s future.

But when they finally meet on stage in Georgia on Thursday, there will be little at stake for either politician in a debate about their starkly different visions of the country.

“There are significant upside opportunities here for both,” said Lanhee Chen, a former Republican candidate for state control and fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. “It’s kind of a brilliant move by both Newsom and DeSantis.”

The highly anticipated showdown on Fox News gives Florida Governor DeSantis a chance to lift his fading presidential campaign. The right-wing campaign of DeSantis, once considered Donald Trump’s heir apparent, has languished in the former president’s shadow and has failed to build a strong base of support in the Republican Party’s crowded presidential primaries.

For

Newsom, the debate helps

swing polishing

his image as a liberal rabble-rouser who leads the Democrats into a battle with the Republicans for the soul of the country. The contest elevates the California governor’s position as a top surrogate for President Biden and solidifies Newsom’s place on a list of potential future leaders.

P

nominees for homes.

“Worst-case scenario, Democrats think he won and Republicans think he lost, so I don’t think there’s much risk,” said Celinda Lake, a Democratic strategist based in Washington, DC. people may say it’s political, but even if people think it’s political, they’re going to love it if he gives Ron DeSantis a hard time, who Democrats despise.”

Newsom’s political team isn’t worried the debate could help DeSantis’ campaign. Recent polls show DeSantis battling former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley for a distant second to Trump in the 2024 Republican primaries.

“Let’s call it this: the Republican race for president is essentially over,” said Sean Clegg, one of Newsom’s senior political advisers.

.

‘We are more concerned

about the

about the attack on democracy and the particular brand of anti-democratic, anti-freedom legislation coming out of the state of Florida, and I think we’ll have a robust discussion about that.”

Newsom has been longing for the one-on-one debate with DeSantis for more than a year.

The governor of California took out ads in Florida

about

the fourth of July

last year

attacking DeSantis and his push to restrict civil rights, abortion and LGBTQ+ protections, accusing the Republican-led state of undermining basic American freedoms.

In

August

that year, Newsom donated $100,000 to DeSantis’ Democratic opponent in the 2022 Florida gubernatorial election. He challenged DeSantis to the debate next month after Florida’s governor sent a group of new Texas migrants to Martha’s Vineyard.

Hi [DeSantis]you are clearly struggling, distracted and trying to play politics with people’s lives, Newsom posted a message on X, formerly known as Twitter. Since you have only one overriding need, we can bring it up and debate it. I’ll bring my hair gel, you bring your hair spray. Name the time before election day.

In interviews, Newsom accused DeSantis of being a “bully” who took particular umbrage with the Florida governor’s efforts to prevent the Special Olympics from requiring vaccination mandates for at-risk athletes. Newsom said his own late mother worked with the Special Olympics.

After DeSantis went to war against Disney when the company publicly opposed his Florida law banning sexual orientation and gender identity instruction in schools, Newsom posted a video of himself at Disneyland in Anaheim during the first LGBTQ+ Pride Night.

The governor, his advisers and Democratic strategists were surprised when DeSantis agreed to the debate, more than a year after Newsom first challenged him. DeSantis accepted the invitation in August when Fox News host Sean Hannity asked him about it.

“We never thought Ron DeSantis would take the bait and agree to this debate. We never did,” Clegg said. “It was not an empty gesture. The governor is conducting the debate and Ron DeSantis only agreed to it a year later because his campaign was on the rocks.”

While DeSantis has faced criticism for taking time to spar with a political rival who isn’t even running in the presidential election, Chen said the debate gives DeSantis an effective vehicle to take his campaign to the next level in a way that others candidates in the Republican primaries should be jealous of. .

“There are no downsides and only upsides for DeSantis,” Chen said. “They’re all going to make points that talk past each other. But it’s really about the exposure and the opportunity for him to speak on issues that he thinks he’s strong on.”

Unlike during the Republican Party’s primary debates, DeSantis won’t have to fight to speak to more than a half-dozen other candidates Thursday to connect with a national audience. Just as the debate gives Newsom an opportunity to build his brand, it also allows DeSantis to position himself as a national leader going forward, Chen said.

“If this doesn’t go as he hopes in 2024, he will be around for a few more cycles and position himself as a national leader,” Chen said.

The seeds of the rivalry were planted during the COVID-19 pandemic, when governors took diametrically different approaches to the public health crisis.

Concerned about the potential that seriously ill patients could overwhelm California hospitals, Newsom used his executive powers to impose a stay-at-home order and limited the ability of businesses to open to the public to reduce transmission. For more than a year, the Democratic governor imposed an evolving series of restrictions on public gatherings and implemented mask mandates before finally announcing that the state was “turning the page” on the pandemic in June 2021.

After an initial, short-lived shutdown, DeSantis took the opposite route, opting to forego sweeping rules and let Floridians live largely without restrictions for much of the pandemic. He went a step further and banned local governments, educational institutions and private companies from imposing vaccine mandates on Florida residents.

Newsom and California became a model of scientific governance and collective efforts to protect the most vulnerable. DeSantis and Florida were models for individual freedom.

Their radically different approaches led to comparisons across the country. DeSantis rose to conservative prominence as a hero for the right and a villain for the left. Newsom became a regular target on Fox News and faced a GOP-led recall effort in 2021

.

After successfully defeating the effort to remove him from office and easily winning reelection the following year, Newsom focused on resuscitating what he viewed as a lethargic national Democratic Party. He criticized national Democrats for failing to fight back against the Republican Party and launched his own campaign earlier this year to raise money for Democrats in the 2024 elections and push back Republican governors like DeSantis.

The debate allows Newsom to continue to distinguish himself from other future presidential candidates, said Bill Burton, a Democratic political strategist and former

assistant at

President Obama.

“Newsom engaging in a low-key conversation with one of the leading Republicans in the country is likely helpful for the progressive movement at large because it helps humanize the choice voters actually have before them in 2024,” Burton said. “The other advantage is that he shows himself as a good team player as a surrogate for Biden.”

The primetime spot gives Newsom a chance to sell his California vision to the rest of the country and build his list of small donors and national volunteers if he decides to run for president in 2028, Lake said. Although Newsom will not run for president next year, a recent YouGov poll found that voters would be fairly evenly split between him and DeSantis if they were running against each other now.

The political divide will also make for an interesting back-and-forth.

“It will be such a juicy contrast to have the governors from Disney, two governors who are on opposite coasts with rising sea levels, and the two governors with huge economies,” Lake said. “I think a lot of Democrats, feeling constantly bewildered, are going to have parties with really good tasting popcorn and wine and say, ‘Give him hell.’”