SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA — Ron DeSantis will attend several fundraising events in California over the next two days, including a breakfast in Sacramento where tickets run $3,300. His visit coincides with President Biden’s scheduled appearance at a Northern California nature preserve to announce efforts to combat climate change.
But DeSantis is also taking the opportunity to take shots at Gavin Newsom as he draws attention to the results of Newsom’s liberal governance. In his latest campaign video released today, DeSantis distinguishes between his successful conservative governing style in Florida and Gavin Newsom’s far-Left ways of running California.
The ad, first reported by Fox News, focuses on Newsom’s policies that have residents fleeing California to Florida and blames increased crime and homelessness in the Golden State on “poor governance.”
“We’ve witnessed a great American exodus from states governed by leftist politicians,” DeSantis says in the ad. “This is a result of better governance in states like Florida. It is the result of poor governance in these Left-wing states. That’s why people are moving.”
But in an exclusive interview on Hannity last week, Newsom tried to argue that “more Floridians move to California than California is moving to Florida.”
In reality, California lost 117,552 people between Jan. 1, 2021 and Jan. 1, 2022, according to the state’s Department of Finance, bringing its population back to where it was in 2016. During the same period, Florida saw 319,000 new residents, moving from predominantly blue states with high taxes, according to data from the National Association of Realtors.
The war of words between DeSantis and Newsom has been building up in the past few months. Last week, tensions grew between the two governors after it was confirmed that a dozen migrants from the Texas border were flown to Sacramento earlier this month by Florida’s Division of Emergency Management.
