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Tag: DeSantis

  • Florida Bans Local Heat Protections For Outdoor Workers

    Florida Bans Local Heat Protections For Outdoor Workers

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    Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill preventing local Florida governments from requiring heat protection for people working outdoors, such as in construction or agriculture, becoming the second state to adopt such a law after Texas. What do you think?

    “They’re welcome to bring their own clouds from home.”

    Alyssa Lindestaf, Chief Extortionist

    Financial Problems Force Ron DeSantis Campaign To Fire Wife

    “Will nothing stop DeSantis’s unquenchable thirst for human sweat?”

    Prakhar Sabbat, Gym Attendant

    “Skin is protection enough.”

    Ray DeMartino, unemployed

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  • ‘It’s unjust’: Florida Gov. DeSantis signs bill banning local heat safety and wage laws

    ‘It’s unjust’: Florida Gov. DeSantis signs bill banning local heat safety and wage laws

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    Photo via Ron DeSantis/Twitter

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Thursday quietly signed into law one of the business lobby’s top priorities this year, preempting local governments from passing laws on workplace heat safety measures to protect outdoor workers from heat exhaustion.

    The bill, HB 433, also preempts the regulation of employer scheduling practices to the state, and — effective Sept. 30, 2026 — will strip local “living wage” laws passed in some Florida cities and counties that require their contractors to pay employees a wage that’s higher than the state’s minimum. A earlier version of the bill would have preempted all local mandates affecting the terms and conditions of employment.

    DeSantis signed the bill in its final version Thursday night, after hours, with no statement or fanfare.

    Florida Democrats on Friday criticized the move.

    “Outdoor workers are all around us – working on construction sites, repairing and paving roads, picking fruit and vegetables on farms and more,” said Florida Sen. Victor Torres, D-Orlando, in a statement.

    “They’re just trying to make a living for their families – and instead of putting protections in place to ensure businesses are prioritizing their workers’ health and well-being from record-setting temperatures, we tied the hands of proactive local governments to do so,” Torres continued. “This bill is an attack on our outdoor workers – the rent is too damn high and the sun is too damn hot!”

    Sponsored by Republican Tiffany Esposito, a first-term member of the Florida House, the bill was a priority of the Florida Chamber of Commerce — a deep-pocketed business lobbying group that represents the interests of companies like Publix, AT&T, restaurant chains, and U.S. Sugar, which fork over tens of thousands of dollars to help fund their political operations.

    Records obtained by the investigative newsletter Seeking Rents show the Chamber was also directly involved in drafting the language of the legislation, along with a conservative think-tank that was behind a new law rolling back certain child labor protections.

    The bill was a priority of the Florida Chamber of Commerce — a business lobbying group that represents the interests of companies like Publix, AT&T, restaurant chains, and U.S. Sugar

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    Esposito herself, who argued the bill was in the best interest of taxpayers, is herself the president of a regional chamber of commerce in Southwest Florida.

    Thousands of working Floridians could be affected by the preemption of local living wage laws alone, which have been implemented over the years in expensive areas of the state, like St. Petersburg and Miami, in order to lift wages for workers on contracted public projects — like building and road construction — as well as airport workers.

    Local governments in Florida have been barred from requiring private employers to pay above minimum wage for more than 20 years.

    The idea of the so-called “living wage” laws is that if you’re an employer who wants to enter into a government, taxpayer-funded contract, you have to pay your workers at least something closer to a living wage — which, generally, under these laws is somewhere between at least $15 to $20 minimum depending on the city or county.

    Ideally, workers covered by these contracts are locals — friends and neighbors of these communities who contribute to the local economy and who may not be able to live comfortably on less.

    The Chamber of Commerce has been trying to gut these living wage laws in Florida for years, framing wage and benefit mandates as “unnecessary government interference.”

    “Lawmakers in other parts of the country are passing job killing mandates at the local level,” reads a legislative agenda released by the Chamber for the 2024 session. “We need to keep Florida, Florida by allowing employers to flourish free of unnecessary governmental interference and inconsistencies.”

    For workers who benefit from these local laws, however, the new bill could create confusion and inconsistency. It also could result in cuts to pay once that portion of the bill goes into effect on Sept. 30, 2026 — the day Florida’s $15 minimum wage also fully goes into effect.

    The statewide minimum wage is currently $12 an hour, or $7.98 for tipped workers, and will rise $1 each year on Sept. 30 before reaching $15 by Sept. 30, 2026 under a ballot initiative approved by 61% of Florida voters in 2020.

    Rep. Esposito, the GOP House sponsor of the bill, admitted during session that employers could decide to reduce pay — the income that supports Florida’s working families — once this is effective.

    “Could wages go down? Maybe,” she said during the bill’s first committee hearing. “It’s up to the prerogative of the employer.” The chair of that committee cut the public off from providing personal testimony. Dozens had signed up to speak.

    Esposito herself could not say how many workers across the state would be affected by the preemption, which broadly ties the hands of local government leaders. So the full scope of the preemption, while standing to affect thousands of airport workers and other contracted workers in South Florida alone, is still unclear.

    The preemption of heat safety mandates for working Floridians, on the other hand, was a direct attack on a local ordinance being considered in Miami-Dade County last year.

    That ordinance sought to require construction and agriculture companies, specifically, to take steps to protect their employees from heat exhaustion. For instance, ensuring they have access to water and giving them 10-minute, shaded breaks every couple of hours when the heat index is at least 95 degrees.

    Following industry backlash, that ordinance was delayed for a vote last fall until mid-March — after session had already ended and House Bill 433 passed the state legislature. The bill was filed for consideration by lawmakers this year just a week after the vote on that local ordinance was delayed last fall.

    Miami-Dade County was the only municipality in Florida considering such an ordinance, which has been proposed at the state level by Democrats but has failed to garner enough interest from the Republican majority to make much progress.

    As it is, there is no federal or state standard in Florida for heat exposure protections in the workplace. Just a few states — California, Washington, and Oregon — have their own state laws requiring certain workplace heat safety measures.

    Colorado also regulates heat exposure requirements for farmworkers, while Minnesota has heat standards for workers indoors. As any warehouse worker can tell you (we heard this from UPS workers here in Orlando, for instance) — it’s not just those laboring outside who stand to suffer from Florida’s scorching heat.

    And it’s only getting hotter in Florida. Opponents of the bill argued that failing to act on workplace heat safety protections could be costly due to lost productivity. An agricultural worker in Apopka told us the bill is “unjust” and “unfair.”

    “This cruel and shameful action by Governor DeSantis, our Republican-led Legislature, and a small group of powerful industry lobbyists will endanger the lives of our working families and cause preventable deaths,” Oscar Londoño, co-executive director of the immigrant advocacy group WeCount! Shared in an email newsletter on Friday.

    The bill passed the Republican-dominated state legislature on the final day of Florida’s legislative session last month, largely along party lines. Four Republicans joined Florida Democrats in opposing the bill in the state Senate, while four Republicans similarly crossed party lines to vote it down in the Florida House.

    GOP House member Mike Beltran, who voted in opposition to the bill, explained his vote by stating he only opposed the heat safety preemption provision.

    “Due to Florida’s unusually hot climate, the variation thereof throughout the state, and the diverse economy, I believe that local regulation may be appropriate,” he said.

    The preemption on regulating workplace heat exposure and scheduling goes into effect July 1, while the preemption on wage and benefit mandates will go into effect Sept. 30, 2026.

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    McKenna Schueler

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  • Something’s Smelly About DeSantis’s Weed Statement

    Something’s Smelly About DeSantis’s Weed Statement

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    Facts and history seems to be short in the Florida Governor’s campaign against marijuana

    For those who love exploring and have visited Hershey, Pennsylvania, you know it has a unique smell. Built to produce the famous candy bar, the area smells like chocolate. It is a factory town pumping out the order all day long.  Few places in the country has issues with smells like Hersey.  But if you listen to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, you would think over half the country has to deal certain odors.

    DeSantis has called recreational cannabis a problem and lamented marijuana’s “stench”. This is in response to the state’s Supreme Court allowing recreational marijuana be put on the November ballot. It seems something’s smelly about DeSantis weed statement.  He seems to not understand science or history. And with over 50% of the country population having access to legal marijuana, you think there might have been a bigger stink if his statement was correct.

    RELATED: Looks Like Virginia Is The Newest Marijuana Nanny State

    Now those over 40 can remember when it was legal to smoke inside, meaning in restaurants, groceries stores and other public spaces. You did get a whiff of stale tobacco.  But smoking outside is now required by law.  And while Florida is not in top 10 states which smoke, an estimated 2.2+ million of its citizens (not counting tourists) still light up.  Yet, he has not made a comment of being near a beach or roaming the street of the state capital and smelling a Marlboro.

    Near Tallahassee, where the Governor sits, he is near the Florida Panhandle. For generations, its economy was driven by paper mills.  Living in this panhandle puts you near some of hte most beautiful beaches, but will also, in some areas, assult your sense of smell. RockTenn, one of the areas larger paper mills, produces some particularly odorous fragrances when they “cook” paper. A strong sulfuric smell occasionally wafts across the region, and though harmless, it’s certainly unmistakeable.  An economic lifeline paper mills are a part of the fabric of North Florida. When the Foley Cellulose Mill in Perry closes, economist at the university of Florida predict havoc. It will cost Florida nearly 2,000 jobs and $9.9 million in state and local taxes.  This is much less than the almost zero smell of gummies and vapes which will be part of the $1+ billion plus industry in the Sunshine State alone.

    There are now 24 states (plus the District of Columbia) with legalized recreational marijuana as of February 2024.  Some including California, New York and DC have high visitor counts, and yet no one complains of a long or even mid term cannabis odor over the city.  Yes, like cigarettes, when you walk by someone smoking you can smell it, but as you pass, it goes away.

    RELATED: Science Says Medical Marijuana Improves Quality Of Life

    The Governor seems dismayed the Florida State Supreme Court advanced a proposed adult-use cannabis legalization initiative, by a 5-2 ruling, to the November 5, 2024, ballot.  Florida voters again will be able to express their opinion.

     

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    Anthony Washington

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  • DeSantis Thwarted In Florida Marijuana Court Ruling

    DeSantis Thwarted In Florida Marijuana Court Ruling

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    Score one for the voters

    Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been clear about his views on marijuana. He has called recreational cannabis a problem, lamented marijuana’s “stench” and grimly warned drugs are killing this country. After voters approved medical marijuana, he said it wasn’t enough and made them vote again where it passed by 71%. Despite his campaign receiving major funds from a few large players in the industry, his public state has been consistent.  As Florida put together a ballot initiative to legalize recreational, DeSantis signaled his displeasure. Ashley Moody, the attorney general of Florida and ally of Gov. Ron DeSantis, asked the state Supreme Court to nix a proposed constitutional amendment which would legalize recreational cannabis.

    RELATED: Looks Like Virginia Is The Newest Marijuana Nanny State

    Today, in a 5-2 ruling, the Florida State Supreme Court advanced a proposed adult-use cannabis legalization initiative to the November 5, 2024, ballot. This delivers multi blows to the governor as it dismisses his and the state attorney general argument.  Marijuana, along with another ballot initiative are on the ballot and it is sure to drive voters who may not vote in line with DeSantis’s goals. And it shows despite his posturing, his administration, including the courts, are not in lockstep.

    “This is one of the most important cannabis legalization campaigns in recent years,” said Matthew Schweich, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project. “We have the opportunity to end the injustice of cannabis prohibition for over 22 million Americans.”

    The ballot initiative, which is being spearheaded by Smart and Safe Florida, would legalize cannabis for adults 21 and over and allow legal sales through licensed businesses. In order to pass, the initiative must be approved by 60% of voters. Of the 24 states with an initiative process, Florida is the only state that requires 60% to pass an initiative.

    RELATED: Science Says Medical Marijuana Improves Quality Of Life

    If the ballot hits the 60% approval mark, the initiative would take effect six months after Election Day. The initiative would allow adults 21 and older to possess up to one ounce of cannabis flower and five grams of concentrate. Medical cannabis dispensaries would be permitted to sell cannabis to adults over the age of 21. The legislature would retain the ability to issue more licenses in the future.

    Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed five of the seven justices. One justice said were “baffled” by the state’s argument about the language being misleading, and other justices were similarly skeptical of the state’s push against the amendment. This signals another blow  the court ruling against the governor’s stated position.

    RELATED: The Imagine Of Today’s Marijuana User Is Not What You Think

    As of this time, neither the Governor or the State Attorney General have provided feedback.

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    Terry Hacienda

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  • Who the Hell Is Nelson Peltz, the Billionaire Investor Disney Is Freaking Out About?

    Who the Hell Is Nelson Peltz, the Billionaire Investor Disney Is Freaking Out About?

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    So-called activist investor Nelson Peltz, who’s aiming to win two Disney board seats, has stirred up some controversy by calling out Disney’s recent era of “woke” strategy through diversifying its slate of films at Marvel Studios.

    Andor Episodes 1-3 Review

    The 81-year-old businessman, whose experience is with food companies including Wendy’s and H.J. Heinz as well as having once supported the DeSantis presidential campaign, had a lot to say about The Marvels and Black Panther in an interview with the Financial Times. “Why do I have to have a Marvel [movie] that’s all women?” Peltz asked the publication. “Not that I have anything against women, but why do I have to do that? Why can’t I have Marvels that are both? Why do I need an all-Black cast?” Side note: Peltz happens to be the father of Nicola Peltz, who played Katara in 2010’s infamously very white Last Airbender adaptation.

    He continued, “People go to watch a movie or a show to be entertained. They don’t go to get a message.” Since he also claimed that he doesn’t have experience in media, it’s interesting to note that Peltz’s Trian Partners is pushing for this vote as part of Ike Perlmutter’s hopes for retaliation against Disney CEO Bob Iger, who terminated him from Marvel Entertainment last year. Variety reported that, “Trian controls roughly $3.5 billion worth of Disney stock, 79% of which is owned by Perlmutter.” This goes back to Perlmutter’s feud with Kevin Feige, who pushed for Black Panther and Captain Marvel. Perlmutter fought against diversity in Marvel’s slate until Iger stepped in to force his hand and allow the films to be made.

    Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther, starring the late Chadwick Boseman, was a hit with $1.35 billion at the worldwide box office; it kicked off the Academy Award-winning franchise and brought more inclusivity to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Proving Perlmutter wrong publicly while revealing the lengths the forner Marvel exec went to in order to stop diverse superhero toys, merch, and movies being made really propelled Feige into the public’s good graces. Recent misses for the studio including The Marvels have caused some Marvel watchers to wonder if Feige’s position should be called into question. When asked by the Financial Times if it should, Peltz responded, “I’m not ready to say that, but I question his record.”

    Disney board member George Lucas recently stood up against Peltz by releasing a statement (reprinted in Variety and elsewhere) to support Bob Iger in rejecting his bid. “Creating magic is not for amateurs,” Lucas said in a shot right at Peltz, who also admitted to the Financial Times he’s been a bit of a bully. (“What sense is being a billionaire if you’re not a bully?” Peltz has been quoted as saying.) Which is such a strange stance to bring into Disney, standing directly against all it represents.

    Lucas continued, “When I sold Lucasfilm just over a decade ago, I was delighted to become a Disney shareholder because of my longtime admiration for its iconic brand and Bob Iger’s leadership.” He added, “When Bob recently returned to the company during a difficult time, I was relieved. No one knows Disney better. I remain a significant shareholder because I have full faith and confidence in the power of Disney and Bob’s track record of driving long-term value. I have voted all of my shares for Disney’s 12 directors and urge other shareholders to do the same.”

    Peltz aims to add more board seats for his hedge fund firm through his Disney bid and support the agenda that Ike Perlmutter, his silent third party partner, has advocated for during his Disney tenure. The Hollywood Reporter disclosed that Perlmutter had this up his sleeve as soon as he was terminated, as he immediately pledged his stakes in Disney to Peltz. Before Iger came back Peltz had attempted a proxy battle with the company as a result of its losses, but was held off by his return. With this seat bid he hopes for round two in having more direct influence on the company board.

    Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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    Sabina Graves

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  • Judge dismisses Disney’s free-speech lawsuit against DeSantis

    Judge dismisses Disney’s free-speech lawsuit against DeSantis

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    Walt Disney Co.’s lawsuit against Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and others, alleging they retaliated against the company for publicly criticizing a controversial parents-rights education law backed by DeSantis, was dismissed by a federal judge on Wednesday.

    Shares of Disney
    DIS,
    -0.92%
    fell about 1% Monday.

    Judge Allen Winsor ruled Disney lacked legal standing to sue DeSantis. He added that Disney’s charges “fail on the merits” against members of the Florida board of a special improvement district in which the company operates its parks and resort.

    In his ruling, Winsor said Disney “has not alleged any specific actions the new board took (or will take) because of the governor’s alleged control.” He added the company “has not alleged any specific injury from any board action.”

    “Its alleged injury … is its operating under a board it cannot control. That injury would exist whether or not the governor controlled the board,” he wrote.

    Disney strongly suggested it will appeal Winsor’s ruling.

    “This is an important case with serious implications for the rule of law, and it will not end here,” the company said in a statement. “If left unchallenged, this would set a dangerous precedent and give license to states to weaponize their official powers to punish the expression of political viewpoints they disagree with. We are determined to press forward with our case.”

    The controversial legislation, dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by critics, was passed in 2022. 

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  • Ron DeSantis’s Cold, Hard Reality

    Ron DeSantis’s Cold, Hard Reality

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    Sign up for The Decision, a newsletter featuring our 2024 election coverage.

    Updated at 4:40 p.m. ET on January 16, 2024

    Even before the caucus began, Matt Wells was working the room. The 43-year-old wore an autographed Ron DeSantis trucker hat as he strolled up and down the aisles of the Washington High School auditorium in rural southeast Iowa, greeting neighbors and passing out DeSantis flyers. When it was time for three-minute speeches, Wells spoke from the podium without notes, his voice quivering with emotion. DeSantis “always backs up his words with action,” he told the crowd. “He will be a president we can be proud of.”

    Minutes later, Wells’s hopes were dashed. DeSantis lost to Donald Trump in Wells’s precinct by five votes. The former president went on to win the Iowa caucus by nearly 30 points statewide, carrying 98 of Iowa’s 99 counties and beating his own 2016 margin of support by more than 25 points.

    This wasn’t exactly a surprise. Trump had held a similar lead in opinion polls beforehand, and the only question was whether that margin would hold up if the snowdrifts and subzero temperatures kept caucus-goers frozen in their homes. Turnout was low, but by the end of the evening, that uncertainty was answered definitively: Trump is still the guy. But in second place, DeSantis led former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley by a mere two points, denying both a clear claim to the title of “Obvious Viable Trump Alternative.”

    Read: What Trump’s victory in Iowa reveals

    By clinging to second—despite polling in the days before the caucus forecasting that he could be pushed into third—DeSantis has lived to fight another day. Barely. “This is going to be a long battle ahead, but that is what this campaign is built for,” a campaign official told Fox News last night, trying to sound resolute if not exactly optimistic. “No shot,” an Iowa GOP strategist texted me at midnight.

    DeSantis is being eclipsed in two directions, simultaneously. Trump continues to hoover up all the GOP votes, and Haley is consolidating the rest; even though she ranked third in Iowa, she looks poised to run a strong second to Trump in New Hampshire’s primary next week, with a shot at pulling off an upset. Which is probably why, according to the campaign, DeSantis will fly straight to South Carolina, where he will attempt to chip away at Trump’s double-digit lead and beat Haley in a state where she once served as governor. His path forward doesn’t make much sense—and, in any case, his efforts seem unlikely to make a difference.

    “In my heart of hearts, I’d hoped …” Wells told me, trailing off as the statewide results were pouring in on TV. “It’s us. It’s the American people. We get the government we deserve.”

    It’s been rare this election cycle to find a voter who really likes Ron DeSantis—not just his policies but the man himself. And Wells really does. He sees DeSantis as a Republican for the next generation: fiscally and socially conservative, a biblically “sound” family man who is devoted to keeping his campaign promises. Sometimes, I found myself thinking that Wells made a better case for DeSantis than DeSantis did for himself.

    Wells, a small-business owner, has volunteered at more than 40 DeSantis events since March. He brought the governor and his wife to his church to meet his pastor. He recruited phone canvassers for DeSantis from all over the country. I first met Wells at the Iowa State Fair last summer, where he and the rest of the DeSantis posse were being pursued along the midway by a boisterous herd of men in Trump hats. They catcalled DeSantis, shouting, “Go home, Ron!” and “Smile, Ron!” Wells, who is short and stout, with a dark-brown goatee, tried to run interference. “You’re all a bunch of degenerates!” he yelled. The guys looked like they wanted to give him a swirly.

    Read: You should go to a Trump rally

    Since then, I’ve watched as Wells challenged Trump supporters online and in person. He seems to find some kind of perverse satisfaction in correcting media reports and taking on trolls. He confronted them in public, too, including one QAnon conspiracy theorist who’d accused Casey DeSantis of faking her breast-cancer diagnosis. Wells stopped attending meetings of the Washington County Republican Party in the fall, he said, because the chairman is a Trump devotee. (When I reached the county GOP chair by phone, he told me that Wells is “a toxic individual.”)

    The primary has been this way since its start: ugly, mean, and probably a foretaste of the next nine months.

    In the days before the big event, the candidates were made to suffer one final indignity of the Hawkeye State’s unglamorous process: arctic weather conditions. Driving sleet and snow made major highways temporarily impassable. Pines collapsed under the weight of the flakes, and oaks along the highway were dusted white like birches. The cold was even more extreme than the precipitation: Over the weekend, the temperature dipped well below zero in parts of the state, with a torturous –26 windchill. On Saturday, standing on a street in downtown Davenport, one of the Quad Cities along the Illinois border, I felt my cheeks burning.

    Still, Iowans ventured out to watch Haley and DeSantis duke it out for second place. And so did the press corps. At times, in knotty-pine-walled restaurants and industrial-chic event centers across southeast Iowa, journalists were barely outnumbered by voters. The silliness was perhaps best captured in a moment at the end of one Haley rally in Cedar Rapids, when attendees scrambled from their seats to take a photo with her, and a horde of reporters followed in a mad dash for interviews. Somewhere in the melee, I tripped on a plastic cup, sending ice and brown alcohol shooting across the floor. Reporters rushed by, slipping on the cubes and thwacking me with their bags, as I knelt to clean it up. Over the loudspeakers, “Ants Marching” began playing at full blast.

    More than other candidates’ rallies, Haley’s felt warm. Her voters are the kind of people who are eager to talk to reporters, people who sigh and say, “I’m just looking for a candidate who can bring us all together.” These Iowans supported the former UN ambassador because of her foreign-policy experience, they told me, but also because they found her refreshingly competent. She’s “somebody that’s really smart and really experienced and qualified,” Jane Fett, a financial manager from Long Grove, told me in Davenport. “It takes my breath away to bring that back to politics.” DeSantis is too conservative for them—not a unifier.

    A few registered Democrats went to Haley rallies, too, which made sense, given that her supporters are more likely to prefer Joe Biden over Trump. These are people who are exhausted by Trump’s antics but yearn for more youthful political leaders; they planned to reregister as Republicans on the day of the caucus in order to vote. Haley “unites, and she also brings hope,” Jerry Stewart, a former Biden supporter wearing a black Hawkeye sweatshirt, told me. “This is going to sound far-fetched, but she brings hope like Obama did.”

    Paul Farhi: Fox News isn’t a kingmaker

    Some voters still seemed undecided just days before caucus night. Outside the Olympic Theater in Cedar Rapids on Friday, I listened as two men discussed the merits of Haley versus DeSantis as the GOP nominee. “I’m twisting his arm for Nikki,” Lyle Hanson said. His friend, Scott Garbe, nodded, before unleashing a darting series of thoughts that only an Iowan, overwhelmed at the national significance of the task before him, could have:

    “She’s electable, and I don’t think DeSantis is. He’s not going to get a crossover vote, an anti-Trump vote. When Haley goes against Biden, or when Haley goes against—I’m not saying this right. She’ll get the anti-Biden vote. When Trump goes against Biden, Biden’s going to get a lot of anti-Trump vote. There isn’t going to be an anti-Haley vote. So that’s why she’s going to win.”

    That was not supposed to be the calculation that Iowa voters were making. The DeSantis campaign began last May with promise. Here was a governor who had finally put some respect next to Florida’s name, his allies said. He’d cut taxes and promoted school choice. He’d proved his leadership ability with Hurricane Ian—in a smart pair of go-go boots. He was Trump minus the chaos and the nutty tweets, right-wing pundits said. Remember the fuss? The conservative parents’-rights group, Moms for Liberty, was so excited about DeSantis that its founders gave him a ceremonial sword.

    DeSantis adopted a maximal ground campaign in Iowa: He spent millions and set up a get-out-the-caucus team rivaling, experts say, that of Senator Ted Cruz, 2016’s surprise caucus winner. DeSantis also earned the endorsement of Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds and the evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats. To prove the wisdom of this all-in strategy, DeSantis needed to soar to victory in Iowa, and he told reporters he would. “I think it’s going to help propel us to the nomination,” he said on Meet the Press. Instead, the campaign is plummeting to Earth like a plug door off a Boeing Max 9.

    What brought him down? As many have noted, the governor lacks personal warmth and much capacity for small talk. He is seemingly unable to stand naturally; his hands are always slightly raised, as though he’s wearing too many layers, like Randy in A Christmas Story. DeSantis has an unsettling habit of licking his lips when he speaks, and his smile never quite reaches his eyes, which seem full of terror.

    “You can almost hear the thoughts in the back of his head: “How am I losing? Why am I not connecting?” the Iowa GOP strategist told me. The heel lifts haven’t helped. At an event in Davenport two days before the caucus, DeSantis passed me on his way to the bathroom, waddling stiffly in a pair of shiny black boots.

    A few DeSantis supporters told me they actually liked his lack of charisma. “He’s not running for Miss America,” Ross Paustian, a farmer from Walcott, Iowa, told me in Davenport. Wells put it even more simply: “He’s not fake.” Yet even the governor’s fans were not predicting victory, days before the caucus. “Trump is going to win,” Gloria King, a DeSantis supporter and retiree from Davenport, told me on Saturday. Her enthusiasm was entirely for Casey: “She was like, so cool! The coolest. She should be running!”

    Read: The end is coming for Trump’s GOP rivals

    Perhaps the crumbling of the DeSantis campaign could be blamed, at least in part, on Trump and his allies, who, very early on, had carpet-bombed the Florida governor with abuse and mockery. The former president made up nicknames like “Ron DeSanctimonious” and “Meatball Ron” (an insult less easy to parse but goofily evocative). He recruited Florida lawmakers to endorse him and taunt their governor.

    Even in Iowa, Trump and his allies were relentless. Two days before the caucuses, a comedian handed DeSantis a “participation” trophy at a campaign rally. “He’s special, he’s unique, and he’s our little snowflake,” the provocateur announced, before security guards dragged him away.

    Last night, Wells stood up once more for his candidate. A few days ago, he’d told me that he not only expected DeSantis to beat Trump, but that DeSantis had to beat him. “The one thing that I have really learned this cycle is that it’s going to be a contest of work versus a cult of personality,” he said. The only way to break the narrative, he said, was to win the caucus.

    Instead, I watched in real time as Wells came to the realization that so many others already have: His party and its members are not who Wells wishes they were.

    After the caucus was over, Wells drove two hours on dark roads to Des Moines to say farewell to his friends on the DeSantis campaign. He called me from the road, sounding more dejected than he had when he’d left. For 30 minutes, he sighed and paused and quoted the Bible (“Our people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge”). Wells wouldn’t vote for Trump or Biden in the fall, he said. But he might move to Florida.

    This article originally stated that a Trump fan awarded Ron DeSantis a “participation” trophy at a rally. In fact, it was a comedian who did so.

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    Elaine Godfrey

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  • California-bashing is a constant occurrence on Iowa campaign trail

    California-bashing is a constant occurrence on Iowa campaign trail

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    DES MOINES — 

    Despite the Iowa caucuses taking place 1,700 miles away from California — and the temperature being much colder here — the Golden State, its elected leaders and its policies were a constant target in the lead up to the first presidential nominating contest in the nation Monday.

    Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) could be a “hedge fund maven,” given how much money she has made in the stock market while in office, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told Iowans. He accused GOP rival Nikki Haley, the former U.N. ambassador, of telling more lies and being “more liberal than Gavin Newsom.” Haley said she is as afraid of a Kamala Harris presidency as she is of another term for former President Trump.

    Bashing California, one of the most liberal states in the nation, is a grand tradition in the GOP. But Republican presidential candidates may be targeting the state and its politicians more this cycle because they are a better target than President Biden.

    “Biden isn’t as motivating a villain as other Democrats might be. So the Republican candidates are essentially running a negative campaign against California,” said Dan Schnur, a politics professor at USC, UC Berkeley and Pepperdine.

    He pointed to DeSantis’ attack on Haley during a debate last week as proof.

    “The very worst thing Ron DeSantis could think of to say about Nikki Haley during the debate was that she might be more liberal than Gavin Newsom,” Schnur added. “For an Iowa Republican — or any Republican for that matter — that’s an absolutely terrifying concept.”

    California was once a Republican stronghold, launching the political careers of Presidents Nixon and Reagan. But conservative attacks on the state have ramped up in the decades since Reagan left office.

    In 2002, former President George H.W. Bush even apologized for referring to American Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh as “some misguided Marin County hot-tubber.” By 2012, California was the most disliked state of any in the nation, according to poll of Americans by Public Policy Polling. About 44% of those surveyed said they viewed the state unfavorably.

    Today, GOP fundraising appeals bleat about the state’s residents — especially Hollywood celebrities and tech billionaires — fueling Democratic campaigns, despite the fact that the state also provides an outsize amount of political donations to Republican candidates.

    This electoral cycle, DeSantis compared Haley to Newsom, whom he debated in November, at a CNN face-off in Des Moines last week.

    DeSantis brought up Pelosi while lamenting the lack of rules on members of Congress while campaigning at Jethro’s BBQ in Ames.

    “I just think we have a problem with Congress … they’re almost detached from the people. They live under different rules,” he said, adding that he has not traded stocks since being elected to office and compared himself to Pelosi. “They make a killing in the market … and I don’t think the congressmen should be able to be doing the stock trades. I think we need to reform that.”

    Haley raised Harris, the current vice president and former U.S. senator and state attorney general, as she discussed why she believes Trump should not be reelected president.

    “Y’all know it, chaos follows him. And we can’t be a country in disarray and have a world on fire and go through four more years of chaos because we won’t survive it,” she told supporters at an event space in Ankeny. “You don’t defeat Democrat chaos with Republican chaos. And the other thing we need to think about: We can never afford a President Kamala Harris.”

    California should overhaul its fiscal situation and policies before questioning why Iowa should have such an important role in selecting the nation’s presidential nominees, said former Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, who has family connections to California and has spent substantial time in the state.

    “Maybe you ought to get your house in order. California has got the biggest deficit and California is moving in the wrong direction,” Branstad said in an interview. “California has got so much going for it. It’s a beautiful state, it has got great weather and all that stuff. But now people are leaving because of the tax burden and the hostility and all the regulations.”

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    Seema Mehta

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  • The End Is Coming for Trump’s GOP Rivals

    The End Is Coming for Trump’s GOP Rivals

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    The arctic chill that upended the final weekend of the Iowa Republican caucus provided a fitting end to a contest that has seemed frozen in place for months.

    This caucus has felt unusually lifeless, not only because former President Donald Trump has maintained an imposing and seemingly unshakable lead in the polls. That advantage was confirmed late Saturday night when the Des Moines Register, NBC, and Mediacom Iowa released their highly anticipated final pre-caucus poll showing Trump at 48 percent and, in a distant battle for second place, Nikki Haley at 20 percent and Ron DeSantis at 16 percent.

    The caucus has also lacked energy because Trump’s shrinking field of rivals has never appeared to have the heart for making an all-out case against him. “I think there was actually a decent electorate that had supported Trump in the past but were interested in looking for somebody else,” Douglas Gross, a longtime GOP activist who chaired Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign in Iowa, told me. But neither DeSantis nor Haley, he adds, found a message that dislodged nearly enough of them from the front-runner. “Trump has run as an incumbent, if you will, and dominated the media so skillfully that it took a lot of the energy out of the race,” Gross said.

    In retrospect, the constrictive boundaries for the GOP race were established when the candidates gathered for their first debate last August (without Trump, who has refused to attend any debate). The crucial moment came when Bret Baier, from Fox News Channel, asked the contenders whether they would support Trump as the nominee even if he was convicted of a crime “in a court of law.” All the contenders onstage raised their hand to indicate they would, except for Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson, two long shots at the periphery of the race. With that declaration, the candidates effectively placed the question of whether Trump is fit to be president again—the most important issue facing Republicans in 2024—out of bounds.

    That collective failure led to Christie’s withering moral judgment on the field when he quit the race last week: “Anyone who is unwilling to say that he is unfit to be president of the United States is unfit themselves to be president of the United States.” But even in practical political terms, the choice not to directly address Trump’s fitness left his principal rivals scrambling to find an alternative way to contrast with the front-runner.

    Over time, DeSantis has built a coherent critique of Trump, though a very idiosyncratic one. DeSantis runs at Trump from the right, insisting that the man who devised and articulated the “America First” agenda can no longer be trusted to advance it. In his final appearances across Iowa, his CNN debate with Haley last week, and a Fox town hall, DeSantis criticized Trump’s presidential record and 2024 agenda as insufficiently conservative on abortion, LGBTQ rights, federal spending, confronting the bureaucracy, and shutting down the country during the pandemic. He has even accused Trump of failing to deport enough undocumented immigrants and failing to construct enough of his signature border wall.

    Read: Trump is coming for Obamacare again

    On issues where politicians in the center or left charge Trump with extremism, DeSantis inverts the accusation: The problem, he argues, is that Trump wasn’t extreme enough. The moment that best encapsulated DeSantis’s approach came in last week’s CNN debate. At one point, the moderators asked him about the claim from Trump’s lawyer that he cannot be prosecuted for any presidential action—including ordering the assassination of a political rival—unless he was first impeached and convicted. DeSantis insisted the problem was that in office, Trump was too restrained in using unilateral presidential authority. He complained that Trump failed to call in the National Guard over the objections of local officials to squelch civil unrest in the Black Lives Matter protests following the 2020 murder of George Floyd. When DeSantis visited campaign volunteers last Friday, he indignantly complained “it’s just not true” that he has gone easy on Trump in these final days. “If you watched the debate,” DeSantis told reporters, “I hit on BLM, not building the wall, the debt, not draining the swamp, Fauci, all those things.”

    Perhaps the prospect of impending defeat has concentrated the mind, but DeSantis in his closing trek across Iowa has offered perceptive explanations for why these attacks against Trump have sputtered. One is that Trump stifled the debates by refusing to participate in them. “It’s different for me to just be doing that to a camera versus him being right there,” DeSantis told reporters. “When you have a clash, then you guys have to cover it, and it becomes something that people start to talk about.” The other problem, he maintained, was that conservative media like Fox News act as “a praetorian guard” that suppresses criticism of Trump, even from the right.

    Those are compelling observations, but incomplete as an explanation. DeSantis’s larger problem may be that the universe of voters that wants Trumpism but doesn’t think Trump can be relied on to deliver it is much smaller than the Florida governor had hoped. One top Trump adviser told me that the fights Trump engaged in as president make it almost impossible to convince conservatives he’s not really one of them. Bob Vander Plaats, a prominent Iowa evangelical leader who has endorsed DeSantis, likewise told me that amid all of Trump’s battles with the left, it’s easier to try to convince evangelical conservatives that the former president can’t win in November than that he has abandoned their causes.

    The analogy I’ve used for DeSantis’s strategy is that Trump is like a Mack truck barreling down the far-right lane of American politics, and that rather than trying to pass in all the space he’s left in the center of the road, DeSantis has tried to squeeze past him on the right shoulder. There’s just not a lot of room there.

    Even so, DeSantis’s complaints about Trump look like a closing argument from Perry Mason compared with the muffled, gauzy case that Haley has presented against him. DeSantis’s choice to run to Trump’s right created a vacuum that Haley, largely through effective performances at the early debates, has filled with the elements of the GOP coalition that have always been most dubious of Trump: moderates, suburbanites, college-educated voters. But that isn’t a coalition nearly big enough to win. And she has walked on eggshells in trying to reach beyond that universe to the Republican voters who are generally favorable toward Trump but began the race possibly open to an alternative—what the veteran GOP pollster Whit Ayres calls the “maybe Trump” constituency.

    The most notable thing in how Haley talks about Trump is that she almost always avoids value judgments. It’s time for generational change, she will say, or I will be a stronger general-election candidate who will sweep in more Republican candidates up and down the ballot.

    Read: The real reason Republicans couldn’t kill Obamacare

    At last week’s CNN debate, Haley turned up the dial when she that said of course Trump lost the 2020 election; that January 6 was a “terrible day”; and that Trump’s claims of absolute immunity were “ridiculous.” Those pointed comments probably offered a momentary glimpse of what she actually thinks about him. But in the crucial days before the caucus, Haley has reverted to her careful, values-free dissents. At one town hall conducted over telephone late last week, she said the “hard truths” Republicans had to face were that, although “President Trump was the right president at the right time” and “I agree with a lot of his policies,” the fact remained that “rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him.” Talk about taking off the gloves.

    Jennifer Horn, the former Republican Party chair in New Hampshire who has become a fierce Trump critic, told me, “There’s no moral or ethical judgment against Trump from her. From anyone, really, but we’re talking about her. She says chaos follows him ‘rightly or wrongly.’ Who cares? Nobody cares about chaos. That’s not the issue with Trump. He’s crooked; he’s criminal; he incited an insurrection. That’s the case against Trump. And if his so-called strongest opponent won’t make the case against Trump, why should voters?”

    Gross, the longtime GOP activist, is supporting Haley, but even he is perplexed by her reluctance to articulate a stronger critique of the front-runner. “I don’t know what her argument is,” Gross told me. “I guess it’s: Get rid of the chaos. She’s got to make a strong case about why she’s the alternative, and it’s got to include some element of judgment.”

    The reluctance of DeSantis and Haley to fully confront the former president has created an utterly asymmetrical campaign battlefield because Trump has displayed no hesitation about attacking either of them. The super PAC associated with Trump’s campaign spent months pounding DeSantis on issues including supporting statehood for Puerto Rico and backing cuts in Social Security, and in recent weeks, Trump’s camp has run ads accusing Haley of raising taxes and being weak on immigration. In response, DeSantis and Haley have spent significantly more money attacking each other than criticizing, or even rebutting, Trump. Rob Pyers, an analyst with the nonpartisan California Target Book, has calculated that the principal super PAC supporting Trump has spent $32 million combined in ads against Haley and DeSantis; they have pummeled each other with a combined $38 million in negative ads from the super PACs associated with their campaigns. Meanwhile, the Haley and DeSantis super PACs have spent only a little more than $1 million in ads targeting Trump, who is leading them by as much as 50 points in national polls.

    Haley’s sharpest retort to any of Trump’s attacks has been to say he’s misrepresenting her record. During the CNN debate, Haley metronomically touted a website called DeSantislies.com, but if she has a similar page up about Trump, she hasn’t mentioned it. (Her campaign didn’t respond to a query about whether it plans to establish such a site.)

    “Calling him a liar right now is her strongest pushback, but I just don’t think GOP voters care about liars,” Horn told me. “If she engaged in a real battle with him for these last days [before New Hampshire], that would be fascinating to see. The fact that she’s not pushing back, the fact that she’s not running the strongest possible campaign as she’s coming down the stretch here, makes me wonder if she is as uncertain of her ability to win as I am.”

    Some Republican strategists are sympathetic to this careful approach to Trump, especially from Haley. A former top aide to one of Trump’s main rivals in the 2016 race told me that “nobody has found a message you can put on TV that makes Republicans like Trump less.” Some other veterans of earlier GOP contests believe that Haley and DeSantis were justified in initially trying to eclipse the other and create a one-on-one race with Trump. And for Haley, there’s also at least some argument for preserving her strongest case against Trump for the January 23 New Hampshire primary, where a more moderate electorate may be more receptive than the conservative, heavily evangelical population that usually turns out for the caucus.

    “She has to draw much sharper contrasts,” Gross told me. “And to be fair to her, once she gets out of here, maybe she will. What she strikes me as is incredibly disciplined and calculating. So, I do think you’re going to see modulation.”

    DeSantis has the most to lose in Iowa, because a poor showing will almost certainly end his campaign, even if he tries to insist otherwise for a few weeks. For Haley, the results aren’t as important because whatever happens here, she will have another opportunity to create momentum in New Hampshire, where polls have shown her rising even as DeSantis craters. Still, if Haley is unable or unwilling to deliver a more persuasive argument against Trump, she too will quickly find herself with no realistic hope of overtaking the front-runner, whose lead in national polls of Republican voters continues to grow. That’s one thing common to winter in both Iowa and New Hampshire: It gets dark early.

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    Ronald Brownstein

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  • Iowa Blizzard Forces Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley To Share Hotel Room

    Iowa Blizzard Forces Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley To Share Hotel Room

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    ORILLA, IA—With flights grounded and roads buried under inches of snow, blizzard conditions in Iowa reportedly forced Republican primary opponents Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley to share a hotel room Friday. “Seriously? There’s not even a sofa?” said Haley, who groaned and returned DeSantis’ brooding scowl with a fiery glare of her own as the pair entered the cramped roadside motel room and surveyed its shabby conditions. “You’re not happy with this? Well, neither am I, Ron DeSantis! Believe me, this is the last place on earth I’d like to be right now! There’s no way in hell I’m sleeping on the floor, so let’s just put a blanket down the middle and agree not to cross that line. Now, I’m going to take a shower. You better not look, or you’re dead!” At press time, reports confirmed the two had locked eyes and shivered after accidentally brushing hands.

    Financial Problems Force Ron DeSantis Campaign To Fire Wife

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  • DeSantis bragged about a COVID study during Newsom debate. Not so fast, lead author says

    DeSantis bragged about a COVID study during Newsom debate. Not so fast, lead author says

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    During the Fox News debate between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a study published in the scientific journal the Lancet was highlighted as vindication for the Sunshine State’s loose pandemic policies.

    As the two traded barbs over who was a “lockdown governor,” DeSantis crowed about his state reopening quickly and said: “In fact, the Lancet just did a study: Florida had a lower standardized COVID death rate than California did” when adjusted for how Florida’s population skews older and has higher rates of underlying illness, such as cancer and heart disease.

    With that adjustment, Florida ranks as having the 12th-lowest standardized death rate nationally among states, compared to the 14th-highest raw death rate.

    Some critics of the tough public health measures implemented in many states in response to the pandemic have seized on that finding as proof that strict practices such as stay-at-home orders, masking, limited vaccine mandates and social distancing weren’t needed to control COVID-19.

    But the study’s lead author says that’s the wrong takeaway.

    “If [DeSantis] is using the study as an example to support the message that masks, or staying at home, or vaccines did not matter in this pandemic, then that would be using the study inappropriately — because that is not what it shows,” said Thomas J. Bollyky, director of the global health program at the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think tank.

    “The governor aggressively promoted those behaviors early. And the reality is even when he started to turn away from those behaviors in 2021, Floridians continued to adopt them, and at rates that exceeded the national average,” Bollyky said in an interview.

    Through mid-2022, Floridians ranked in the top half of states in vaccine coverage and mask use, and in the top quartile of states for reduced mobility (how often people stayed home compared to pre-pandemic times).

    Mobility statistics came from four sources of cellphone GPS data, which was used to calculate daily mobility relative to before the pandemic.

    Gov. Ron DeSantis, standing in mask, right, watches as a COVID-19 vaccine dose is administered at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami on Jan. 4, 2021.

    (Wilfredo Lee / Associated Press)

    In a follow-up analysis written by Bollyky and two co-authors on the website Think Global Health, there are several explanations as to why Florida did comparatively well relative to other states. Among them: The state “adopted early aggressive nursing home policies, testing, and gathering restrictions to slow the spread of the virus — at a higher rate than even most states led by Democratic governors — and promoted vaccination among the elderly.”

    “Early on in the pandemic, the governor was quite aggressive trying to reach out to the elderly population about the need to be cautious,” Bollyky said. “And those messages took hold.”

    The analysis — which covered the period from the start of the pandemic through the end of July 2022 — found that Florida’s early policies encouraged residents to continue to stay home, get vaccinated and wear masks at a higher rate than most other states, even after health mandates were lifted.

    Among the strict steps DeSantis undertook, the analysis said, was isolating COVID patients in nursing homes and banning visitors; closing schools in March 2020 and keeping them shut for the rest of the academic year; and telling residents to avoid gatherings that could turn into super-spreader events.

    People wear masks at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami.

    People wearing masks walk toward Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in January 2021. Florida was one of the first states to throw open vaccine eligibility to members of the general public over 65.

    (Lynne Sladky / Associated Press)

    “DeSantis was one of only four governors to reopen schools in the fall of 2020, but Florida was still otherwise slower to lift gathering restrictions and bar and restaurant closures than most Republican-led states,” the analysis said.

    And DeSantis was an early champion of COVID-19 vaccines for seniors, saying in January 2021, “we want the shots to go in the arms.” That’s at odds with his latest denigration, suggesting Floridians who got the recently updated vaccinations were “guinea pigs” for “shots that have not been proven to be safe or effective,” despite strong evidence to the contrary from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    News articles in late 2021 noted efforts by some local governments and residents to take precautions, including masking up. Miami-Dade County officials ordered county employees to either get vaccinated or submit to regular testing in response to the Delta wave in mid-2021. Public schools in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties had mask mandates in place through November 2021.

    During the first Omicron wave in late 2021, jury trials were paused in Miami-Dade County courts, and some concert promoters canceled events.

    Health-cautious behaviors persisted among a number of Floridians even as, between the Delta and initial Omicron surges in 2021, DeSantis moved to prohibit vaccine mandates and strike down mask mandates.

    In one notable example of the change in approach, the governor scolded students for wearing face masks during an indoor news conference in early 2022. “You do not have to wear those masks. I mean, please take them off. Honestly, it’s not doing anything. And we’ve got to stop with this COVID theater. So if you wanna wear it, fine, but this is ridiculous,” DeSantis told them. Some students took them off, while others kept them on.

    In early 2021, DeSantis began emphasizing a “medical freedom” agenda, the analysis noted, with his appointed surgeon general later defying federal recommendations and discouraging COVID-19 vaccinations. The analysis found Florida’s rates of overall vaccinations for schoolchildren fell to a 10-year low, and flu shot uptake for adults fell during the pandemic, even as they rose nationally.

    “If these trends persist and extend to other public health measures, the state will be less safe,” the report said.

    During last autumn and winter — a period not covered by the Lancet study — COVID-19 booster rates among Florida’s seniors lagged badly. As of late spring, only 31% had received the updated shot, below the national rate of 43%, and California’s rate of 48%.

    Complicating any comparison between Florida and California, however, is the multiple number of ways to calculate COVID death rates.

    There’s the crude death rate, to which Newsom alluded during the Nov. 30 televised faceoff with DeSantis. He said Florida had a 29% worse per capita death rate compared to California. A spokesperson later said that’s based on statistics from the CDC’s online COVID Data Tracker, which lists 110,208 deaths for California and 81,238 for Florida.

    When adjusted for population — 39 million for California and 22 million for Florida, per U.S. Census estimates in mid-2022 — the rates equal 365.2 COVID deaths for every 100,000 Florida residents and 282.4 COVID deaths for every 100,000 California residents.

    There are also age-adjusted statistics, which account for the fact that California’s population is relatively younger demographically than Florida’s. According to the CDC, Florida has an age-adjusted rate of 253 deaths per 100,000 residents, nominally higher than California’s 249 deaths per 100,000 residents.

    For 2021 — the deadliest calendar year of the pandemic nationally — the agency calculates Florida’s age-adjusted death rate at 111.7 for every 100,000 residents, about 12% worse than California’s.

    But then there is the Lancet study’s standardized rate cited by DeSantis, which was adjusted not only for age, but also for how Florida has higher rates of chronic illness. By that metric, Florida had a rate of 313 deaths per 100,000 residents — California’s was 34% worse, at 418 per 100,000 residents.

    Some contend that California’s pandemic policy was based in science and saved many lives; others assert Florida did a better job without curtailing rights; and still others say it’s foolhardy to compare the two, given vast differences that politicians and policymakers had no control over.

    In some camps, the narrative has become: “Florida did better than you might expect overall, but they did badly on vaccination when the Delta wave came up,” Bollyky said. But even that more nuanced take doesn’t provide a complete picture, he said.

    “Our study covered 2½ years. So to say [Florida] did bad for a three-month period of time of that is like saying they didn’t do well in the sixth inning, but did pretty well overall in the game,” Bollyky said. “That’s true, but also doesn’t really get at what the Florida story should be telling people — which is … that [officials] did their work early, and then the population continued to do its work.

    “And in some ways, the governor has failed to give himself credit for what he did early — for political reasons, presumably — and failed to give Floridians credit for what they did throughout the pandemic.”

    The original Lancet study also rebuts the perception that states that prioritized lives did so by sacrificing the economy and education. Virtually all states — whether led by Republicans or Democrats — instituted health mandates in the first months of the pandemic, Bollyky said. The big divide occurred after the Delta wave hit in summer 2021, when Democratic-leaning states were more likely to impose new pandemic policies.

    Notably, the Lancet study did not find any association between a higher or lower state gross domestic product and higher or lower coronavirus infections or deaths.

    “With the exception of restaurant closures, none of the policy mandates that we studied — stay-at-home orders, gathering restrictions, school closures, gym or pool closures, mask mandates, vaccine mandates — were associated with lower GDP or employment at the state level,” Bollyky said.

    In terms of the overall strength of the economy, “there was no choice between public health and the economy to be made. At least that’s not what our data shows,” Bollyky said. “You don’t see some nationwide association between ‘lockdown’ and ‘free’ states and better economies.”

    The pandemic coincided with declines in U.S. educational performance, the Lancet study said, but the data analyzed don’t indicate learning losses were systematically associated with primary school closures at the state level.

    “California, a state with long school closures during the pandemic, had test score declines similar to or smaller than those in Florida and Maine, states with low rates of school closures,” the study said.

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    Rong-Gong Lin II

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  • The Two Republican Theories for Beating Trump

    The Two Republican Theories for Beating Trump

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    The latest GOP presidential debate demonstrated again that Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley are pursuing utterly inimical strategies for catching the front-runner, Donald Trump.

    The debate, on Wednesday evening, also showed why neither approach looks remotely sufficient to dislodge Trump from his commanding position in the race.

    DeSantis delivered a stronger overall debate performance than Haley. But the evening mostly displayed the structural limitations of the theory that each campaign is operating under, and the limited progress either candidate has made toward surmounting those obstacles.

    As he showed during the debate, DeSantis is grounding his coalition on the right by defining himself as an unflagging champion for the party’s most conservative elements. During the debate, the Florida governor’s frequent attacks on Haley, and more infrequent (and oblique) jabs at Trump, both represented variations on the charge that neither rival can be trusted to advance conservative priorities.

    Haley, in mirror image, is grounding her coalition in the party’s center. She has focused on consolidating the centrist GOP voters and donors who have long expressed the most resistance to Trump. That includes moderates, people with at least a four-year college degree, GOP-leaning independents, and suburbanites.

    DeSantis’s vision, in other words, has been to start on the right and over time build toward the center; Haley wants to grow in the opposite direction by locking down the center, and then expanding into the right.

    Supporters of both Haley and DeSantis believe that the other’s approach lowers their ceiling too much to ultimately topple Trump. The problem for all Republicans looking for an alternative to the former president is that last week’s debate offered the latest evidence that each camp may be right about the other’s limitations. With the voting beginning only five weeks from Monday in the Iowa caucus, neither Haley nor DeSantis has found any effective way to loosen Trump’s grip on the party.

    Neither, in fact, has even tried hard to do so. Instead, they have centered their efforts almost entirely on trying to squeeze out the other to become Trump’s principal rival. To beat Trump, or to come close, eventually either of them will need to peel away some of the roughly 60 percent of GOP voters who now say in national polls that they intend to support him for the nomination. But both have behaved as if they can leave that challenge for a later day, while focusing on trying to clear the field to create a one-on-one contest with the front-runner.

    The theory in DeSantis’s camp has been that the only way to beat Trump is to aim directly at his core supporters with a conservative message. DeSantis advisers acknowledge that his positioning has not connected with many centrist voters. But his camp believes that if DeSantis can emerge after the early states as the last viable alternative to Trump, the moderates most resistant to the former president will have no choice but to rally around the Florida governor, even if they consider him too Trump-like himself.

    The voters now drawn to Haley “share a goal in common with Governor DeSantis in that they want an alternative to Trump,” Bob Vander Plaats, a prominent Iowa religious conservative who has endorsed DeSantis, told me. “The more that DeSantis proves there is one alternative to Trump, he will start peeling off that lane as well.” By contrast, Vander Plaats argues, if DeSantis falls out of contention, his support is more likely to flow back to Trump than toward Haley. “I haven’t heard any supporter of DeSantis yet saying: ‘I’m deciding between him and Haley,’” he told me. “Basically, they are between Trump and him.”

    DeSantis’s supporters anticipate that his strategy will pay off if he finishes strongly in Iowa. But so far, his decision to offer voters what amounts to Trumpism without Trump has returned few dividends. With his Trump-like agenda on immigration and foreign policy, and emphasis on culture-war issues such as transgender rights, DeSantis has alienated many of the centrist GOP voters most dubious of the former president while failing to dislodge many of his core supporters.

    “Ron DeSantis should have consolidated the non-Trump wing of the party from the get go and then gone after soft Trump supporters,” Alex Stroman, a former executive director of the South Carolina Republican Party, told me in an email. “Instead, he tried to out-MAGA Trump from the right and alienated not only soft-Trump voters but also the more pragmatic wing of the party. It was a strategic blunder.”

    Haley has filled that vacuum with the elements of the party most skeptical of Trump. Her approach has been to start with the primary voters who like the former president the least, with the hope of eventually attracting more of those ambivalent about him. Her backers believe she has a better chance than DeSantis to reach those “maybe Trump” voters. As the veteran GOP pollster Whit Ayres told me, DeSantis “has tried to appeal to some of the ‘always Trump’ voters, but the ‘always Trump’ voters are always Trump for a reason. Nikki Haley seems to have figured out the job is to consolidate the ‘maybe Trump’ voters who supported Trump twice but now … want a different style and different temperament.”

    Read: A war on blue America

    DeSantis still leads Haley in most national polls, though that may be changing. And he remains even or ahead of her in the polls in Iowa, where he has campaigned relentlessly, won support from most of the state’s Republican leadership (including Governor Kim Reynolds), attracted broad backing in the influential religious-conservative community, and spent heavily on building a grassroots organization.

    But DeSantis is in a much weaker position in the other early states. A recent poll by CNN and the University of New Hampshire found him falling to fourth in the Granite State. That poll found Haley emerging as a clear second to Trump, as did another recent CNN survey in South Carolina. In each state, she attracted about twice as much support as DeSantis did. Polls also consistently show Haley running much better than DeSantis, or Trump, in hypothetical general election match ups against President Joe Biden.

    All of these positive trends largely explain why DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy, another GOP contender, attacked Haley at the debate. Haley was right when she suggested that the attention reflected anxiety in DeSantis’s camp about her rise. But that motivation doesn’t necessarily make the attacks any less effective.

    After delivering the most assured performances in the first three GOP debates, Haley seemed wobbly last week as DeSantis and Ramaswamy pummeled her from the right. Dave Wilson, a longtime Republican and social-conservative activist in South Carolina, told me that Haley had not faced that kind of sustained ideological assault from the right during her career in the state. “It hasn’t been used against her in South Carolina,” Wilson said. “Nikki has never been some kind of mainstreamer or a shill for the big corporations. That’s not who she has portrayed herself as, or how she governed, when she was governor of South Carolina.”

    Read: Trump voters are American too

    At the debate, Haley never seemed to find solid ground when DeSantis accused her of resisting the hard-line approaches he has championed in Florida on issues affecting transgender people. Haley neither embraced DeSantis’s agenda nor challenged it and instead insisted he was mischaracterizing her own record, without entirely clarifying her views. “Especially on those types of cultural issues, it is probably always going to be advantage DeSantis,” Vander Plaats told me. “I think if you turned down the volume and just [looked at] the physical appearance, Nikki was very concerned at that point, like she knew she was in a tough space, and DeSantis was in a very confident space.”

    Her uneasy response on issues of LGBTQ rights was a stark contrast to the confident course she has set on abortion. One reason Haley has gained favor with more centrist Republicans is that she has so clearly argued that the GOP cannot achieve sweeping federal abortion restrictions and must pursue consensus around more limited goals. “I think Nikki Haley talks about social issues the same way that real people do: not through demagoguery or hysterics like some candidates, but having real policy disagreements while showing compassion for those affected—and I think that’s the winning formula,” Stroman said.

    But at the debate, Haley was unwilling to apply that formula to LGBTQ issues, even as she seemed to seek a more empathetic tone than DeSantis.

    “She has clearly thought through a more moderate, nuanced position on abortion that would have greater appeal in a general election,” Alice Stewart, a longtime GOP strategist who has worked for leading social-conservative candidates, told me. “It appears she has not mapped out her position on other culture-war issues, such as transgender procedures and school bathrooms.”

    Doubling down on his message at the debate, DeSantis’s campaign told me afterward that “within the confines of the Constitution” he would support nationalizing the key laws affecting transgender people that he has passed in Florida, such as banning gender-affirming care for minors. Haley’s campaign still appeared focused mostly on deflecting this argument: In comments to me after the debate, her aides stressed that although DeSantis criticized her for opposing legislation as governor requiring students to use the restroom of the gender they were assigned at birth, he similarly indicated that the issue was not a priority for him not long thereafter, during his first gubernatorial campaign in 2018. Their message was that DeSantis is stressing these issues now merely out of expediency. But in an email exchange with me after the debate, Haley’s campaign drew a clearer distinction with DeSantis than she did during the encounter: rather than national action to impose on every state the restrictions Florida has approved on LGBTQ issues, the campaign said Haley would “encourage states to pass laws” that ban classroom discussion of sexual orientation or regulate bathroom use for transgender kids. The one exception the campaign noted is that, like DeSantis, she would also support national legislation banning transgender girls from competing in school sports.

    The debate drew only a small audience and is unlikely by itself to significantly change the trajectory of the DeSantis and Haley competition. Wilson and Stroman both said they doubt that DeSantis’s ideological attacks will hurt Haley much in the South Carolina primary. “It’s going to be harder in South Carolina than he thinks, because everyone knows what Nikki Haley did in this state,” Wilson said. “Under her leadership, a lot of strong conservative stands were taken.”

    But, of course, GOP voters don’t know nearly as much about Haley in the cascade of states that will vote in early March, after South Carolina. DeSantis supporters view her unsteady response to his ideological assault at the debate as validation of their belief that Haley can never attract enough conservative voters to genuinely threaten Trump. “There’s just no path for her to win the nomination,” Vander Plaats argued. “That lane doesn’t exist.”

    The path for any alternative to beat Trump is a rocky one, but it’s premature to assume that Haley cannot outlast DeSantis to become the last viable challenger to the former president. She still has time to formulate better responses to the charge that she’s insufficiently conservative for the Trump-era GOP. Portraying Haley as too squishy in the culture war might help her in New Hampshire, the state where she’s hoping to emerge as Trump’s principal rival.

    But the debate underscored her need to sharpen her answers on those issues as the race moves on. And for Haley’s supporters, it raised an ominous question: If she couldn’t respond more effectively to an attack on her conservative credentials from DeSantis and Ramaswamy, how would she hold up if she ever becomes enough of a threat for Donald Trump to press that case himself?

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    Ronald Brownstein

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  • The Nikki Haley Debate

    The Nikki Haley Debate

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    Produced by ElevenLabs and NOA, News Over Audio, using AI narration.

    Anyone watching the fourth Republican primary debate tonight would be forgiven for thinking that Nikki Haley was the favorite to win the GOP presidential nomination next year.

    Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy sure were acting like it. Neither man had finished answering his first question before he began attacking the former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador. “She caves any time the left comes after her, anytime the media comes after her,” warned DeSantis, the Florida governor. Ramaswamy went much further. He called Haley “corrupt” and “a fascist” for suggesting that social-media companies ban people from posting anonymously on their platforms.

    The broadsides continued throughout the two-hour debate in Tuscaloosa, Alabama: DeSantis and Ramaswamy used every opportunity to go after Haley, even when they were prodded to criticize the Republican who is actually dominating the primary race, Donald Trump.

    “I’m loving all the attention, fellas,” Haley said at one point. What she’d love even more is about 30 additional points in the polls. As well as Haley has been doing lately, she is capturing just about 10 percent of Republican voters nationwide, according to the polling average. Time is running out for her—or any other GOP candidate—to catch Trump. He skipped this meeting of the Republican also-rans, just as he did the three previous debates. This debate narrowed to four Trump alternatives, but the evening devolved into a familiar dynamic: Most of the challengers largely declined to criticize—or even discuss—Trump.

    Read: The 2024 U.S. presidential race: a cheat sheet

    Chris Christie was the exception, as usual. The former New Jersey governor lit into Trump and mocked his rivals for being too “timid” to do the same. “I’m in this race because the truth needs to be spoken: He is unfit,” Christie said. Acting the part of pundit as much as candidate, Christie noted ruefully how little Haley, DeSantis, and Ramaswamy wanted to talk about Trump and how fearful they seemed to be of angering him. DeSantis tiptoed toward criticism of Trump when he warned Republicans not “to nominate somebody who is almost 80 years old.” “Father Time is undefeated,” DeSantis said. But when he danced around the question of whether Trump was mentally fit to serve again as president, Christie bashed him. “This is the problem with my three colleagues: You are afraid to offend.”

    Ramaswamy was next to speak. Instead of contradicting Christie and confronting Trump, he held up a handwritten sign that read, NIKKI=CORRUPT.

    The reluctance of Trump’s rivals (aside from Christie) to attack the former president has frustrated Republicans who are rooting against his renomination. But on some level it makes sense. Haley, DeSantis, and Ramaswamy aren’t actually running against Trump—at least not yet. The best way to think of these Trump-less debates is as a primary within a primary. The four Republicans on stage tonight were battling merely for the right to face off against Trump. In sports terms, these preliminary matchups are like the divisional round of the NFL playoffs, except that Trump has already earned a bye to the conference championship. (The general election would be the Super Bowl.)

    The all-important question is whether one of these four can break away from the others in time to wage a fair fight against Trump. The window for doing so is closing fast, but it is not shut completely. Although Trump is capturing nearly 60 percent of Republican primary voters in the national polling average, he remains below 50 percent in Iowa and New Hampshire, the early states where his challengers are campaigning most aggressively. A majority of Republicans in both Iowa and New Hampshire are backing someone other than Trump at the moment, suggesting at least the possibility that Haley or DeSantis could consolidate the anti-Trump vote and overtake him in one or both states. Trump’s lead has been consistent—and it has actually grown since the debates started without him—but historically, primary races are most volatile in the final few weeks before voters begin casting ballots.

    Read: The Republican primary is slipping away

    The debate stage has shrunk by half since the first GOP primary forum in August, when eight candidates met the Republican National Committee’s criteria for participation. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina ended his bid after appearing in last month’s debate in Miami, as did North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, who did not qualify.

    Yet four candidates might be as small as it gets. No more RNC-sanctioned debates are scheduled before the Iowa caucuses on January 15 or the New Hampshire primary eight days later. If Trump wins both states against a divided field—as polls suggest he will—his nomination would probably seem unstoppable.

    The most likely path to preventing Trump’s nomination is the same as it was when the primary began: for anti-Trump Republicans to agree on a single candidate to go up against him one-on-one. Nikki Haley is making her move. But if tonight’s debate revealed anything, it’s that her Republican competitors aren’t ready to let her have that chance.

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    Russell Berman

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  • Ron DeSantis Does Not Seem to Be Enjoying Himself

    Ron DeSantis Does Not Seem to Be Enjoying Himself

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    On Saturday afternoon, with just over six weeks to go until the Iowa caucuses, Ron DeSantis told a story about how he once bravely stood up to the Special Olympics.

    He was speaking atop a small platform in a partitioned-off section of a former roller rink in Newton, Iowa, dubbed “the Thunderdome.” The anecdote, like so many, had something to do with the tyranny of vaccine mandates. DeSantis said he had met a family at the Iowa State Fair, and that one of their children had wanted to participate in the Special Olympics, but wasn’t vaccinated. As it happened, the games were being held in Florida, where DeSantis serves as governor. “Well, we don’t have discrimination in Florida on that,” he said, meaning vaccination status. “So we were able to tell the Special Olympics, you let all the athletes compete!” People hooted.

    This narrative followed a familiar arc: The Florida governor had confronted something he didn’t like, and, after a brief crusade, emerged victorious. DeSantis plays the part of a fearless maverick pursuing justice—even if that means picking a fight with a well-respected nonprofit. All year long on the campaign trail, self-awareness has seemed to elude him. “What you don’t want to do is repel people for no reason,” DeSantis told the room a little later.

    Mark Leibovich: Just wait until you get to know Ron DeSantis

    Saturday’s speech marked the culmination of DeSantis’s 99-county tour of Iowa. The event may have been intended as a moment of triumph, but the crowd on this cold, dreary afternoon was, at approximately 400 attendees, not at capacity. Outside the venue, you could buy buttons that said RON ’24 HE’S KIND OF A BIG DEAL! with an illustration of DeSantis mashed up with Anchorman’s Ron Burgundy. Other merchandise leaned harder into DeSantis’s culture-warrior reputation: SOCIALISM SUCKS, ANNOY A LIBERAL WORK HARD BE HAPPY, CRITICAL RACE THEORY with a no-smoking slash through it, and DESANTISLAND with the Disney D.

    Is this angle working? Despite his GOP fame and high-profile endorsements, his polling average is trending in the wrong direction. He has more or less staked his candidacy on winning Iowa. But now he’s almost tied with former U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley in the polls there, and elsewhere, for distant second place to former President Donald Trump. He may soon slip to third. His super PAC, Never Back Down, just fired its CEO, Kristin Davison, after nine days on the job. (She had taken over for the previous CEO, who had resigned around Thanksgiving, along with the group’s chair.) I asked Never Back Down what potential voters should make of all these changes. The group’s spokesperson sent a statement: “Never Back Down has the most organized, advanced caucus operation of anyone in the 2024 primary field, and we look forward to continuing that great work to help elect Gov. DeSantis the next President of the United States.”

    One of Saturday’s warm-up speakers, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, attempted to humanize DeSantis for her constituents. She gestured to the importance of DeSantis achieving the “full Grassley”—a nod to Iowa’s senior senator, Chuck Grassley, who visits all of the state’s 99 counties every year to meet voters. (DeSantis’s team temporarily rebranded the milestone as a “Full DeSantis,” with placards peppering the venue.) “Listen, Iowans want the opportunity to look you in the eye; they want the opportunity to size that candidate up just a little bit,” Reynolds told the room. “It’s also really important for the candidates—I’ve said it really helps them kind of do the retail politics.” She spoke of DeSantis and his wife taking in all of the state’s offerings over the past year—Albert the Bull, Casey’s breakfast pizza. “And I’m going to tell ya, I think they’re having some fun!” Reynolds said unconvincingly.

    DeSantis did not appear to be fully enjoying himself in Newton. More than a few people have noted that his wife, Casey, is the more natural politician, and could herself be a stronger future candidate. As she introduced her husband on Saturday, he stood a few feet behind her, staring intensely into the back of her head. She was confident and effortless at the mic; Ron didn’t seem to know what to do with his eyes, or his mouth, or, especially, his hands. Clasp them loosely below his belly button? Put them on either side of his waist like Superman? He looked unsettled as he waited for her to finish.

    When his turn to speak came, DeSantis began by trying to follow Reynolds’s lead. He recalled his visit to the Field of Dreams baseball field in Dubuque County. (“And our kids were there and everything like that.”) He fumbled the name of  a famous bakery and was swiftly corrected by many members of the audience. He offered his affection for other Iowa staples: ice cream, cheese curds. “We brought a whole bunch of cheese curds back to the state of Florida, which was a lot of fun,” DeSantis proclaimed. No means of pandering was off limits. Iowa, he declared “will begin the revival of the United States of America.” He hinted that, as president, he’d even move the Department of Agriculture from Washington, D.C., to Iowa.

    Watching DeSantis up close as he lumbers through these moments of his campaign is almost enough to elicit sympathy. One of Saturday’s attendees, Caleb Grossnickle, a 25-year-old cybersecurity analyst from Ames, told me that he found DeSantis endearing. “I mean, he does seem a little awkward at times. But I think, honestly, it just shows that he’s a normal human,” he said. “He’s just a normal guy who’s trying to run for president, trying to make change.” Grossnickle told me that he was also interested in Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running as an independent.

    One of DeSantis’s highest-profile Iowa surrogates, the evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats, was arguably the most captivating speaker on the bill. “Let me bathe this thing in prayer,” he said. He then launched into an invocation that ended with “Lord, when he does win the Iowa caucuses and when he does go through and win the early states, make people know that this is of you, by you, and for you, Lord.”

    Vander Plaats pointed out that voting for DeSantis is not the same as voting “against Trump.” But he also preached the need for a candidate who “fears God,” adding that “the fear of God is the beginning of all wisdom.” That noble idea morphed into a jab. “We need somebody to know that they fear God; they don’t believe they are God.”

    A 46-year-old attendee from Ottumwa, Iowa, named Jeremy had brought his daughter along to see DeSantis up close. He told me that he’d twice voted for Trump and would vote for him a third time if he gets the nomination, though he admitted he finds him “distasteful.” DeSantis, he added, is his favorite candidate, and “more of a classy person.”

    David A. Graham: The 2024 presidential race: a cheat sheet

    Later in the afternoon, I approached Vander Plaats in the back of the room. I asked him about his line relating to the type of person who believes they are God. Vander Plaats said he was referring to “the left.” I also brought up how DeSantis seemed to lack interpersonal skills, and asked if he thought that was a fair criticism of the man he had endorsed. “I think it’s overhyped,” Vander Plaats said, but he didn’t outright dismiss the notion. “Right now, I think Americans want a real leader to get things done versus, you know, Hey, do I want to sit on the couch with them and watch a football game?”

    Yet some people really do love him. In my conversations with attendees, many of them pointed to DeSantis’s follow-through as the core of his appeal. A 55-year-old supporter named Todd Lyons told me that he and his wife had driven four hours west from their home in Normal, Illinois, that morning to be there. They’d never seen DeSantis in the flesh. “He says he’ll do something and he does it,” Lyons said. “As opposed to with Trump, you see a tweet where he’s going to do something and talk about how amazing it’s going to be and then he wouldn’t follow through.” Even if DeSantis doesn’t get the nomination, Lyons told me he planned to write in the governor’s name on the ballot. Anne Wolford, a 74-year-old retiree from Grinnell, Iowa, told me that she had liked South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, but he had just recently dropped out, and now she was interested in DeSantis. “I think we’ve got to have somebody that’s got the gumption to go head-to-head with China, Russia, and North Korea. And I think with his military background, he can maybe achieve that.”

    Two nights earlier, DeSantis exhibited his gumption in a TV debate with Governor Gavin Newsom of California. At one point, DeSantis brandished a “poop map” purportedly showing the places in San Francisco where human feces could be found on streets and sidewalks. (Practically the entire image was tinged brown.) In Iowa, DeSantis posited that Newsom was carrying out a shadow campaign for the presidency. “We cannot assume that they are actually gonna run [Joe] Biden,” he said. He seethed at the Democratic establishment. “We are not gonna be gaslit by people who think we’re dumb,” he said a little later.

    During his stump speech, he spent a good deal of time talking about the pandemic. He promised that Anthony Fauci, now in retirement, would face a “reckoning” over all things COVID-19. But even the demonized Fauci serves as a symptom of a larger disease, in DeSantis’s worldview. The field of medicine, he warned, has been infected by a “woke ideology,” and Harvard Medical School doctors “basically take, like, a woke Hippocratic oath.” (DeSantis holds degrees from Harvard and Yale.) He also punched down, endorsing the idea of imposing fees on remittances that foreign workers send back to their home countries. He believes these are the ideas that will win him the presidency.

    DeSantis attacks Trump more than most of his competitors (with the exception of Chris Christie), but he’s also assumed the role of Trump’s primary target. Nearly every day, the Trump campaign sends out press releases attacking DeSantis, with one recurring item that it calls the “kiss of death.” A sample from Friday mocked his stature: “KISS OF DEATH: Small Expectations, Smaller Candidate.” On Saturday morning, hours before DeSantis’s big achievement of stumping in every county, the Trump campaign sent out a preemptive press release: “Republican candidate for president Ryan Binkley, who is polling at 0%, outperformed Ron DeSantis by becoming the first person to visit all 99 counties in Iowa earlier this month.”

    Read: Inside the mind of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

    It’s hard to understand what DeSantis’s real plan is, as Trump is still so far ahead in the polls. In an emailed statement, DeSantis’s deputy campaign manager, David Polyansky, said, “The collective firepower of Team DeSantis remains unmatched” and that the campaign “will carry the support of the most robust turnout operation in modern Iowa history into success on January 15.” Even if DeSantis wins the Iowa caucuses or comes in second, though, that doesn’t necessarily predict a victory in the New Hampshire primary. That state’s motto—“Live free or die”—is out of sync with what DeSantis has done in Florida, using the government to impose book bans and a six-week abortion limit. If by some chance Trump were to lose New Hampshire, it would probably be to Haley, not to DeSantis—and such a victory would position Haley for more success in her home state of South Carolina.

    In Newton, leaning against the rear wall was a 66-year-old man, in a Kangol-style hat and a University of Iowa pullover, named Vern Schnoebelen. He’s the lead singer and harmonica player of a band that had played the Thunderdome the night before. He told me that he and his friend had snuck into the VIP section, where the bar was, earlier that afternoon. He had come out on Saturday not because he loves DeSantis but simply because he lives nearby and this seemed like a big event. He told me that, come caucus time, if Trump is running away in the polls, he’ll intentionally support the candidate in third or fourth place to encourage them to stay active in the party. “I don’t want them to lose heart,” he said. “We never know what’s going to happen with Trump. Who knows what’s going to come out of the woodwork?”

    He told me that he had voted for Trump twice, and would support whoever became the GOP nominee, Trump included. I asked whether anything about Trump’s various indictments bothered him. “No, I think it’s all a fallacy,” he said. “I think most of it’s made up.”

    That’s what DeSantis is competing with. He’ll have to try not to lose heart.

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    John Hendrickson

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  • Newsom-DeSantis debate draws 4.75 million viewers on Fox News

    Newsom-DeSantis debate draws 4.75 million viewers on Fox News

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    The Thursday debate between California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Fox News — the talk of the political world this past week — delivered a decent bump in the channel’s ratings.

    Billed as the “The Great Red State vs. Blue State Debate,” the event moderated by Fox News host Sean Hannity averaged 4.75 million viewers, according to Nielsen data.

    The number was more than double the November average for “Hannity,” which was 2.3 million viewers, as the debate pulled in people who do not typically watch his nightly diatribes against liberals and the Biden administration. The figure also accounted for 73% of the viewers watching cable news in the 9 p.m time slot.

    The event faced stiff competition, up against a close, high-scoring “Thursday Night Football” contest between the Dallas Cowboys and Seattle Seahawks streaming on Amazon, and the finale of “The Golden Bachelor” on ABC, the most-watched TV program of the night.

    The highly anticipated match-up staged in a suburb outside Atlanta was unusual for TV news, with DeSantis, a contender for the 2024 Republican nomination for president, facing off against a sitting governor who has repeatedly stated he is not running for national office.

    Newsom, a leading surrogate for the Democratic party, was also entering an arena where the moderator, Hannity, was clearly aligned politically with DeSantis.

    Despite the efforts of Hannity to keep order — he pleaded on and off the air with both participants to not talk over each other — the 90-minute event became chaotic at times, making it difficult for viewers to understand either of them.

    The questions offered up by the conservative host were mostly built around unfavorable comparisons of California to Florida on issues such as crime, handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, homelessness and gasoline prices, and put Newsom on the defense for much of the evening.

    But Newsom entered the showdown with nothing to lose, as he is insistent he will not be Democratic candidate for president in 2024, despite chatter in right-wing circles. He largely used his time to defend the performance of President Biden’s administration while getting exposure in front of a national audience that may not have been familiar with him.

    When Hannity served up a question stating emphatically that Biden was in cognitive decline, Newsom shot back that he will “take Joe Biden at 100 versus Ron DeSantis any day of the week at any age.”

    DeSantis needed the event to ignite his flagging presidential campaign, as he badly trails former President Trump in polls and has fallen behind former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley in some primary states.

    DeSantis used props in his presentation, including a very brown map that depicted the volume of human fecal matter on the streets of San Francisco, where Newsom was once mayor.

    Fox News used clips of the debate on its Friday opinion programs, touting it as a win for DeSantis, who up to now has failed to catch fire with the network’s audience.

    “This was a victory of conservatism over liberalism,” said Kaleigh McEnany, the former Trump White House press secretary who is now a co-host of the Fox News daytime show “Outnumbered.”

    But McEnany said Newsom, whom she described as “sharp,” cannot be written off as a political competitor.

    “Watch out for him, because he’s coming if not in ‘24, in ‘28,” she said.

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    Stephen Battaglio

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  • DeSantis slams L.A. County D.A. George Gascón in debate with Newsom

    DeSantis slams L.A. County D.A. George Gascón in debate with Newsom

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    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis lambasted L.A. County Dist. Atty. George Gascón during a Thursday night Fox News debate with Gov. Gavin Newsom.

    In a spat over crime in California and Florida, DeSantis repeatedly pointed to Gascón, who has sought to overhaul L.A. County’s criminal justice system since he entered office in 2020.

    “They are on an ideological joyride to let people out of prison,” DeSantis said. “Gavin’s buddy in Los Angeles, Gascón, he doesn’t even prosecute them,” he added, continuing that he had heard from people in California who were scared to go shopping for fear of getting mugged.

    “Gavin Newsom has not lifted a finger to rein in Gascón in L.A.,” DeSantis said, arguing that the county has “collapsed” because the district attorney “is not enforcing the law.”

    A Times analysis of the L.A. County district attorney’s office’s filing rates showed that Gascón actually prosecuted felonies at a near-identical rate to his predecessor, Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey, during his first two years in office. Gascón did, however, file only half as many misdemeanor cases as Lacey after barring prosecutors from filing low-level charges for crimes such as trespassing and simple drug possession.

    Avoiding those low-level charges was part of Gascón’s effort to keep people experiencing mental illness or homelessness out of jail and instead steer them into diversion programs for counseling, treatment and rehabilitation.

    Violent crime, robberies and aggravated assaults have gone up in L.A. County during Gascón’s tenure, according to California Department of Justice statistics. But criminologists have noted similar crime increases in parts of the state overseen by traditional prosecutors, raising doubts about any link between Gascón’s policies and a crime surge.

    Violent crime in the city of L.A. was down nearly 7% in the first nine months of 2023 relative to the same period last year, according to Los Angeles Police Department statistics.

    One of Gascón’s proposals was to reduce the length of prison sentences for up to 30,000 people in California prisons. Few people have actually had their sentences changed, a Times analysis concluded.

    Gascón has received blowback on his policies since entering office, but survived two failed recall efforts last year. He faces a crowded field of challengers in next year’s election.

    Times staff writer James Queally contributed to this report.

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    Faith E. Pinho

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  • Fox News debate with DeSantis puts Newsom on the defensive

    Fox News debate with DeSantis puts Newsom on the defensive

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    California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis turned their feud over blue and red state policies personal Thursday, clashing for more than 90 minutes over crime, taxes, COVID-19 pandemic policies, immigration, book bans and other divisive issues in an unorthodox debate that both men hoped would propel their national political ambitions.

    California has “failed because of his leftist ideology,” DeSantis said of Newsom, whom he called a “slick politician.”

    “There’s one thing … that we have in common,” Newsom said. “Neither of us will be the nominee for our party in 2024.”

    The forum in Georgia between the liberal Democrat and the conservative Republican, hosted by Sean Hannity on Fox News, culminated months of shadow boxing between the two governors, who have used their states’ opposing partisan approaches to governing to attack each other.

    Newsom was on the defensive for much of the debate as Hannity focused on taxes, crime, late-term abortions, California’s high gas prices and other topics on which conservatives believe they have the upper hand politically. Newsom responded by ignoring or reframing many of the questions.

    DeSantis, who has seen his once-promising presidential campaign sag, recognized an opportunity to take down the leader of the most prominent Democratic-led state, which he attacked as a bastion of unhinged progressive policies that have led to lawlessness and mass departures.

    Newsom, who may run for president in 2028, saw an opportunity to cement his reputation as a warrior for Democratic values, unafraid of Fox News and Republicans, as he savaged DeSantis’ vision of freedom as phony in a state where books are banned and abortion rights are curtailed.

    The risks for both men were clear. Some viewers may see the obvious downgrade in DeSantis’ campaign as he battles a governor who is not running for president, instead of former President Trump, the overwhelming favorite to win the GOP nomination, or President Biden, the man he hopes to ultimately unseat. Newsom could come off as too eager for attention and overconfident in believing he could dispatch DeSantis, who came well prepared, in a debate moderated by Hannity.

    It’s unclear whether Thursday’s debate will change minds on policy. But viewers got a clear contrast in a nation where differences are more often being played out in the states, which are increasingly dominated by a single party.

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    Noah Bierman, Taryn Luna

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  • Column: Newsom and DeSantis have the spotlight, but they don’t have a chance. Harris and Haley might

    Column: Newsom and DeSantis have the spotlight, but they don’t have a chance. Harris and Haley might

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    The culmination of the Newsom-DeSantis bromance is upon us, the mano a mano matchup of two governors who depend on each other to whip up the kind of polarizing frenzy that feeds headlines and advances careers.

    They will hold a debate Thursday night on Fox News, moderated by far-right provocateur Sean Hannity, an event that has been hyped so much you’d be forgiven for thinking the stakes were high, that this made-for-television stunt actually matters.

    Which, of course, it does not.

    “It’s political theater in its most ridiculous form,” Mindy Romero told me. She’s the director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy. “This doesn’t benefit the voters.”

    If we wanted something substantial, something that might change the results of the next election, we’d put Republican hopeful Nikki Haley in the room with Vice President Kamala Harris — two daughters of immigrants (Haley is South Asian, Harris is mixed-race, South Asian and Black) with differing views of America but the shared ability to reach apathetic and disenfranchised voters. But I’ll get to that.

    While the spectacle of Newsom and DeSantis going at each other may provide zingers and red-blue outrage, it is unlikely to sway voters because neither man is an actual contender for anything.

    DeSantis’ presidential campaign is sinking, and not even platform shoes can keep his head above water. Even in the unlikely circumstance that he humiliated Newsom with an unexpected bout of superior wit and grasp of fact, it wouldn’t make up for his fundraising problems, falling poll numbers or the orange elephant in the room, Donald Trump, who is leaps and bounds ahead of any other Republican contenders when it comes to dedicated voters.

    Then there is Newsom, who is absolutely, positively not running for president, though his team has put together a surprisingly successful and smart campaign to position him as a Biden surrogate, ready to step in if needed. And, as I have said before, I appreciate Newsom speaking out, and taking action, on issues including reproductive freedom.

    The problem is he’s not needed, this time around, anyway.

    And so, we have spectacle without substance when it comes to the Newsom-DeSantis drama. As the first female British prime minister Margaret Thatcher put it in 1965, “If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.”

    Or as Romero said, “Isn’t that what we always see, two male politicians louder and bolder, taking the spotlight from women of color? I am not surprised by this at all.”

    It may not be surprising, but it is concerning to see that spotlight in the wrong place.

    The presidential election is going to be close. The votes on the margins will likely decide whether Biden holds the Oval Office or not. Key among those iffy ballots, for both parties, are younger people and voters of color.

    Those are votes that Harris and Haley are well-positioned to earn — but also ones that, if left unattended, could cost the race for either side.

    If Americans under the age of 45 vote at the same rate as they did in 2020, a recent Brookings Institute poll found, they will account for more than one-third of the electorate.

    But young voters are not happy.

    Young Republicans have a generational split over access to abortions. Nearly three-fourths of adults under age 30 say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to a 2022 Pew Research poll. The Brookings poll found 47% of Republicans ages 18 to 44 voiced similar opinions.

    In the past few weeks, Haley has gained momentum and won critical support in positioning herself as a post-MAGA candidate — even attempting, not always successfully, to find a less strident way to speak about abortion while still supporting bans.

    Recently, Haley earned a critical endorsement from the conservative grassroots organization Americans for Prosperity Action, which was co-founded by billionaire Charles Koch and comes with not only money, but the political machine to back it up.

    Her rallies are drawing bigger crowds and her poll numbers show that in places where DeSantis’ numbers are slipping, she is gaining.

    She’s still nowhere close to being a real challenger to Trump, but she is offering up a path forward for Republicans who want a Trump-lite government, all the conservatism without the overt turn toward authoritarianism. Anything that pulls Republicans away from straight-up fascism should be considered significant, particularly as DeSantis tries to out-Trump Trump with anti-everything policies targeting history, LGBTQ+ communities, Disneyland and more.

    For Democrats, the problem with young voters, especially people of color, is apparent around the Biden administration’s response to the fighting in Israel and Gaza. His administration, even with its commitment to climate change, gun control and economic priorities such as canceling student loan debt, seems out of touch.

    About 70% of people 18 to 34 disapprove of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, an NBC News poll found. Many of those young progressives see the Palestinian cause as linked to social justice issues for communities of color in the United States.

    Dov Waxman, director of the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, said he believes the anger of those young progressives may fade by the 2024 elections, but their apathy may still keep them from voting.

    Biden “has kind of a broader, deeper problem with younger voters and certainly this has exacerbated it,” Waxman said.

    Adrianne Shropshire, executive director of BlackPAC, which helps organize Black voters, said Harris is critical to countering that apathy, and is “uniquely positioned in many ways because of her identities,” to reach disaffected groups.

    Despite endless attacks that Harris faces from Republicans (and even from within her own party), which often use the prospect of a Harris presidency as a kind of threat, “there is a real connection she makes with Black voters,” Shropshire said.

    And though she faces a relentless narrative that she is unlikable, as Hillary Clinton did, the idea that she might be kicked off the ticket in favor of someone more palatable such as Newsom is a non-starter — a disastrous misread of voters of color, young, progressive voters and women.

    “They’re not going to dump her. They can’t dump her,” Dan Morain told me. He’s the author of the definitive biography on Harris, “Kamala’s Way,” and has chronicled her career since she was a lowly prosecutor.

    Instead, Morain, Shropshire and others said the administration needs to better use her identity and skills in the next campaign cycle, leaning into who she is — leaning into who voters are.

    “You just look at Harris and what she does, She’s just she is more attuned to younger people than [Biden] ever will be,” Morain said.

    And so we have two interesting women, closer to the Oval Office than either Newsom or DeSantis will likely be anytime soon (though I’d give Newsom a shot in 2028).

    Haley and Harris are both seasoned, tough survivors who have more in common with most American voters — who are increasingly not white, much to the chagrin of some — but who are stymied by their sex as has been every woman who has ever run for office.

    Trump has nicknamed Haley “birdbrain.” Harris’ laugh has been described as a “cackle.”

    But Newsom and DeSantis are, as Hannity put it, are “two heavyweights” who are “stepping into a war.”

    They definitely have something that Harris and Haley lack, but it’s not a shot at the presidency.

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    Anita Chabria

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  • Speech is freer in California than in Florida, watchdog warns ahead of Newsom-DeSantis debate

    Speech is freer in California than in Florida, watchdog warns ahead of Newsom-DeSantis debate

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    WASHINGTON — 

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is due to debate California Gov. Gavin Newsom later this week about whose state offers a better model for the country, is leading an “assault on free expression in Florida” that is “almost without peer in recent U.S. history,” a watchdog warned in a pair of reports released Tuesday.

    Pen America, which defends the rights of authors and others around the world to write and speak out without fear of government reprisals, has written detailed reviews comparing the two states’ recent policies and proposals on campus speech codes, book bans, curriculum fights, diversity and inclusion, internet freedom and other 1st Amendment issues in the interstate feud between DeSantis, a Republican, and Newsom, a Democrat.

    The two men, whose states wield outsized influence on the right and left, are set to debate on Fox News Thursday night. DeSantis is hoping the debate jump-starts his flailing presidential campaign while Newsom has been trying to maintain his national stature amid speculation he will run in 2028.

    The Pen report finds fault with both states’ policies but reserves its harshest judgment for DeSantis, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination as a culture warrior on the slogan that Florida is the state “where woke goes to die.” The states’ policies have implications beyond their borders; most of the bills the report analyzed have been adopted in other states, and California is home to tech and entertainment industries with global reach.

    “Florida is setting an agenda of unprecedented censorship, rigging the system to favor the speech of those in power and silencing dissenting voices,” the Pen report states.

    Authors, journalists and others who care about free expression have to pay attention to both states, in part because of their governors’ ambitions and willingness to push barriers at a time when states are leading most of the big culture war fights, said Suzanne Nossel, Pen America’s chief executive, in an interview.

    “If you want to see where free speech is headed in this country, you have to take a close look at what they’re doing,” she said.

    The report details several bills that have been proposed or passed in the Florida Legislature in recent years, most of which were supported by DeSantis.

    They include the well-known bill that critics label “Don’t Say Gay,” which limits discussion of sexual orientation in classrooms, rules limiting the discussion of race in public colleges and universities, bills making it easier to ban books based on parental objections and those targeting mass protests with enhanced criminal penalties and drag shows.

    Some of the bills have been blocked by courts, but the report argues that they still represent a threat to free expression because they create an immediate chilling effect, could ultimately withstand court challenges and are already inspiring new laws and proposals in Florida and elsewhere that could accomplish the same goals.

    The drag show bill, which broadens the state’s obscenity law to apply to some live performances, was temporarily put on hold by a federal judge in central Florida this month after a restaurant sued.

    “Regardless of how the courts rule, the Act has already chilled LGBTQ+ expression in the state,” the Pen authors wrote, citing canceled pride events in southeast Florida and central Florida and the dissolution of a drag storytime chapter in Miami.

    DeSantis has accused critics of falsifying his record and creating “political theater,” insisting, for example, that he has expanded African American history requirements in Florida schools, even as the state placed limits on teaching about systemic racism. In the case of the drag show bill, he said it was targeted at “sexually explicit” performances.

    “People can do what they want with some of that, but to have minors there, I mean, you’ll have situations where you’ll have like an 8-year-old girl there, where you have these like really explicit shows, and that is just inappropriate,” he said at a May news conference.

    James Tager, research director of Pen America and co-author of the reports, said it was important to be “clear-eyed” and “send a warning signal” about Florida’s direction, given DeSantis’ political ambitions.

    “Florida holds itself as a blueprint for a more of free way of living, championing the rhetoric of liberty,” Tager said. “Several of their significant proposals, the primary effect is to degrade and winnow down free expression rights in the state.”

    Though Florida took the brunt of Pen’s criticism, California’s laws drew more limited scrutiny.

    The report credits California with “unambiguous wins for free expression” for passing laws to protect journalists covering protests and restricting the ability of courts to allow rap lyrics as evidence in criminal trials.

    But it faults the state for what it labels well-intended misses, including a law that requires social media companies to produce regular reports on their content moderation to the state attorney general. The authors argue that the law, though ambiguous in defining the attorney general’s role, could give the government more power to regulate speech.

    The report also cautions that a law intended to protect children on social media and other online platforms could chill free speech because it “requires businesses to predict any content or practice that lawmakers could consider to be ‘harmful’” to children. Tech industry and publishing groups have also opposed the law as overly broad, warning it could hinder content intended for adults.

    Newsom said when he signed it that the state “will not stand by as social media is weaponized to spread hate and disinformation.”

    The report also criticizes the state for a policy approved last year by the Board of Governors of California’s community college system that would evaluate college professors, in part, on their commitment to teaching anti-racist ideas untended to foster “diversity, equity and inclusion.” The policy has drawn a lawsuit from a group of professors.

    “There is a difference between protecting a school’s or faculty member’s right to include DEI programming, and mandating that they do so, especially in higher education,” the authors wrote.

    The organization labels the policy a “gag order,” arguing that it limits a professor’s academic freedom by forcing them to adopt the college system’s viewpoint.

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    Noah Bierman

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  • Newsom releases attack ad on DeSantis and Florida’s abortion ban

    Newsom releases attack ad on DeSantis and Florida’s abortion ban

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    California Gov. Gavin Newsom released an ad Sunday attacking Florida’s six-week abortion ban as he and Gov. Ron DeSantis get set for a televised debate at the end of the month.

    The ad, called “Wanted,” lays the abortion restriction on DeSantis, who in April signed into law the “Heartbeat Protection Act” prohibiting abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. DeSantis is also a Republican candidate for president.

    The ad was set to run in Florida and Washington, D.C., television markets on NFL Sunday Night Football, as well as on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show on days leading up to the governors’ debate on Nov. 30. Hannity will moderate the 90-minute debate in Georgia, which will be broadcast on Fox News.

    In the ad, which looks like a wanted poster, Newsom intones: “By order of Gov. Ron DeSantis, any woman who has an abortion after six weeks and any doctor who gives her care will be guilty of a felony. Abortion after six weeks will be punishable by up to five years in prison. Even though many women don’t even know they’re pregnant at six weeks. That’s not freedom. That’s Ron DeSantis’ Florida.”

    The debate will come in the midst of a contentious Republican presidential contest, offering an odd sideshow in an already unusual political season dominated by former President Trump’s campaign to return to the White House while fighting criminal charges in Florida, New York, Washington, D.C., and Georgia.

    Newsom posted his ad on X, formerly known as Twitter, where DeSantis has posted a video criticizing California and promoting Florida.

    “Decline is a choice and success is attainable,” DeSantis said in a tweet accompanying the video. “As President, I will lead America’s revival. I look forward to the opportunity to debate Gavin Newsom over our very different visions for the future of our country.”

    DeSantis will also appear at the next Republican presidential primary debate on Dec. 6.

    Times staff writer Taryn Luna contributed to this report.

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    Roger Vincent

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