Gavin Newsom believes Gov. Ron DeSantis avoided career-altering humiliation this week by dropping out of the Primary race for President.
“If he continued on … he was going to get trounced in his own state,” Newsom said.
Newsom, whom many consider to be a top presidential contender for 2028, debated DeSantis in late November on Fox News. The two traded barbs over their respective approaches to running large states. While some attributed his performance to the help of an overly biased moderator in Sean Hannity, most agreed DeSantis edged his West Coast counterpart in the contest.
Not that it mattered much, Newsom said during a Thursday interview with MSNBC’s Alex Wagner. DeSantis’ debate performance did little to nothing to shift the perception that the best outcome he could hope for in the Primary was a distant second place behind Donald Trump.
And that’s less due to Trump than DeSantis’ lack of likability, propensity to get “wound up” when confronted and inability to convey the “why” of his campaign, Newsom added
“Just on a humanizing level, you know, having spent a tiny bit of time with him, obviously studying him for some time, he’s a different guy,” he said. “Now I saw him with his kid on a video. I’m like, ‘Who’s that guy?’”
After placing far behind Trump in the Iowa caucuses last week, DeSantis announced Sunday that he was suspending his campaign and endorsed Trump.
DeSantis’ departure from the race made the GOP contest a two-person battle between Trump and Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina Governor and U.S. Ambassador who Newsom said should — and is likely to — call it quits soon.
“If she’s down 20, 30 points in a couple weeks, what would be the political benefit of a former Governor to lose her home state?” he said. “I don’t think she would do that. My sense is she would drop out. But I see no signs … in the last couple days that she has any chance whatsoever.”
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