Email insights: Ron DeSantis doubles down on Gavin Newsom attacks

Gov. Ron DeSantis isn’t letting his feud with California’s Governor go.

In an email to donors Friday with a call to action urging his list to “rush in a donation,” the Governor’s reelection campaign invoked Gavin Newsom and the Golden State in his pitch.

Newsom and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, DeSantis contended, flouted the COVID-19 precautions they advocated.

“While these draconian rules were ruining people’s lives, Nancy Pelosi was getting her hair done in a salon she made sure was shut down for everyone else. Gavin Newsom was dining indoors at restaurants that were otherwise closed to the rest of the population,” DeSantis fumed.

The email writ large bemoaned the “Left” and its “woke ideologies” and desire to “move the goal post down the field” in its zeal to “command complete and total control over the American people.” It rehashed increasingly familiar tropes, including the contention that Florida is “where woke goes to die” and that the state would not become a “woke dumpster fire” under his watch.

But, quite arguably, the attempt to again capitalize on the Newsom antagonism suggests that the California Democrat’s $100,000 pledge to Charlie Crist may end up benefiting him in terms of earned media and Florida exposure. And DeSantis, always in search of a foil, seems to be embracing that feud.

Proof of that claim is that this appeal to donors wasn’t even the first attempt by Team DeSantis to cash in on the California conflict on Friday.

“Gavin Newsom’s obsession with Florida and Governor DeSantis continues to grow as he pledges $100,000 to Charlie Crist — the man who has already declared he doesn’t want your vote,” the email contends.

“It seems like Newsom has done his job encouraging filth and debauchery on the streets of San Francisco that he’s now set his sights on our state. … Charlie has made it clear that if you want Florida to turn into a crime-ridden homeless encampment and open-air drug market where drag shows and vaccines are required at school, he’s your guy.”

As we’ve noted before, polling shows the feud is good for both politicians. Polling in Newsom’s home state shows DeSantis competitive with Trump in a still-hypothetical GOP Primary in two years, with Newsom at the top of a crowded and diffuse field of hypothetical candidates on the other side.