Newsom visits New College of Florida, targeted by DeSantis overhaul

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is taking his fight against “authoritarian leaders” to Ron DeSantis’s backyard, visiting a Florida school that has been at the center of the Republican governor’s conservative education agenda.

Newsom, who is seen as a potential future Democratic White House hopeful, visited on Wednesday the New College of Florida, railing against DeSantis’s efforts to overhaul the school as part of his education plan. DeSantis has placed at the small public university conservative board members who have moved to gut its diversity office and hired a former state Republican Speaker of the House as its president.

Newsom blasted DeSantis to the students at the school, arguing the Republican governor has no “moral authority.”

“He has one thing that is common with everything he’s doing — bullying and intimidating vulnerable communities,” Newsom said, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. “You’re not only on the right side of history, you have something he’ll never have − moral authority.”

The trip to Florida is part of Newsom’s new initiative to travel to Republican states where he says democracy is under assault. He launched a new political organization last month, the Campaign for Democracy, slamming GOP governors and lawmakers for “directly attacking our freedoms in state after state.”

“The problem in our country right now: authoritarian leaders who are so hellbent on gaining power and keeping it by whatever means necessary,” Newsom said in the group’s launch video.

DeSantis, who polls as the main opponent to former President Trump if he were to jump into the 2024 GOP primary for president, has come under intense fire from Democrats and activists for his education policies. His decision for the state to not accept an AP course on African American history, remove certain books from classrooms and direct colleges to not fund diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, among other policies, have drawn the ire of national Democrats.

A spokesperson for DeSantis said Newsom’s appearance in the state was a stunt, arguing such moves by opponents have no effect.

“Gov. DeSantis is focused on getting Florida’s public institutions of higher learning refocused on academics and truth,” DeSantis spokesman Bryan Griffin said to the Herald-Tribune. “Stunts from political opponents don’t matter and have no effect.”