Desantis Debates with Democratic rival Crist
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35% (1,173) are left-leaning, 36% (1,202) are centrist, and 29% (936) are right-leaning.
The Florida gubernatorial debate on Monday night between incumbent governor Ron DeSantis and Democratic candidate Charlie Crist—who served as Florida’s governor from 2007 to 2011—saw a fiery discussion of abortion, immigration, and the 2024 presidential election. Crist grilled DeSantis on his presidential ambitions during the lone debate and pressed the incumbent governor to answer to whether he supported more stringent abortion restrictions in Florida.
The Hill wrote a centrist article describing a focal point of the lone debate Monday night which was DeSantis’s hesitance to affirm that he would pursue the White House vacancy during the 2024 presidential elections. It reported that Crist compared DeSantis to “a deer in the headlights” when pressed on the question of running for president. Although DeSantis is the favored candidate to win the gubernatorial election, The Hill reported that Crist considered his pressure on DeSantis to be a victory.
A left-leaning article by Politico highlighted that DeSantis repeatedly dodged the question about whether he would run for the presidency in 2024 which, if elected, would cut his second-term governorship in half. The article emphasized that the candidates went head-to-head on topics of Florida’s abortion restrictions and COVID-19 policies during DeSantis’s term.
A right-leaning article by Fox News highlighted how Crist compared limitations on minor gender transition procedures to restrictions on abortions. "When they say gender-affirming care, they mean giving puberty blockers to teenage girls and teenage boys, they mean doing double mastectomies on young girls, they mean chemically castrating young boys. That is wrong. We are not going to allow that to happen in the state of Florida," DeSantis said. After Crist tried to force him to say whether he planned to run for president or serve another full term as governor should he be re-elected, DeSantis declared "The only worn-out, old donkey I'm looking to put out to pasture is Charlie Crist”.