Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom debate tonight: Florida and California governors ... trends now

After months of increasingly contentious sparring Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom will finally square off in a highly-anticipated one-on-one debate on Thursday night at 9pm.

The governors will each make their cases for why Florida or California is run better in the ultimate battle between red and blue states on Fox News.

It is a showdown that could preview a future presidential race - and will give viewers their chance to see alternatives to Donald Trump and Joe Biden in action.

DeSantis is currently running in the 2024 Republican presidential race, consistently polling second, but far behind Trump.

He has already participated in three Republican presidential primary debates against his GOP competitors without Trump.

'The next debate will be the biggest one yet,' DeSantis campaign manager James Uthmeier said in a statement provided to DailyMail.com regarding the one-on-one with Newsom.

Meanwhile, Newsom spokesman Nathan Click claimed the debate is already rigged for DeSantis.

'We are under no illusions – this is a 2 on 1 match with the refs in the tank for the home team,' Click told Dailymail.com. 'But Gov. Newsom has long believed that Democrats have to go on offense in enemy territory, and that's exactly what he intends to do.'

Here, DailyMail.com breaks down the upcoming debate and what to know ahead of the matchup.

DETAILS OF THE DEBATE

Florida Gov. DeSantis doesn't have to go far for the debate, which is in Alpharetta, Georgia, about 300 miles away from the Florida capital of Tallahassee.

Meanwhile, California Gov. Newsom has a much longer trip of approximately 2,500 miles to make it to the debate location.

Fox News is hosting and airing the 90-minute debate live on Thursday night at 9:00 p.m.

Longtime Fox host Sean Hannity will serve as the lone moderator.

The event came to fruition after Hannity brokered the conditions between the two governors when they both publicly expressed openness to going head-to-head.

'As Democrats ramp up their efforts to replace the historically unpopular and failed Joe Biden as their nominee, Ron DeSantis' showdown with Gavin Newsom is even more timely,' Uthmeier said in a statement.

'A Newsom presidency would accelerate America's decline, and November 30th will be the first chance to expose to a national audience just how dangerous his radical ideology would be for the country.'

'Ron DeSantis will take this responsibility seriously and looks forward to sharing the stark contrast between his vision to revive our nation and Newsom's blueprint for failure.'

Newsom insists he does not have ambitions to run for president this year, but DeSantis falls among those speculating that he might mount a 2024 bid if Biden, 81, for some reason is no longer in the race.

Click told DailyMail.com that viewers should '[e]xpect him to defend the President and use the opportunity to contrast the President's record of delivering for the middle class with Desantis' (sic) and the rest of the GOP field's enthusiasm for taking away Americans' freedoms.' 

'Look, [Newsom] is running a shadow campaign, even people in his own party are saying that,' DeSantis said in an interview this month. 'A lot of Democrats want to move Biden out.'

He added: 'But I think it's important that Republican voters get the sense that we may not be running against Biden.'

Sean Hannity, the longest-serving primetime anchor on Fox News Channel, will referee their match-up. He has interviewed DeSantis frequently as he bids to topple Trump, and his few chats with Newsom have been well-watched and led to a good relationship between the two.

Hannity told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview on Tuesday how he personally brokered the terms of the upcoming debate, and managed to get them in a room together.

The Fox News host said he stepped-in to navigate the back-and-forth between the governors and revealed that those chats included at least one of the men requesting no in-studio audience.

'I personally negotiated or navigated – I don't know what you want to call it,' Hannity said. 'I took on the crazy position of personally handling this myself. I thought it was too important.'

THE RISING FEUD BETWEEN NEWSOM AND DESANTIS

Over the last year, DeSantis and Newsom have publicly expressed their displeasure with each others' policies – intensifying the debate over whether Florida or California is the 'better' state.

DeSantis often touts the exodus of California residents who moved to Florida since the COVID-19 pandemic.

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