President Joe Biden (D) and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) were both in Silicon Valley on Monday, raising money for their respective presidential campaigns, separated at one point only by a stretch of freeway.
The San Jose Mercury News reported:
President Biden was everywhere in Silicon Valley on Monday. His motorcade crisscrossed the South Bay to begin a three-day visit to the Golden State in a sign that the 2024 campaign for the White House is in full swing — 17 months before Election Day.
What wasn’t as evident was the presence of one of Biden’s potential Republican rivals — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who quietly held fundraisers of his own Monday, including a visit to a Republican donor in Woodside, just across the freeway from Biden’s evening reception in Atherton.
Earlier in the day, DeSantis reportedly attended events at Harris Ranch in Coalinga and a breakfast roundtable in Sacramento, just weeks after he caused a stir there by sending two planeloads of Latin American asylum seekers to the California capitol to call attention to the blue state-red state divide over illegal immigration.
Biden was accompanied at times by California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who told the White House nearly a year ago that he would not mount an insurgent campaign in 2024, but seems to be preparing for a run anyway.
Newsom and DeSantis have a rivalry that continues to develop for the benefit of both leaders, as each represents the mood of their respective party bases. Newsom attacks DeSantis for conservative social policies in Florida, and DeSantis mocks Newsom for the policy failures that send thousands of Californians fleeing to his state every year.
DeSantis trails former President Donald Trump in Republican Party presidential primary polls, but is seen by many donors as the only candidate capable of defeating Biden, given that Trump is under indictment and that he is seen as polarizing by many suburban voters Republicans need to win next November.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.