“Freedom is under attack in your state,” Newsom says in the ad. “Your Republican leaders are banning books, making it harder to vote, limiting speech in classrooms, even criminalizing women and doctors. I urge all of you who live in Florida to join the fight. Or join us in California where we still believe in freedom — freedom of speech, freedom of choice, freedom from hate and freedom to love. Don’t let them take your freedom away.” Newsom’s re-election campaign paid about $105,000 for space to run the 30-second ad, which will air on Fox News in Florida on July 4. The claims Newsom makes in the ad relate to several recent policies in Florida: —Earlier this year, the Florida Department of Education rejected 54 math textbooks — 41 percent of the 132 textbooks reviewed by the department — from being included in the state’s K-12 curriculum going forward, saying they involved “forbidden topics” such as “Critical Race Theory.” —Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last year signed a bill adding restrictions on absentee and mail-in voting, which many critics say will disenfranchise voters. —The state made national headlines earlier this year for a controversial measure known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which bans classroom instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade in the state’s public schools. — The Florida Legislature signed a bill in April that would ban abortions in the state after 15 weeks, without articles about rape and incest. The exact reason Newsom is running cable TV ads in a state roughly 2,700 miles away is unclear, though many speculate the move is yet another sign the governor is gearing up for a presidential run in the near future. As we’ve previously reported, Newsom has dramatically escalated his national stance in the past month — so much so that supporters of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris say they’re watching him.
Newsom did an interview with The Atlantic earlier this month to talk about the national Democratic Party and conservative abortion legislation and LGBTQ rights, and in that interview he called on the national Democratic Party to be more militant. Those comments came just weeks after he made headlines for publicly calling out the Democratic Party during a press conference. Newsom has also joined Donald Trump’s Truth Social social media app with the stated goal of “debunking Republican lies” and has spent a lot of time taking shots at national GOP officials — specifically DeSantis and Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott – on Twitter and in press conferences. Newsom has made an effort to lead the nation on major political issues. After the United States Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Newsom signed a bill that protects people who travel from states with abortion restrictions to California to get the procedure. He also gained a lot of attention last year for introducing a bill that would allow private citizens to sue gun manufacturers, a bill deliberately modeled after a Texas abortion law. Editor’s note: This story was updated July 3 at 10:30 a.m. to clarify the grade levels affected by Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill.