Did Ron DeSantis Handle COVID Better Than Gavin Newsom? What Charts Show

Two governors who both propelled themselves onto the national stage with their COVID responses will go head-to-head on Thursday night.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, and California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is not running for the White House, will take the debate stage at 9 p.m. ET. The pandemic is largely expected to be a point of discussion during the 90-minute event, which will be aired on Fox News and moderated by anchor Sean Hannity.

DeSantis and Newsom represented opposite ends of COVID approaches, with the former portraying himself as a defender of individual rights who never issued a mask mandate in the Sunshine State and the latter being the first governor in the country to order residents to shelter in place. While Florida lifted most restrictions by fall 2020, California did not fully reopen until June 2021, almost 15 months after the initial shutdown.

Both governors received praise and criticism for their handling of the pandemic. While his critics argued that his policies sidelined public health, DeSantis was also applauded for pushing back on government overreach and allowing businesses to operate as normal. And though Newsom was celebrated by some as being proactive, he faced significant backlash that led to a recall attempt in 2021, which he went onto win when more than six-in-10 Californians voted to keep him in office.

Here's a by-the-numbers breakdown of how each man responded to the virus:

Cases, Hospitalizations & Deaths

Although California recorded more cases, hospitalizations and deaths in total than Florida, residents in Florida were more likely to test positive, be hospitalized or die from COVID-19 than those living in California.

A tracker from The New York Times, last updated on March 23, 2023, shows that Florida recorded 35,119 COVID cases per capita, compared to California's 30,798 cases per capita. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from August 1, 2020, through November 18, 2023, shows that Florida recorded 582,192 hospitalizations and California saw 629,171 hospitalizations. California's population exceeds Florida's by 16.78 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The death rate was also higher in Florida, where 34,557 people died from the virus in 2021, data from the CDC shows. The death rate in Florida was 111.7 deaths per 100,000, compared to the 99.9 deaths per 100,000 recorded in California. More than 44,500 people died from the virus in California in 2021. Florida's death rate surpassed California's throughout the pandemic, with the figures being most pronounced in 2021, when residents in the Sunshine State were more than 1.6 times likely to die from COVID-19 than those in the Golden State.

Economic Impacts

A 2021 report from the University of New Hampshire that studied the pandemic's economic impact showed that Florida recovered more jobs by October 2021, at 84 percent, while California had only recovered 63 percent of its jobs at the same time. Florida also had a lower unemployment rate, 4.9 percent at that time, compared to California, which had an unemployment rate of 7.5 percent.

October 2023 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that Florida has continued to maintain a lower unemployment rate, at 2.8 percent—compared to California's 4.8 percent—as Florida saw the third-lowest rate in the country. The national unemployment rate is 3.9 percent.

Florida has also been one of the top two destinations in the mass migration being observed from California, which lost population for the first time in history during the pandemic. Between July 2019 and July 2022, 737,433 people moved from California to Florida. This could be helping Florida boost its business. Since January 2019, the state has received one new business application per eight residents, compared to the one in 18 experienced in California.

California, however, has the highest GDP rate in the nation, raking in a total of $3.5 trillion. Florida ranks fourth, with a total of $1.3 trillion. Per capita, California's GDP is $89,540 and Florida sits at $59,046.

Educational Impacts

The pandemic forced a near-total shutdown of schools when the virus rapidly began spreading across the U.S. in spring 2020.

While most students in California engaged in remote learning, they lost fewer weeks of learning compared to students in Florida. The 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress found that Florida students suffered 12 weeks of learning delays, compared to the nine weeks experienced by California students.

But the scores also showed that California students suffered a wider learning gap than Florida, which saw the fourth-lowest learning gap in the country. California's gap fell in the middle of the nation.

Hannity has said he's prepared to question DeSantis and Newsom on more than just the pandemic, hinting that taxes, immigration, energy policy and "law and order" are also among the topics posed to the governors.

"The questions will probably be very predictable on a lot of issues, maybe unpredictable on some others. This debate is between them. I'm not debating," Hannity told Politico.