Tonight is the highly-anticipated debate between Governor Ron DeSantis and Governor Gavin Newsom. Airing on Fox News Channel, and set up by primetime host Sean Hannity, there will be no live audience. Hannity said he worked closely with the two governors’ teams to put the terms of the event in place.

Hannity is the longest-running primetime cable news host. His show is regularly one of the top-rated primetime shows. He seems to be a hands-on host so it isn’t much of a surprise that he was involved in setting up this event. After all, he invited both Newsom and DeSantis to debate during on-air interviews. Is this debate necessary? I think that depends on a viewer’s level of interest in the 2024 presidential race. Both of these men are running for president. Only one admits it.

Gavin Newsom has shown his obsession with Ron DeSantis for months. Newsom regularly inserts his opinion on the DeSantis agenda in Florida. The arguing back and forth between the two governors makes a televised debate a natural progression of their relationship. In the lead-up to a presidential election, it is natural that a debate centered on the stark contrast between the red state Florida and the blue state California came to be.

The popularity of Ron DeSantis in Florida is undeniable. He won re-election by almost 20 points. Purple swing state Florida is now a solidly red state. On the flip side, California is a failing state. The socialist policies of Newsom and other Democrats are destroying a once-thriving state. Case in point – look no further than Newsom’s own family. His in-laws moved to Florida during the pandemic to pursue greater freedom. They supported the re-election of DeSantis as campaign donors. That’s got to sting.

Voters are looking for alternatives to Joe Biden and Donald Trump. DeSantis is challenging Trump in the Republican primary. Newsom is coy about his presidential ambition. Newsom is running a shadow campaign, making all the right moves that a person running for president would do. The showdown on Fox will be a good glimpse into the sharp contrast between the two governors.

Let me say that this debate will be a no-win situation for DeSantis. I expect that he will win on the merits of the debate but look for Newsom to be declared the winner. Both men are strong on policy and both men are smart. Newsom is a smooth talker, whether we like what he is saying or not. Team Trump and Team Haley will have the long knives out for DeSantis. Some red-on-red elbow-throwing will happen. I almost expect Trump to live-blog the debate on his Truth Social page. The media will declare Newsom the winner.

The DeSantis campaign points to the next debate as the biggest one yet. The Newsom camp claims that tonight’s debate will be 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.’

Hannity is the lone moderator and there will be no live audience. This will provide a distraction-free debate. This debate is a timely one. It seems that some operatives are working behind the scenes at the White House to force Biden to get out of the race and allow a younger, more vibrant Democrat to run. There is no doubt that if Biden did leave the race, Newsom would jump in. On the flip side, no one expects Trump to step aside.

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.’

That will be a big hill for Newsom to climb. The president has failed miserably to “deliver for the middle class.” Americans are struggling to afford the basics of groceries, gas for their car, mortgage or rent payments, and raising their children. A whopping 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. This is not a successful presidency. Interestingly, Newsom is willing to come on Hannity’s show, as he has done more than once, and deliver his message. He is one of the few progressive politicians willing to do so.

Hannity told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview on Tuesday how he 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 Wall Street Journal editorial board published an op-ed on the scorecard between DeSantis and Newsom. That scorecard goes through a variety of topics and compares the approaches by both governors.

Sacramento has rushed to the left in recent decades while Tallahassee has moved to the right. Since winning election in 2018, Messrs. Newsom and DeSantis have advanced sharply different policies on Covid lockdowns, taxes, school choice and climate regulation, among other things.

Our guess is that Mr. Newsom won’t want to talk about much of this and will instead spend most of his time flogging abortion and Donald Trump. But that will be revealing too.

I’ll be tuning in. I may even pop some popcorn. It should be a good show.