Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom BOTH accuse each other of lying in fierce debate – so who was telling the truth about COVID, migration, crime and the culture wars?

Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom came armed with reams of statistics and rehearsed attacks for their “Great Reds vs. Blue States” debates.

The governors of Florida and California have blamed each other for their handling of the pandemic, crime, immigration and the economy.

While the mud flew, both criticized each other for making statements and using numbers that were simply wrong.

After DeSantis accused his opponent of a “storm of lies,” Newsom said, “I can’t wait to get all the PolitiFacts…” — a reference to a website that does fact-checking after debates.

So who told the truth?

Was Ron DeSantis’ human feces map accurate?

Perhaps the most compelling accusation came from DeSantis when he presented a map of San Francisco showing all the places where human feces had been found.

The clear consequence was that Newsom, as the current governor of California and previous mayor of San Francisco, allowed a “once great” city to deteriorate into a cesspool on his watch.

The map is correct, but requires some context that was not provided during the debate.

The data was compiled by Open The Books, an independent government watchdog organization, based on citizen reports to San Francisco authorities.

Available data covers the period from 2011 to 2019.

Newsom became governor of California in 2019 and was mayor of San Francisco from 2004 to 2011.

Thus, he could argue that he is not responsible for the situation shown on the map.

During those years – from 2011 to 2019 – he was the lieutenant governor of California.

Since there is no recent data, it is impossible to say what the current map will look like under his governorship.

However, with homelessness on the rise in San Francisco, the situation for Newsom may have actually looked much worse than what DeSantis revealed.

Did California really run out of U-Haul trucks because people fled to Florida?

Criticizing Newsom’s policies, DeSantis said, “At one point they actually ran out of U-Hauls in the state of California because so many people were leaving.”

This statement is true: In early 2021, major trucking company U-Haul said demand for one-way trips from California was so high that there was a shortage of vehicles.

“In 2020 and 2021, in California and elsewhere on the West Coast, we experienced at times a shortage of available one-way trucks and trailers for outbound service due to significantly greater outflows of equipment compared to inflows,” a Sacramento Bee spokesperson told the Sacramento Bee conference. . time.

Census data shows more people left California for Florida last year than in any of the previous 16 years.

Newsom responded by saying that “more Floridians have moved to California over the past two years than vice versa.”

But census data shows that 50,000 people moved from California to Florida in the past two years, and only 28,000 took a different route.

Newsom said DeSantis was ‘quarantine governor’ during pandemic

Newsom said DeSantis was ‘quarantine governor’ during pandemic

Newsom sought to portray DeSantis as someone who locked down Florida during the pandemic, which was misleading.

“You closed your beaches, your bars, your restaurants. That’s a fact,” Newsom said.

In the early days of the pandemic, DeSantis took similar action with other states, although he never imposed a statewide ban on beaches and was widely criticized by Democrats for opening them during spring break.

He started reopening schools early and advocated for opening his state’s economy faster than others.

However, DeSantis made an apparently false claim that Florida had a “lower standardized Covid death rate” than California during the pandemic.

In 2020 and 2021, Florida had 183 excess deaths per 100,000 people. the rate for California was 142 excess deaths per 100,000 people.

Which state has actually done the best in education during the pandemic?

The two governors have approached education during the pandemic very differently, with California schools remaining closed much longer.

Newsom said Florida students have “suffered more learning losses due to Covid.”

He said, “Ron DeSantis has had major learning losses during COVID—fourth grade reading, fourth grade math, eighth grade reading, eighth grade math.

“During COVID, we outperformed you in every single one of those categories, that’s a fact.”

The statement is not true.

Last year, Florida students performed better on exams than their California peers, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Report Card.

DeSantis responded that Florida ranked third in fourth-grade reading in the National Assessment of Educational Progress. California was far, far behind.”

He’s right: Florida was third in fourth-grade reading, and California was 32nd.

Does Florida have a higher murder rate than California?

Newsom said Florida has a gun death rate 66 percent higher than his state.

In 2021, Florida had a homicide rate of 7.4 per 100,000 people and California had a homicide rate of 6.4 per 100,000 people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

So Newsom was right that Florida has a higher per capita rate.

However, both states have rates below the national average of 7.8 per 100,000.

Newsom refutes claim that California has the highest taxes

Newsom said the claim that California has the highest tax rate is a “factual lie.”

He also said that Florida “taxes low-income workers more than we tax millionaires and billionaires in California”

But California’s top state income tax rate—13.3 percent—is the highest in the U.S., although it only affects those earning more than $1 million.

Florida has no state individual income tax.

Newsom claims DeSantis supported ‘amnesty’ for illegal immigrants

Newsom argued that DeSantis, when he was a congressman, “supported amnesty” for undocumented immigrants.

In 2018, DeSantis sponsored a bill that would have provided three-year renewable legal status to people who came to the U.S. illegally as children — “Dreamers.”

However, that same year, DeSantis voted against another bill offering Dreamers a path to citizenship.

DeSantis ‘banned 1,406 books’

Newsom said Florida’s governor was on a “book-banning binge.”

He said, “Last year alone, under the leadership of Ron DeSantis, one thousand four hundred and six books were banned.”

DeSantis called it a “false narrative.”

Newsom added: “What’s wrong with Amanda Gorman’s poetry?”, suggesting it was among the banned works.

The number 1406, as viewers might assume, is not for books banned statewide.

This includes cases of temporary removal of publications in individual schools due to parental complaints.

In Gorman’s case, a parent complained to the school about her poem, “The Hill We Climb,” which she performed at Joe Biden’s inauguration.

It was subsequently moved from the primary school section of the library to the secondary school section of the library.