In a $105,000 troll, Gavin Newsom, the Democrat governor of California, bought ads swinging at his Republican counterpart in Florida, Ron DeSantis, signaling that when it comes to the exodus of citizens to red states, blue states have nothing to offer but fear itself.

A spokesman for Mr. DeSantis, Dave Abrams, tells the Daily Wire that Floridians “pay no mind to the pathetic smear campaigns from the Democrats…. We’re too busy enjoying the freedom Governor Ron DeSantis has created in the Sunshine State.”

This back and forth is in line with the Constitution, which sets up the states as laboratories of democracy in competition with each other and the federal government. In that fight, Florida has proven to be Muhammad Ali.

As the Wall Street Journal reported under the headline, “Red States Are Winning the Post-Pandemic Economy,” a record 46 million Americans changed Zip codes in the year through February 2022.

Florida gained the most, meaning Mr. DeSantis is on the right track at a time an AP-NORC poll finds that 85 percent of adults say America is on the wrong track under Democratic control of Washington.

Mr. DeSantis also offers better government for less. His state and local tax burden amounts to 9 percent of state economic output, where California sits at 13.5 percent. New York tops all states at 15.9 percent.

That Mr. Newsom’s ads include dizzying spin underscores how weak the case is for Democratic Party governance and how difficult it is to lay a glove on Mr. DeSantis. 

“Freedom is under attack in your state,” Mr. Newsom’s ad begins, though freedom from Covid-19 restrictions was one of the main selling points for Americans yearning to breathe free — as in, without the wearing of masks.

Florida was also one of the few states to follow the science on keeping children in school during the pandemic, without seeing the “winter of death” President Biden predicted and preventing the educational damage that’s now manifest elsewhere.

“Republican leaders,” the ad claims, “are banning books, making it harder to vote, restricting speech in classrooms, even criminalizing women and doctors.”

First, curriculums cannot possibly include every book. In 2008, NPR reported that districts were “moving beyond” J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye,” long an English class standard.

Regardless, readers in Florida are free to visit Amazon for anything they’d like to read, including the LGBT literature at which Mr. Newsom’s ad hints.

Branded “Don’t Say Gay” by special interest groups, the Parental Rights in Education Law makes no mention of homosexuality and seeks only to ensure students receive age-appropriate instruction in line with parental values.

Speech restrictions also abound in the law, such as marked in 1963, when, in School District of Abington Township v. Schempp,  the Supreme Court ruled that schools could not begin their day with Bible readings.

The crack about “making it harder to vote”? Democrats complained about such reforms as Georgia’s Election Integrity Act of 2021, but it resulted, in the latest election in the Peachtree State, in 168 percent more primary ballots cast than in  2018 and 212 percent more than in 2020.

As for “even criminalizing women and doctors,” states already regulate the behavior of both, and abortion restrictions are now the law of the land.

Mr. Newsom’s ad concludes, “I urge all of you living in Florida to join the fight or join us in California, where we still believe in freedom.

“Freedom of speech. Freedom to choose. Freedom from hate and the freedom to love. Don’t let them take your freedom.” 

If this warmed-over “Braveheart” is the best punch Democrats have to throw at Mr. DeSantis, they are right to fear him as a White House candidate.

Citizens are fleeing to red states because they seek more freedom, not less, and they judge that leaders like Mr. DeSantis are doing better jobs governing than Democrats like Mr. Newsom.

No amount of trolling can change that reality, halt the caravan of U-Hauls heading south, or save Democrats from a looming knockout in the November elections.

To do that, Democrats may have to steal some of the magic freedom formula from the DeSantis laboratory in Florida.