(KERO) — Ads for California Governor Gavin Newsom's re-election started airing in Florida earlier this week. The ads are critical of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and encourage Florida residents to leave the state stating "Join us in California where we still believe in freedom."
DeSantis is a potential 2024 candidate for president and the ads have some analysts speculating about a presidential run for Newsom, however he says he has no interest in that race.
Meanwhile, the Kern County preliminary elections results for the June 7th primary gubernatorial race have the top top candidates, Gavin Newsom and Brian Dahle moving forward to the fall midterm election.
For Kern County, incumbent Governor Gavin Newsom brought home just over 32% of the votes, while Republican challenger Brian Dahle took 34%.
But, the statewide totals show Newsom is taking a strong lead at nearly 56% of the vote while Dahle is coming in second at 17.7%.
It's important to note that these are the latest totals available from local and state elections departments, but the results of this election have not been certified yet.
The deadline for that is Friday, July 15th.
Meanwhile, according to the State Department, as of election day the statewide voter turnout was only 33%.
But, some counties had a much higher average.
Alpine county had the highest voter turnout sitting at just over 61% per the latest totals. While Inyo county had a turnout of around 53%.
However, in Kern County, the voter turnout was much lower than the state average, sitting at 25.8%.