Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and California Gov. Gavin Newsom had their own objectives and advantages going into Thursday night’s highly anticipated debate.

For DeSantis, this forum was a home game.

Moderator Sean Hannity may have some amount of chemistry with Newsom, but he is first and foremost a conservative, and he had a vested interest in presiding over an event in which DeSantis prevailed.

As the only presidential candidate on the stage, DeSantis’ somewhat urgent aim was to jump-start his stagnant campaign.

Newsom, on the other hand, was playing with house money.

His goal was to turn himself into a national figure and the presumptive future face of the Democratic Party.

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And because he’s not a candidate for anything, he had the privilege of trying to make the leap risk-free.

At the end of the contentious hour, Both men had made progress toward their respective goals, but only one — DeSantis — could call it a triumph.

His progressive counterpart put up a fight, thanks to his gift of gab.

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DeSantis dubbed him a “slick, slippery politician.”

All things considered, there are worse insults to absorb, but it was the kicker that stung: “. . . whose state is failing.”

That line succinctly summed up the entire event.

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The truth is that DeSantis had won the debate long before he even showed up for it, not by being the better politician, but the better executive.

On issue after issue, the facts backed up DeSantis’ arguments and refuted Newsom’s.

California spends more on education with worse results.

Florida has less restrictive gun laws and fewer mass shootings.

Crime is significantly higher in the Golden State and unemployment is significantly lower in the Sunshine State.

Newsom began every question in a hole.

To his credit, he scratched, and clawed, and smooth-talked the audience around in circles in an admirable effort to crawl out of them.

But his overly adversarial, pugnacious attempts to taunt his opponent played right into DeSantis’ hands, allowing DeSantis to look like the more mature, presidential of the two and feeding into the perception that he had the better argument on substance.

DeSantis was at his best when he couched his case with illustrative, yet sensible framing.

“You’d almost have to try” to get people to leave California, mused DeSantis at one point.

After Newsom referenced his quarrel with the Walt Disney Corporation, the Republican noted that he nevertheless made the company “a fortune” by leaving it open during COVID while Newsom shut it down.

He scored another point when he slammed Newsom for closing public schools while sending his own kids to private school.

DeSantis’ willingness to jump into the ring with his political opponents and perform well in it, could be contrasted with the Republican front-runner who refuses to so much as show up to a debate.

Newsom, too, distinguished himself from his party’s standard-bearer with his ability to articulate himself well and project vitality.

And as for us viewers, it was a glimpse at what a race between two energetic governors with divergent, but viable visions for the future of the country to offer would look like.

Americans seem uncompromising in their impulse to condemn themselves to a rematch of the 2020 contest.

But just maybe Thursday night’s debate will inspire them to see reason.