NERVE CENTERS — The eventful week that saw Republicans unite behind Donald Trump and Democrats splinter over Joe Biden just revealed a great deal about where power and influence truly resides in the two major parties.

Just as the now-concluded Republican National Convention made clear that Florida is the spiritual capital of the Republican Party, the ongoing mission to convince Biden to withdraw from the race underscores how California occupies a similar role for Democrats.

At the convention, the Florida stamp was unmistakable. While the state only sent the third-largest delegation to Milwaukee, it had center-stage seating on the floor and was granted more speaking slots than any other. Tuesday night’s schedule featured Florida’s three most prominent statewide officials — Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, along with Gov. Ron DeSantis. Five House members also received much-coveted speaking slots.

Florida’s emergence as the center of the GOP universe isn’t exactly new. But it is a Trump-era development, coinciding with Trump’s change of his primary residence from New York to Palm Beach. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort has become both a nerve center for the far right and the party’s Vatican, a holy place where every ambitious Republican must make a pilgrimage. It’s helped elevate Florida to a space in the party’s imagination once occupied by California during the 1970s and 1980s, and by Texas during the George W. Bush era, when those states not only produced GOP presidents but also served as aspirational political models.

Florida’s ascent within the party isn’t simply a function of Trump’s presence. It’s a reflection of the state’s break to the right after years of existing as the nation’s largest swing state, and of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ careful curation of his fast-growing state’s image as a validator of conservative governance.

DeSantis has been explicit about fashioning Florida as an antidote to deep blue California, which he refers to as a failed state and “the petri dish for American liberalism and American leftism.”

“The California model represents more American decline,” he has said, “The Florida model represents a way for us to reverse American decline and represents a way to have an American revival.”

DeSantis, who built an entire (failed) presidential campaign on that idea, continues to project his state’s image in ideological terms: at 24 locations along highways and at two welcome centers, signs now welcome visitors to “The Free State of Florida,” a nod to the governor’s stance on Covid restrictions.

The anemic condition of the state Democratic Party and the constellation of big donors, influencers, operatives, Trump family members and other elements of the Trump Political Industrial Complex suggest the state might occupy its position within the party for some years to come, even if the former president is defeated in November.

California flexed its muscle within the Democratic Party more subtly this week, befitting its unquestioned alpha state status. With the party looking paralyzed and Biden seemingly poised to run out the clock and claim the Democratic nomination, a growing chorus of voices from the state’s House delegation — the largest bloc in the Democratic Caucus — went public with their calls for Biden to withdraw.

California Reps. Mike Levin and Scott Peters were among the first wave of elected Democrats to call for the president to withdraw from the race. Rep. Jared Huffman circulated a draft calling on Democratic National Committee to delay Biden’s nomination before explicitly calling on him to bow out. As of today, one-in-five of the nearly 30 House Democrats who have called for Biden to drop out are from California.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, still a powerful voice within the party, has played a key role in advancing the state of play, weighing in at pivotal points with closely-read comments and then telling Biden last week that she and other Democratic lawmakers worry that he’s dragging down the party.

As the party’s seemingly unassailable West Coast fortress, the nation’s ATM in political fundraising and the cornerstone of the Democratic electoral coalition in presidential years, California has shaped the debate over Biden’s future in other critical ways, and undermined his position. After propping him up with a record-breaking fundraising event before his fateful June 27 debate, the party’s Hollywood base has largely deserted him, with actor George Clooney’s New York Times op-ed serving as a damaging blow. Film producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, a top Biden campaign adviser, reportedly warned the president Wednesday in a private meeting that major donors were doubtful of his ability to win in November and “have all but stopped writing the kind of big checks that sustain campaigns in the home stretch.”

It’s further evidence that, however much of its national luster California has lost in recent years, it remains the Democrats’ essential state, a place whose cultural, political and policymaking influence helps shape and define the party. If Biden loses California’s loyalty, he loses the nomination.

California is well positioned either way. A Californian, Vice President Kamala Harris, has the inside track to succeed Biden in the event he bows out. And then there’s Gov. Gavin Newsom, who’s waiting in the wings.

Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at [email protected]. Or contact tonight’s author at [email protected] or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @PoliticoCharlie.

What'd I Miss?

— Biden regulators set to look into unequal online pricing scheme: The Biden administration’s corporate-misconduct cops are examining personalized pricing, in which online firms offer different prices to individuals depending on what the companies know about them. The controversial, burgeoning practice is sometimes called “surveillance pricing” by advocates, since it depends on closely tracking individuals’ data. The Federal Trade Commission, led by Chair Lina Khan, is preparing to launch a broad study on the practice, according to three people with knowledge of the plan.

— Secret Service director set to appear before House Oversight over Trump shooting: Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle will appear before the House Oversight Committee on Monday, the Secret Service said today, capping off a back-and-forth with the panel. “Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle will testify before the House Committee on Oversight on Monday. The Secret Service is fully accountable for the safety of its protectees,” Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesperson for the Secret Service, said in a statement. “We are committed to better understanding what happened before, during and after the assassination attempt of former President Trump to ensure it never happens again. That includes complete cooperation with Congress, the FBI and other relevant investigations.”

— White House responding to massive IT outage: The Biden administration is racing to assess the fallout from a massive IT outage that is ricocheting across the globe, grounding airplanes, ripping through health systems and snarling IT networks at federal agencies and Fortune 500 companies. Anne Neuberger, deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, said during a panel at the Aspen Security Forum today that she had spent the morning assessing the impact of the outages on all U.S. critical infrastructure sectors, which had included a 4 a.m. wakeup call from the White House Situation Room on the issue. Neuberger said she spoke with George Kurtz, the CEO of cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike, and convened interagency calls to understand the impact of errant software update, and had reached out to foreign partners to offer assistance as well.

Nightly Road to 2024

OPEN CONVENTION — In a meeting with fellow California Democrats last week, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi stressed the need for an open process to choose the party’s next nominee if President Joe Biden steps aside, in an effort to avoid the appearance of a Kamala Harris coronation. The discussion in that meeting of the California delegation, which includes 40 members, took place in the Capitol on July 10, at least partly focused on the complicated next steps for the Democratic Party if Biden left the ticket. And they specifically talked about the potential political downsides of party elites quickly crowning the vice president as the next nominee, according to four people familiar with the discussion, granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.

THE DROP OUT BRIGADE — A new wave of Democrats has renewed calls for President Joe Biden to drop out of the race today — a sudden burst of new defectors at the end of a week of crisis for the Biden campaign that’s been defined by leaks and backchannel conversations about the president’s potential exit.

It’s a signal that the party has run out of patience and believes a decisive moment is at hand — and the latest indication that Biden has failed to staunch the flood of Democrats urging him to step aside since his disastrous debate performance on June 27. Since then, more than two dozen Democrats have called on him to step down while top Congressional leaders are reportedly urging him to reconsider his decision to remain in the race behind closed doors.

SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO — One of the national co-chairs of President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign acknowledged today that the president is evaluating which potential candidate is best positioned to defeat Donald Trump, as Biden continues to face increasing pressure from fellow Democrats to hand the torch to a new nominee.

Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), one of Biden’s closest allies in the Senate and a co-chair of Biden’s 2024 campaigns, said that the president is reflecting on next steps and listening to advisers as he decides on his political future.

“I think our president is weighing what he should weigh, which is who is the best candidate to win in November and to carry forward the Democratic Party’s values and priorities in this campaign,” he told The Washington Post’s Ellen Nakashima, who was moderating a conversation with Coons and other senators on foreign policy.

KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON — Vice President Kamala Harris tried today to reassure hundreds of nervous Democratic donors, some of whom have withheld money since President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance, that she and the president were going to “win this election.” In just under five minutes of remarks, Harris didn’t address the growing calls from congressional Democrats that Biden drop from the ticket and instead thanked the participants for their support.

OHIO’S PHANTOM MENACE — The Democratic National Committee is forging ahead with a virtual roll call to pick the party’s presidential nominee, even as a steady stream of congressional Democrats called for Joe Biden to exit the race. The Democratic National Convention Rules Committee met virtually today to outline plans for the virtual roll call vote and announced they would meet no later than next Friday, July 26, to vote on the rules. Virtual voting by convention delegates is scheduled to start no earlier than Aug. 1.

AROUND THE WORLD

SHAM VERDICT — A Russian court has sentenced American journalist Evan Gershkovich to 16 years in prison for espionage, in the most high-profile case against a Western journalist since the Cold War.

Prosecutors had asked for 18 years in a high-security penal colony, just two years below the maximum penalty for espionage.

“The 16-year prison sentence against [Gershkovich] is the antithesis of justice,” European Parliament chief Roberta Metsola said after the ruling in a post on X. “A politically motivated and sham trial. Journalism is not a crime. Evan must be released immediately.”

Gershkovich was arrested in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg in March last year on a reporting assignment for his employer, the Wall Street Journal.

The Kremlin says the reporter was caught “red-handed” spying for the CIA by collecting information about a tank factory. But with court proceedings held behind closed doors, public scrutiny of the supposed evidence has been made impossible. Gershkovich has pleaded not guilty.

The Wall Street Journal and the American government have slammed the case as politically motivated and the trial a “sham.”

Nightly Number

RADAR SWEEP

TIDYING UP — Have you ever opened your fridge to find products that you forgot about, now past their expiration date, staring back at you? If you’re not organized about your cooking (or your leftover-eating), it’s probably happened more than once. But in Japan, where they’re forced to import much of their food products, food waste like this is a huge problem — and researchers are trying to figure out how to solve it. One potential solution? Building refrigerators that are organized differently, and organizing food products themselves differently. A mess of a fridge can lead to a mess of an eating schedule and unnecessary waste. So there are now people hard at work figuring out how to reduce that disorder — and thereby reduce waste. Rachel Nuwer reports for the BBC.

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