Republican recall implodes as Californians give Gavin Newsom big vote of confidence

The Repub­li­can Par­ty’s plot to replace Cal­i­for­nia Gov­er­nor Gavin New­som with one of its own extrem­ist can­di­dates is crash­ing and burn­ing in spec­tac­u­lar fash­ion, not only leav­ing New­som in office, but giv­ing him a big boost head­ing into next year’s midterms, when he will once again be on the bal­lot as a can­di­date for reelection.

With 16.7% of precincts par­tial­ly report­ing, New­som had a com­mand­ing lead on the piv­otal ini­tial ques­tion in the recall, “Shall Gavin New­som Be Recalled (Removed) From the Office of Gov­er­nor?” Vote-rich coun­ties like Los Ange­les, San Diego, and San­ta Clara are over­whelm­ing­ly back­ing the no position.

The no vote stood at 68.2% as of press time with 5,074,795 votes, and the yes vote was 31.8% (2,365,971 votes). Net­works began call­ing the recall for New­som short­ly before 8:40 PM Pacif­ic Time, hav­ing seen enough data to con­clude that the Repub­li­can Par­ty’s attempt to seize the gov­er­nor­ship had failed.

(Network/Outlet Calls: AP | CNN | MSNBC | CBS)

New­som deliv­ered a short vic­to­ry speech begin­ning at 8:53 PM Pacif­ic, declar­ing that Cal­i­for­ni­ans had not just vot­ed no on the recall, but yes on envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice, yes to repro­duc­tive rights, yes to sci­ence, and yes to vaccines.

“I’m hum­ble, grate­ful, and resolved,” the Gov­er­nor said, focus­ing most of his remarks on his hopes for the future and express­ing a desire for the rejec­tion of the pol­i­tics of divi­sion, extrem­ism, and cynicism.

The Gov­er­nor took no ques­tions and con­clud­ed his remarks just before 9 PM.

“Once again, vot­ers reject­ed the Repub­li­can Party’s denial of the pan­dem­ic sweep­ing our coun­try and their sub­se­quent refusal to address it, reject­ed Repub­li­cans’ dis­proved con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries about our elec­tions, and reject­ed Repub­li­cans’ unwa­ver­ing loy­al­ty to the man who caused it all — Don­ald Trump,” said Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee Chair Jaime Harrison.

“Tonight is a win for the bold agen­da put forth by Pres­i­dent Biden, Gov­er­nor New­som, and Democ­rats in Con­gress to build our coun­try back bet­ter, deliv­er on their promis­es, and get our coun­try back on track.”

“I am con­fi­dent we will con­tin­ue to do so in 2021, 2022, and beyond. Gov­er­nor New­som pro­vides the smart, capa­ble and focused lead­er­ship nec­es­sary to keep Cal­i­for­ni­ans safe and build the state’s econ­o­my back bet­ter amid the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. He has a strong record of deliv­er­ing for the peo­ple of Cal­i­for­nia and I look for­ward to watch­ing him con­tin­ue that crit­i­cal work as governor.”

“The peo­ple of Cal­i­for­nia have spo­ken. They chose to keep an accom­plished gov­er­nor who has led on cli­mate & eco­nom­ic inequal­i­ty. In doing so they reject­ed a right-wing attack on sci­ence and pub­lic health. Con­grat­u­la­tions, Gov­er­nor New­som,” said Wash­ing­ton State Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee.

“I’m hap­py to have strong part­ner­ships with lead­ers like [New­som] and Ore­gon Gov­er­nor Kate Brown up & down the West Coast,” Inslee continued.

“Our con­stituents are bet­ter served because of it. This elec­tion is also anoth­er resound­ing loss for the pol­i­tics of Don­ald Trump. Today’s results con­firm what we already know, that most peo­ple across the coun­try believe in the life­sav­ing pub­lic health mea­sures that will help us defeat COVID-19.”

“It took a peti­tion signed by 12% of Cal­i­for­nia vot­ers in the last elec­tion to ini­ti­ate the recall. The recall cost the state $278 mil­lion. The race was effec­tive­ly decid­ed with­in fif­teen min­utes of polls clos­ing,” the BBC’s Antho­ny Zurcher tweet­ed.

Los Ange­les Times colum­nist Mark Z. Barabak offered this “tweet-length” analy­sis: “There are far more Democ­rats than Repub­li­cans in Cal­i­for­nia. Ear­ly inter­est + inten­si­ty were on the side of recall pro­po­nents. Once Gavin New­som and allies were able to rouse Democ­rats to vote in a weird­ly timed elec­tion, that was that.”

Past NPI Pres­i­dent and cur­rent NPI Advi­so­ry Coun­cilmem­ber Robert Cruick­shank not­ed: “There were near­ly 10,000 peo­ple send­ing more than 46 mil­lion texts against the CA recall this sum­mer, a tru­ly mas­sive mobilization.”

Change Research, one of NPI’s poll­sters, point­ed out the polling has sug­gest­ed a New­som vic­to­ry for a while, and espe­cial­ly in the final weeks, thanks to suc­cess­ful Demo­c­ra­t­ic efforts to rouse vot­ers ahead of today’s dead­line to return ballots.

“In late August, it had been over two months since any poll showed New­som with a dou­ble dig­it lead,” Change’s Ben Green­field wrote. “We were the first to see a changed race: No +15, due to an enthu­si­asm surge among Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers. Based on ear­ly returns, looks like we were not only first, but we were right.”

“Yes­ter­day, before results were released in the Cal­i­for­nia recall, Lar­ry Elder’s cam­paign launched a web­site pro­mot­ing base­less claims that the elec­tion was stolen. We’ve reached the point where Repub­li­cans don’t even wait until polls close before claim­ing an elec­tion was rigged,” for­mer Sec­re­tary of Labor Robert Reich remind­ed his fol­low­ers, refer­ring to the top Repub­li­can run­ning to top­ple Newsom.

Elder, as expect­ed, is cur­rent­ly win­ning the irrel­e­vant sec­ond item on the recall bal­lot (who should replace New­som) with a plu­ral­i­ty of 42.1% (1,629,337 votes). Elder, who holds a wide range of extreme views, emerged as the “fron­trun­ner” among a pack of Repub­li­cans hop­ing to take New­som’s place after catch­ing fire with the Repub­li­can base, who were look­ing for a suit­ably Trumpian can­di­date to get behind and ral­ly around. They found their man… but he proved to be the per­fect foil for Gov­er­nor New­som, Pres­i­dent Biden, and the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party.

In a bit of sym­bol­ism of how anti­cli­mac­tic the results were, MSNBC wrapped up its spe­cial cov­er­age at 9 PM (mid­night East­ern) and began re-air­ing The Rachel Mad­dow Show instead of con­tin­u­ing to offer live coverage.